<p>10:1 <i>Now after these things the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them two by two ahead of him into every city and place, where he was about to go</i>- According to some texts, Luke records that the Lord sent out 72 preachers. The Jews understood that there were 72 nations in the world, based on the LXX of Gen. 10. Surely Luke&rsquo;s point is that they went only to the Jews, thus highlighting the gap between the disciples&rsquo; understanding at the time, and the Lord&rsquo;s further reaching intention of a mission to the Gentiles.</p><p>The Lord sent out the 70 &ldquo;before his face into every city to where he himself would come&rdquo;. They were heralds of His presence; and He goes on in this context to tell them that they were &ldquo;<i>as</i> lambs among wolves&rdquo;- i.e. they were like Him, <i>the</i> lamb- and that therefore &ldquo;he that rejecteth you rejecteth me&rdquo; (Lk. 10:1,3,16 RV). Yet significantly, having told the 70 to proclaim His face to the cities where He would come, we find the comment: &ldquo;Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few i.e. only 70: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Go your ways&hellip;&rdquo; (:2). Could this not mean that He would have travelled more extensively around Israel in His ministry than He did, but He was limited in the places He witnessed in by whether there were enough heralds to go there in advance and prepare the way? The dearth of workers meant that places He otherwise would have visited, He didn&rsquo;t- for it seems that He had a policy of only Himself working in areas where His men had broken the ground. And is there not some worrying relevance of all this for our work in <i>this</i> day, in <i>this</i> hard land&hellip;?</p>