College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

Matthew 10:16-31

Section 23

JESUS COMMISSIONS TWELVE APOSTLES TO EVANGELIZE GALILEE
III. JESUS CHALLENGES AND HONESTLY WARNS THE TWELVE OF THE DANGERS AND DIFFICULTIES THAT LIE AHEAD
TEXT: 10:16-31
A. PERSECUTION BY THE STATE CHURCH (10:16, 17)

16.

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

17.

But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you;

B. PERSECUTION BY THE STATE GOVERNMENT (10:18)

18.

Yea and before governors and kings shall ye be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.

C. PROMISE OF POWER IN THE PRESENCE OF PERIL (10:19, 20)

19.

But when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak.

20.

For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.

D. PERSECUTION BY THEIR OWN FAMILIES (10:21, 22)

21.

And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child: and children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death.

22.

And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.

E. PRUDENCE IN PERSECUTION (10:23)

23.

But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.

F. THE SUFFERING OF THE SAVIOR AND HIS SERVANTS (10:24, 25)

24.

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his Lord.

25.

It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the servant as his Lord.

G. FREEDOM FROM FEAR (10:26-31)
1. BECAUSE OF THE ULTIMATE TRIUMPH OF TRUTH

26.

Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid that shall not be known.

27.

What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light; and what ye hear in the ear, proclaim upon the house-tops.

2. BECAUSE OF THE RIGHT REVERENCE

28.

And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

3. BECAUSE OF THE CARE OF THE CREATOR

29.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father:

30.

but the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

31.

Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Show the harmony between the passages which command us to fear God and those which say there is no fear in love and others which say that the fearful will be condemned.

Why do you think Jesus is being so painfully honest with His disciples as He describes the pain and difficulty they will face?

In what way are the disciples like sheep in the midst of wolves?

What is so wise about serpents?

How are Christians supposed to be harmless?

Do you think that the mentality of fear that Jesus is in stilling in His Apostles is healthy? He warns His Apostles about the untrustworthiness of people (Matthew 10:17). But is this good?

What is the proper balance between this wariness of people and that invincible optimism that Jesus obviously and personally practiced?

Would you say that the person who walks the tightrope between distrust of people and seeking to encourage the best in people is the most mature person? Do you see anything in Jesus-' words that verifies or denies or otherwise modifies your conclusion?

What was so important about the Apostles-' standing before governors and kings, as Jesus says, for a testimony to them and the Gentiles? What kind of testimony do you think Jesus has in mind?

How could these disciples avoid the nagging anxiety that could easily plague and drown their ministry in worry?

How long do you think Jesus expected His disciples to endure these difficulties? What motivations does He provide them which would actually enable them to do this?

What is the difference between cowardice, i.e. that moral unwillingness to take a stand for Jesus when the going is impossible and there is more temptation to be silent, on the one hand, and prudence, i.e. the wisdom to flee to the next city?

What motivations does Jesus give-' His disciples to keep them from watering down His message for fear of what men would say?

What is so important about the promise of leadership by the Holy Spirit? What difference would this make when the disciples were haled before courts to give witness about Jesus?

What hint does Jesus give in this text that, although He had confined their sphere of their mission to Israel, yet the disciples-' testimony would not long be limited to Jews only?

Do you think the promise of inspiration that Jesus gave in this commission applies to the Apostles only, to all preachers and witnesses for Christ, or only to those facing imprisonment and martyrdom? On what basis do you decide this?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Here I am sending you out like so many sheep surrounded by a mad wolf pack! So be sharpkeen, on your toes, yet not cunning, dishonest or shrewd. Be on your guard against people, for they will hand you over to be tried before Sanhedrins, and to be whipped in their synagogues. You will also be dragged into the presence of Roman governors and Herodian princes because of your allegiance to me. But this will but give you opportunity to testify before them and the Gentile world. Take that opportunity!
When they arrest you, DO NOT WORRY how you are to talk or what to say at your trial, because the right words will come to you at the right time. This is because it will not be you speaking, but rather your Father's Holy Spirit will be speaking through you.
Brother will betray brother to have him executed. Even fathers will betray their own children. Children will turn on their own parents and send them to their death. You will be universally hated because of your allegiance to me. But the man that hangs on till it is all over will be saved.
When they start persecuting you in one town, take refuge in the next one on down the road! I can tell you this: you will see a clear demonstration of my vindicated authority before you have completely covered all the towns here in Palestine. This demonstration of my majesty may be described as my coming in glory,
Remember: a student does not rank above his teacher any more than a servant is above his master. The student should be content to share his teacher's lot or a servant his master'S. If they have called me, the Master of the house, names like Beelzebul, Prince of Evil or Satan and the like, what kind of names do you think they are going to call you?
So DO NOT BE AFRAID of them who threaten you, because, like every other previously hidden secret, the Gospel too is sure to be revealed, so deliver your massage without any reserve. Even any secret compromises you make to save your life will be found out too! So, all that I have taught you in private sessions and in evening seminars under the stars, broadcast in broad daylight! Proclaim my message on a public, nationwide scale.
DO NOT GET EXCITED about those who can only kill your body but cannot touch your soul! No, have an infinitely greater reverence for God, because He is the one who has the right and ability to punish both you and your body in hell!
What is the going price on sparrows? Two for a penny? Yet, not a single sparrow hits the ground without your Father's knowing about it! To put it another way: God knows the most detailed facts about you, like how many hairs you have on your head. So DO NOT BE AFRAID. You are of infinitely greater value to God than any number of sparrows.

