The word "Gentiles" is used in some versions of the A.T., to point out the goîms, the people out the people of Israel. 

   This distinction among Israel and the pagan nations  has gone more and more maturing during the Biblical History also accented by behavior of the same pagan people:

   "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
   For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.  And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.   (Rm 1,19-31; Acts 17,26s). 

   Wanting, God, to effect his plan of universal salvation has momentarily born the to spread some corruption, in which the state of sin of the humanity appeared, while he was electing Israel, because in the descent of Abramo all the people were blessed" . 
   

   The life of Jesus almost totally develops in that part of inhabited Palestine in prevalence from the descendants of Abraham. 
   Few times, in the first part of his public life, Jesus goes out out some confinements of Israel and this happens for contingent causes, as when from child in Egypt is brought for escaping, with his family, to Erodes (Mt 2,14), or for episodic excursions as that to Gerasa, in the territory of the Ten towns to east of the lake of Galilee. Then, toward the end of the preaching in Galilee, Jesus starts to sojourn more in the earths of the Gentiles. 
   Bothered by the polemics with the Pharisees  He goes to the territory of  Tiro and Sidone, today's Lebanon, where he doesn't publicly manifest, but its fame precedes him, and he is found so, of forehead, a woman Phoenician Siro, to which it recovers her daughter. Yet before recovering her Jesus it declares to have a preferential relationship for the house of Israel: "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs"(Mk 7,27). 
   In another territory out of the sacred enclosure of Israel, the Decapolis, Jesus recovers a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and makes another miracle of multiplication of the breads and the fishes. 
   

   Then the time dedicated to the pagan nations is irrelevant in comparison  to that one reserved to the people of Israel. 
   All this conducts to a reflection : what interest  Jesus can have for the pagan people? To a first examination the answer can seem obvious: He is interested above all to "lost sheep of the house of Israele"(Mt 15,24).  And his universal missionary order? That done spring by his Easter? 

   Well in the heart of Jesus we are present also us; but everything has to start from the people of the Alliance: Israel. 
   The evangelist Luke attests, him only, that Jesus sends in mission 72 disciples. The number 72 is a multiple of the 12. The number twelve points out the tribes of Israel and the number of the apostles of Jesus. But it points out  also the number of the pagan nations that the Jewish tradition recognizes in the Book of the Genesis, chapter 10. 

   The story of the dispatch of the 72 disciples is only Luke's and this can throw some shade on the authenticity. According to some researchers it would be an invention of the evangelist. "Jesus would not have sent the 72 disciples before Easter. Only in full Easter climate a mission of these proportions has happened. Luke would have forced the events anticipating the times", as L. Wellhausen writes" . 
   Charles Ghidelli recognizes, instead, the historicity of the missionary order of the 72 disciples. And this does him departing from some important points: According to him, the evangelist Luke reports a news that he infers from a good tradition; besides it annexes a lot of importance to this second mission. And then, the fact that the preaching of the Kingdom has to be also insured to the pagans, also expressly not being said in the text, it is  symbolized by the number of the envoys, that is 72. 

   To this, we add another deduction. In the community that has followed Jesus, from John's Baptism up to his resurrection, there were not only the apostles and this by now it is well-known; but also of the women and of the men that have done the same one them experience. So much is true that two of them: Joseph, said Barsabba and Mattia, thet have been with the Teacher for the whole time of the public life, will be candidates to replace Juda the traitor in the apostolic college. All this because the number "twelve" was recomposed.  And it's more probable, therefore, that both, Barsabba and Mattia, have had from Jesus the charge to preach the Gospel (Acts 1,23). And this could constitute another wedge for the composition of the mosaic that authenticates the story of Luke. 
   In short, as for the Twelve election, from whose number the missionary orientation of Jesus notices him toward the twelve tribes of Israel, that of the number 72 could point out the universal missionary address, open to the whole humanity, represented by the 72 nations of the Greek text of the Genesis that known by the editors of the Gospel. 
   In this invitation of Jesus, after that turned to the 12 apostles, its gasp is contained because the whole world is evangelized and all reach knowledge of Him. 
   We find, therefore, present in Jesus, already in the period before his passion, death and resurrection, the universal appeal of salvation turns to all the men. That missionary dispatch that blocks to the solemn announcement of the evening of Easter: 

   "When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

   Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

   Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. He said to them, 

   "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.  And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well".

   After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it"(Mk 16,9-20).   

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