Attacking the Gates of Hell

6 July 2025   Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

“Behold, I have given you power to ‘tread upon serpents’ and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.” Luke 10:19

Numbers almost always mean something in the Bible.

When David chose “five smooth stones” from the stream for his contest with Goliath (I Samuel 17:40) anybody hearing that would have thought of the Torah, the five books of Moses. Three meant the Trinity. Twelve meant the whole house of Israel. The 144,000 (Revelation 7:4) – or 12 x 12 x 1000 – meant the vast multitude of the faithful in heaven.

Numbers almost always mean something in the Bible, so everyone familiar with scripture knows the significance of 72.

The number 72 refers to the composition of the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly called the Septuagint. As the story goes, Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who ruled Egypt 284-246 B.C., commissioned six scholars each from the twelve tribes of Israel to translate the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, because most of the many Jews of Alexandria could no longer read Hebrew, but only Greek or Aramaic. Miraculously, all 72 translations were identical, a sign from heaven that their translations were deeply and faithfully accurate.

So, when Luke talks about 72 evangelists being sent as advance men to prepare the way for a visit from Jesus, he is talking about people deep in the Bible, deeply formed by the thought world of Holy Scripture. This is a somewhat problematic claim, of course, for nowhere in the ancient world did the literacy rate much exceed about 10%, and among Christians it was often much lower. Not only that, but almost no one actually owned a copy of the scriptures. It is estimated that a single copy of the Bible would have cost about 30,000 Roman denarii, a sum equivalent to about 20 years’ pay for a moderately comfortable family anywhere in the Roman Empire. Buying a Bible was as expensive as buying a house. So how were people to become deeply formed by the thought world of Holy Scripture?

It turns out that Christians learned the scriptures the same way all ordinary people learned about literature, or politics, or the news of the world. All texts were rare and expensive, most people were illiterate, so there were public readings of the few texts that were available, readings attended by large groups of people. And because people didn’t have paper on which to jot down notes (paper ran the equivalent of about $20 per sheet, one of the reasons why texts were so expensive) they had to rely on the powers of memory, and because they used these powers more than we do, they were capable of remembering far, far more than we are.

So, who were these 72 people Luke mentions? They were people who attended readings of scripture, and listened carefully. They committed huge swaths of scripture to memory, and because they had it in their heads, it was available to them to think with, and speak with, and pray with. The glory of God was on their minds from one end to the other, all day, every day. No wonder they found that “demons are subject to us because of your name” (Luke 10:17). Jesus was delighted, but not surprised. “Behold,” He said, “I have given you the power to tread…upon the full force of the enemy, and nothing will harm you” (10:19). Keep in mind that Jesus promised that the “gates of hell will not prevail against” the Church (cf. Matthew 16:18). People usually assume that this means the attacks of hell on the Church will be unsuccessful, but that is a misunderstanding of the text. The text presumes that it is the gates of hell that are under attack, and that the gates of hell will not prevail, but fail. So, who is attacking hell? Obviously, the Church is. The Church is on offense. The Church has the ball. And who is attacking hell for the Church?

People like the 72 are attacking hell – people who attend long readings of Holy Scripture, who read long swaths of it, who commit large swaths of it to memory, who think with it, speak with it, pray with it, people whose minds are full of the glory of God all day, every day, and find therefore that even demons are subject to them.

People like the 72 are attacking hell right now. That is Jesus’ vision of the Church. That is Jesus’ hope for us all.