SUMMARY

Jesus lays before His Apostles the dangers that they will face serving in His ministry. They are not to fear anybody or anything, but get Jesus-' message proclaimed at all costs. Persecution by the State, the State Church or by their own families is not to deter them. Nothing is to stop them: they are to keep going, fearlessly proclaiming Jesus-' Word on a nationwide scale. They have no reason to fear men, since they serve the living God whose personal care and love for them is far greater reward than all earthly blessings. They are to regard all persecution, not as a failure of their ministry, but an extension of it into areas otherwise untouched and unreachable.

NOTES

In harmony with the presupposition suggested in the introduction to this chapter, regarding the various time elements supposedly intended by the three-fold division into which Matthew orders his material, the following section will be interpreted in reference to that period of the Apostles-' mission which began roughly at Pentecost and terminated with the end of the Jewish nation as such. Hence, in this section we will find more direct applications to the life of the early Church than were to be discovered in the partition of the text just concluded. At this point a concurrent study of the Acts would be most helpful in providing illustration after illustration of the very thing Jesus is here predicting.

A. A GENERAL WARNING (10:16)

Matthew 10:16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Who, knowing the risks and dangers to which he is sending his men, could demand of them such unfailing loyalty and rigid discipline? Many great commanders have so ordered their troops under similar conditions, commanding them to stand and face materially superior forces, though they themselves have improper or inadequate weapons. But Jesus is sending His finest disciples into the face of moral evil and spiritual, wicked powers. These humble followers are armed only with truth embodied in frail, human clay. This is why the Master places their Apostleship on the basis of a, personal mandate from Jesus Himself. I Myself send you forth. (emphatic egô) A man can be made to do almost anything when he knows for whom he suffers. So, throughout this passage Jesus continues to reiterate this personal relationship with the King Himself for whom they serve and suffer. (Stop and read Matthew 10:16; Matthew 10:22; Matthew 10:24-25; Matthew 10:27; Matthew 10:32-40; Matthew 10:42, in order to appreciate this.) If we miss this emphasis put here by the Lord Himself we shall fail to sense the strong personal element not only in the obedience of the Apostles to Jesus-' orders. We may also be incapable of seeing, in our own service to Him, that His slightest wish is our strongest command. With this understanding, we will see that the smallest item of our livesfrom the reason why we brush our teeth and how we go about it, to the way we treat our fellows in driving down a crowded street during the afternoon rush houris just an expression of this kind of personal service to Jesus.

I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. One point to notice about this simile is that Jesus is not sending the Apostles, as it were, sheep into a howling wolfpack, for sheep in the midst of wolves is already one complete concept. Jesus used in (en), not into (eis). This whole picture, as well as the text in which it is found, is a vivid sketch of the very opposition which already had begun to surround Jesus-' own ministry and had been aroused by it. He is saying, You are already sheep surrounded by wolves, but I am sending you out anyway! (Cf. Matthew 10:24-25) Jesus Himself had already stood, or would soon stand, in each place He now pictures to His men. He, the Lamb of God, know what it meant to be surrounded and ultimately torn to pieces by these wolves! He also knew that, if He Himself should be butchered by the wolves, His Apostles, the tender lambs that they were (Cf. Luke 10:3), could not but expect similar or worse treatment. Sheep: what a figure of relative helplessness, in no respect vicious like the attackers. But, in the nature of the case, because of the Gospel they must preach and because of the humble, godly character that must be theirs, these men MUST be lambs. They could not, indeed they must not, escape the viciousness of the wolves by trying to be anything but lambs.

