Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Luke 10:2 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 2. 2Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Luke 10:2 pairs abundant harvest with a prayer for workers rather than treating people as a market to capture.
Read It With
- Luke 10:1–10:16
Read Luke 10:2 with 10:1–10:16. In isolation, this contribution—pairs abundant harvest with a prayer for workers rather than treating people as a market to capture—can be detached from its speaker, audience, scene or teaching sequence, and outcome. The complete unit establishes: Jesus appoints a wider mission, sends workers in pairs with vulnerable dependence, tells them to offer peace, receive hospitality, heal, announce the kingdom, and testify when towns refuse.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Luke 10:2 pairs abundant harvest with a prayer for workers rather than treating people as a market to capture. This precise contribution belongs inside “Seventy Others Carry Peace and Kingdom Nearness” because Jesus appoints a wider mission, sends workers in pairs with vulnerable dependence, tells them to offer peace, receive hospitality, heal, announce the kingdom, and testify when towns refuse.
Follow the Context
- Identify the actors, setting, and initiating speech or action in Luke 10:1–10:16.
- Jesus appoints a wider mission, sends workers in pairs with vulnerable dependence, tells them to offer peace, receive hospitality, heal, announce the kingdom, and testify when towns refuse.
- Hold this material interpretive limit in view: Manuscripts vary between seventy and seventy-two, often linked to the nations of Genesis. The mission is urgent and particular, not a permanent ban on planning, money, footwear, or safety.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
This verse does not detach its specific contribution—pairs abundant harvest with a prayer for workers rather than treating people as a market to capture—from the complete unit or override the unit's explicit boundary: The instructions do not authorize coercion, dangerous travel, curses, hospitality entitlement, or treating rejection as permission for contempt.
What Remains True
Luke 10:2 pairs abundant harvest with a prayer for workers rather than treating people as a market to capture. Read inside Luke 10:1–10:16, this contribution supports the unit's proportionate truth: Jesus appoints a wider mission, sends workers in pairs with vulnerable dependence, tells them to offer peace, receive hospitality, heal, announce the kingdom, and testify when towns refuse. Its use remains accountable to affected people and the unit's explicit boundary.
How It Can Shape Life
- Luke 10:2 pairs abundant harvest with a prayer for workers rather than treating people as a market to capture. Its faithful response is proportionate to that role: Send and receive workers with transparent risk, peaceable conduct, voluntary hospitality, and accountability; kingdom nearness is not a sales tactic or a guarantee of safety and provision.
Teach It Back
Explain Luke 10:2's specific contribution to Luke 10:1–10:16: pairs abundant harvest with a prayer for workers rather than treating people as a market to capture. Include the preceding and following movement, one source-controlled uncertainty, one affected person or group, and what the verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Luke 10:1–10:16 — Seventy Others Carry Peace and Kingdom NearnessSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and coverage.
Exact location: Luke 10:1–10:16, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗Greek textual evidence
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition
Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos
Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010
Supports: Greek wording and sentence relations; the edition is not treated as a complete apparatus.
Exact location: Faithlife SBLGNT official repository, data/sblgnt/text/Luke.txt, 10:1–10:16
Open the Luke Greek text file ↗open translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Luke
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, KJV-language clarification, historical notes, Synoptic parallels, and textual alternatives.
Exact location: NET Bible First Edition Luke PDF, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to Luke 10:1–10:16
Open source ↗