The Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come. And he said to them, “…Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you; heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you; nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’”-St. Luke 10:1, 8-11
Even before the Day of Pentecost, during His own earthly ministry, our Lord Jesus Christ had sent disciples out to do specific work. He gave them directions about what they should take with them, and in these gospel verses we have a simple account of the work that they did, which was to bring Christ’s message to the people.
They didn’t create a message; rather, they brought a message. They didn’t tell people what they personally thought; rather, they simply told people what Jesus had told them. They didn’t bring their opinions; they brought God’s truth. In fact, that message – that truth – meant that (in Christ’s words) “the kingdom of God has come near.”
More than anything else during His earthly ministry, Our Lord spoke of the "kingdom," and it was this kingdom that He announced and established and spread. There have been volumes written, and countless discourses given in an attempt to explain exactly what this kingdom is, and it is a deep theological concept. But it must also have a certain simplicity to it, since Christ placed such importance upon it.
Put in the most basic of terms, the "kingdom of God" is wherever God's Divine Will is done. The kingdom of which Christ spoke, then, is both here-and-now as well as something in the future ("thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven...); but most of all it is in the heart of man, where the Divine Will is discerned and acted upon.
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Pictured: "Il les envoya deux à deux"
by James Tissot (1836-1902)