The wolves Jesus faced were not, for the most part, the slum-dwellers, the rackets men, the street walkers or other segments of the common rabble, but the polished men of the cloth, the pious leaders of organized religion, the theologians. In fact, it was not the common people that engineered His crucifixion, but these latter. (See John 19:11) Jesus, the Good Shepherd who knew the wolves and refused to run from them (John 10:12), is willing to risk the very existence of His little flock by a frontal attack: sheep versus wolves! Though the term wolves is often used with particular force to describe false teachers who try to draw away followers from Jesus (Matthew 7:15; Acts 20:29), this term might be stretched to include those specific illustrations Jesus provides in the verses that immediately follow: religious rulers (Matthew 10:17); pagans (Matthew 10:18); unbelieving families (Matthew 10:21); all people generally (Matthew 10:22). This is not surprising, since the attitudes of all but the first mentioned, are but the reflection of the unrelenting bigotry and bitter opposition instigated by the religious leaders. Many were the times during the ministries of the Apostles Peter and Paul, as we learn of those labors in Acts, when, as they were making surprisingly rapid progress in their Gospel proclamation in a town, jealous Jews stirred up hostility to the Lord's messengers among the otherwise friendly or neutral populace.

This picture of sheep in the midst of wolves reminds us of that continual condition in which the Church has always found herself. Luke, when he set down the sermon preached at the time of the commissioning of the Twelve (Luke 6:12-17; Luke 6:20-49), reports this most timely warning: beware of those moments of dead calm, when you face no opposition: Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. (Luke 6:26) Jesus knows that the hatred and enmity of fossilized orthodoxy, as Barclay puts it so beautifully (Matthew, I, 386), will be so intense and so protracted that, if at any time the sheep are anything but sheep, or the wolves look more sheepish, His people will have already begun to compromise their fundamental nature. Of course, it is important to remember here that Jesus does not say that the wolves will always be the religious establishment, since He actually gives several different illustrations of wolveseat work in this larger context. In other societies this nexus is not necessarily so obvious or even so real. However, the wolves, i.e. those embittered, violent enemies of the flock, may be found in varying groups with varying intensity, and it takes real insight sometimes to distinguish real wolves from just plain sheep that hold a view antagonistic to our own! It is much too easy to identify the wolves in what is merely different from ourselves, or in what is only a secondary manifestation of the real evil with which we ought to concern ourselves. This demand for wisdom is the purpose and point of the concomitant advice which necessarily comes next. .

Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. This is Jesus-' counsel in view of the treacherousness of the natural enemies of the disciples. Wise as serpents. Skill in sensing and avoiding danger seems to be the characteristic of snakes to which the Lord alludes here. But why is this characteristic so essential? Immediate martyrdom was not to be the goal of Jesus-' servants: their business was to give witness to the exceedingly precious message they carried. An early martyr's death is never preferable to a life of labor to spread the good news and strengthen the saints. (Cf. Notes on Matthew 10:23; Philippians 1:19-26; also Paul's clever division of the Sanhedrin against itself, Acts 23:1-9) Here the emphasis is on discretion, even astuteness in the sense of sagaciousness. What a contrast between this recommendation Jesus makes and that fanatical thirst for martyrdom found in those who, burning for distinction, unwisely and unnecessarily exposed themselves to dangers. He says that His servant must not deliberately invite trouble or court danger, if he may honorably and conscientiously avoid it.

Harmless as doves. The word harmless, as a translation of akéraioi, leads away from the intention of that word, since the etymology of akéraios is not that suggested by Thayer and adopted in the ASV, i.e. a- negative + keraía or kéras, a horn = hornless, literally; figuratively, harmless. (See ISBE, 2798) The derivation seems rather to be a- negative + the stem of kerànnumi, to mix = unmixed; figuratively, simple, guileless, sincere, unadulterated, uncontaminated, pure, innocent. (ISBE, 2798; Arndt-Gingrich, 29; see also Romans 16:19; Philippians 2:15) So, while harmless is not a good translation of the word involved, it is not altogether harmful to the sense, seeing that it does express a resultant, if not a connotative, meaning of the Greek word. The Apostles, if they are to respect Jesus-' demand that they be guileless, will not seek to revenge themselves or retaliate against their persecutors or those who refuse their message. However this is a secondary application to the principle intent to the word, as indicated above. In what sense must the Apostles be sincere, innocent, pure, guileless?

McGarvey (Matthew-Mark, 91) takes it that being blameless, they would encounter no merited severity. Their methods of self-defense must never be such as to deserve censure, not must any of their attitudes betray an un-Christian spirit that provokes sentence against them. (Cf. Luke 9:51-55; contrast Peter's defense, Acts 4:8)

Though the Apostles are to be constantly surrounded by and exposed to evil, they are not to tempt themselves to use evil methods to protect themselves. Even though they must be extremely wary of treacherous men, yet they themselves must not resort to subterfuges and strategems, but carry out their work with boldness and perfect honesty, even though this latter course may expose them ultimately to suffering. This is clearly implied in later verses. But guilelessness is not a synonym of gullibility. (ISBE, 2798) It is, rather, the unwillingness to deceive even persecutors. Any disciple should learn the difference between telling the truth in all of his spoken words, on the one hand, and telling all he knows, on the other. Only a fool would babble on all that is in his mind, especially when in the presence of persecutors he blurts out particular information that would bring certain harm to innocent people. Any Christian may admit to knowing certain truth that would involve the life or safety of others, while withholding its content from inquisitors upon pain of death or the most horrible tortures. We are permitted to suffer for Jesus-' sake by laying our lives down for the brethren (1 John 3:16). But we are NOT permitted to tell a lie merely to achieve a good purpose, i.e. save human lives.

While the two animal characteristics, i.e. a serpent's wisdom and a dove's innocence, may seem like a strange combination, yet, taken together, they represent a perfect, balanced relation. Bruce (Training, 112, 113) sketches that balance:

Amid such dangers two virtues are specially needfulcaution and fidelity: the one that God's servants may not be cut off prematurely or unnecessarily; the other, that while they live, they may really do God's work and fight for the truth. Conscientious men are apt to be rash, and prudent men are apt to be unfaithful. Yet the combination (i.e., of caution and fidelity) is not impossible, else it would not be required-'. For it was just the importance of cultivating the apparently incompatible virtues of caution and fidelity that Jesus meant to teach by this remarkable proverb-precept. The dove must come before the serpent in our esteem, and in the development of our character. This order is observable in the history of all true disciples. They begin with spotless sincerity; and after being betrayed by a generous enthusiasm into some acts of rashness, they learn betimes the serpent's virtues. If we invert the order, as too many do, and begin by being prudent and judicious to admiration, the effect will be that the higher value will not only be postponed, but sacrificed. The dove will be devoured by the serpent: the cause of truth and righteousness will be betrayed out of a base regard to self-preservation and worldly advantage.

Or, to say it another way: Be wary, but not crafty; simple, but not simpletons. Fraser (PHC, 252)suggests rightly that

the Lord Jesus is the consummate example to illustrate His own teaching. He was always on His guard, and penetrated all the maneuvers and plots of those who watched and hated Him. He fell into none of their snares; never lost self-possession; never spoke at random; uttered all His words and conducted all His intercourse with infinite discretion. But He formed no counterplots and devised no stratagems. No craft was in His bosom; no guile was in His mouth.

Ironically, though the disciples are forbidden to fight fire with fire (of the same sort), or to pay back the enemy in his own coin, i.e. not use those methods for succeeding that worldly people have ever thought absolutely essential to the successful outcome of their plans, yet the outcome of THIS conflict is pre-announced: The Kingdom of God will go to the sheep, not to the wolves! (Cf. Luke 12:32) Sheep that are convinced of this ultimate victory, regardless of all the intermediate difficulties and momentary afflictions (2 Corinthians 4:17), can never really fear the wolves,

But how is this admonition (Matthew 10:16) to be harmonized with the declaration of Paul: Love believes all things? (2 Corinthians 13:7) At what point were the disciples to stop giving the benefit of the doubt to the treacherous enemies of Jesus and the Church, and start fleeing, or, perhaps, refusing to reveal their plans in order to save the lives of the members of the Church? It is not always possible to see the enemies-' affirmations in the best light or always to put the best construction on their conduct. How long should love believe all things, before it becomes gullible and, consequently, an enemy to itself? How long should Christians give the benefit of the doubt to those who seem to be reasonable men, but whose present intellectual stance holds them to a course of rejection or opposition to the Christians and their message, before the disciples are to decide that such men are not to be trusted any longer but have actually become a menace to the body of believers and an obstacle to the further proclamation of the Gospel? Two answers arise out of the varying circumstances in which the disciples find themselves:

In the days of the first commission, love would demand that the disciples remain in a city to proclaim the glad news of the Kingdom of God, build a nucleus of believers until opposition to their activities becomes so effective as to render ineffective the Apostles-' ministry. In this latter case, they were prudently to move on. (Matthew 10:23)

However, when the universal hatred of the Christian movement becomes so general (Matthew 10:22) as to render impossible or fruitless further flight, or when flight itself is impossible, then love demands that the disciple stand and suffer for the name of Christ where he is.

The answer to this dilemma, then, is to be found in the actions and attitudes of the wolves themselves. (Cf. Matthew 7:15-16) While the Christians are to be optimistic that even wolves CAN be converted, yet they must always be aware that they MIGHT never be. They must believe all things are possible for good in the life of potential or actual enemies (remember Saul of Tarsus!), but this trust must never betray them into handing over all their plans to the enemy. Bruce's summary (Training, 113) is very much to the point:

Do not be so simple as to imagine all men good, honest, fair, tolerant. Remember there are wolves in the worldmen full of malice, falsehood and unscrupulousness, capable of inventing the most atrocious charges against you, and of supporting them by the most unblushing mendacity. Keep out of their clutches if you can; and when you fall into their hands, expect neither candour, justice, nor generosity. But how are such men to be answered? Must craft be met with craft, lies with lies? No, here is the place for the simplicity of the dove. Cunning and craft boot not at such an hour; safety lies in trusting to Heaven's guidance, and telling the truth. (Matthew 10:19-20)

The following admonition sharpens this wariness.

B. PERSECUTION BY THE STATE CHURCH (10:17)

Matthew 10:17 But beware of men; for they will deliver you to councils and in their synagogues they will scourge you. Beware of men: what a shock to those believers who might have been inclined to suppose that the rightness of their message, the goodness of their lives, their own innocence as beginning teachers and their wonderful miracles, would automatically gain for them the good will of all men. Nevertheless, the ability to be both wise and guileless requires that the Apostles remain on their guard. This does not mean, of course, that the Apostles will escape harm simply by being alert, for they will ultimately suffer, regardless of all their dexterity and alertness. It is just a question of time and who can hold out the longest, the Apostles or the persecutors. Jesus, therefore, intends His men to be forwarned, hence, forearmed, against the treachery of such unscrupulous men. This way, they would be able to avoid the needless difficulties with such men by guarding themselves against thoughtless, provocatory remarks that would inflame them.

Beware of men is not intended to arm us with a general distrust of humanity in general, even though it is with sinners, rebels against the living God and our Christ, that we have to do. However, this admonition does indicate that not all men are to be trusted with the same confidence, since they are capable of destroying all that the Christians seek to create. (Cf. John 2:24-25) Paradoxically, while the Christian is to seek what is honorable in the sight of all men (Romans 12:17; 2 Corinthians 8:21) and what pleases his neighbor for his good (Romans 15:2) and is to try to do good to all men (1 Thessalonians 5:15), yet he cannot trust every man, nor must he compromise his message in order to reach these other goals. Jesus knew that if the Apostles were going out with the view to pleasing men so as to make their program succeed, they would be strongly tempted to water down their message or be so discouraged as to give it up altogether. In the end they would fail to hit the specific targets Jesus planned for them. Now the Master explains in what specific areas the Apostles are to be particularly wary.

For they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you. The first member of this parallelism seems to suggest that the men of whom the Apostles are to beware are common men, whether in high offices or not, who, because of religious prejudices, political convenience or other motives, betray the Jewish Christians into the hands of the religious authorities. Councils. synagogues are two words that underline the fundamentally Jewish character of the persecutions that Jesus now describes, since civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction were so thoroughly blended in Judaism. (Cf. Matthew 23:34) Edersheim (Sketches, 91; see also Life, IT, 553ff) informs us:

Every town had its Sanhedrin, consisting of 23 members if the place numbered at least 120 men, or of 3 members if the population were smaller. These Sanhedrists were appointed directly by the supreme authority, or Great Sanhedrin, the council, at Jerusalem, which consisted of 71 members. It is difficult to fix the limits of the actual power wielded by these Sanhedrins in criminal cases. Of course all ecclesiastical and strictly Jewish causes and all religious questions were within their special cognizance.

As will be noted in the following verse, even the appearance before pagan rulers was, during the early years of Christianity, a Jewish question instigated by Jews, who, enflamed against the Christians, haled them before the Gentiles. This Jewish character of the difficulties gives peculiar force to the time limitations of this section, dating its end approximately with the end of the Jewish power to persecute the Church. The time limits are also seen from another angle, that of the fulfilment of Jesus-' words in the life of the early Church. (Acts 3; Acts 4; Acts 5:17-42; Acts 6:8 to Acts 8:4; Acts 22:19; Acts 26:11; scourging in 2 Corinthians 11:24) Morgan (Matthew, 103ff) reminds us:

A very remarkable fact of history throws light upon this: never from the day of Jerusalem's fall until now has a Christian believer been scourged in a Jewish synagogue. There have been other eras of persecution of the Church, but never from the day in which Jerusalem fell has there been a systematic persecution of Christians by Jews.

The reestablishment of the Jewish state of Israel in the modern world obsoletes many older views of the Jewish condition, Jerusalem, after 1900 years, by force of Israeli arms is now in the hands of the physical descendants of Abraham. How this fact should be evaluated in modern eschatology is yet to be seen. But this later development must never obscure this obvious: 1900 years are still .1900 years in which the Jews have not had it in their power to deliver up Jewish Christians to the punishments of the Jewish courts until now nonexistent. Given the present condition of Israel, this very state of affairs could, of course, begin tomorrow morning.

C. PERSECUTION BY THE STATE GOVERNMENT (10:18)

Matthew 10:18 Yea and before governors and kings shall ye be brought for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. The Gentile character of these potentates is reflected in the fact that puppet-kings and procurators who governed Palestine were but men appointed by the authority of Rome, as well as the fact that the arraignment of the Lord's representatives before these dignitaries should result in testimony also to the nations. The Apostles were not to regard their low birth or limited cultural opportunities in such a moment, as if they had something to be ashamed of. There were to stand in the presence of those temporary rulers in the name of the King of Kings whose they were and whom they served. They were to think only of the joy of being able at last to bear witness to the message of Christ before such influential men (Cf. Mark 13:9; Luke 21:13) They were to see these governors and kings as MEN to preach to, not tyrants to fear. (Study the excellent examples of Apostles before their rulers: Acts 24:10-17; Acts 25:6 to Acts 26:30; Acts 27:24; Philippians 1:12-13; 2 Timothy 4:16-17)

For a testimony to them (eis martyrion autoîs). The Gospel is primarily and fundamentally a message of facts that actually occurred to which eyewitness testimony bears record. Only secondarily is it a philosophy, a world-view or an ethical system. What one thinks about the facts placed before him must determine what he will do with the theology or the ethics or the view of the world that is also connected with the Christian message. The primary job of the Apostles was to testify to what they had seen and heard. (Cf. Luke 24:47-48; John 20:30-31; Acts 1:8; Acts 1:22; Acts 2:22; Acts 2:32; Acts 4:20; Acts 5:32; Acts 10:39-42; Acts 22:15; Acts 22:18; Acts 22:20) What a significant testimony that must have been! Whether it were greater than ordinary preaching may be debated, but this presentation of the central facts of the Gospel before such dignitaries could not but demand of these prominent citizens of the Empire that they investigate the entire cause of Christianity, that they set down in the archives for all history to remember what transpired under the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate. If the rulers rejected the preaching however, the Apostles-' witness becomes witness against them before God.

For a testimony. to the Gentiles. Here is proof, early in Jesus-' ministry, of the ultimate universality of His Gospel, even though He had ordered His men to preach only to Jews at first. This hint is amply clarified and enforced by the Great Commission which revoked some of the limitations in this first mission of the Twelve in a limited area and people (Cf. Matthew 24:14; Mark 13:30) The nations too must hear the evidence! But the evidence was not all verbal: Jesus said, For my sake you will be taken before governors and kings, for a witness to them and to the nations. The very act of being brought into court for Jesus-' sake was in itself evident proof that these witnesses believed something very deeply, Jesus is saying, Your lives must tell for something! If you men get arrested and are accused of being my disciples, would there be sufficient proof to condemn you? The force of one's life as testimony itself cannot be overemphasized. The very fact that the Apostles grasped their Lord's meaning and chose rather to suffer trials, imprisonment and death, rather than change or surrender their testimony, proves in itself to be convincing proof of the honesty of the men themselves. It also renders a favorable verdict about the probability of the veracity of the facts they declared.

Notice how concerned Jesus is that men have testimony borne to them! (Cf. Matthew 8:4; Matthew 24:14) He wants every one to have a chance, even though, as the true Knower of the hearts, He is fully convinced that, of all those who do have a chance offered them, only an infinitesimal percent will actually accept it.

Before governors and kings. Nothing could seem more improbable to political observers and the man on the street than that these simple fishermen, publicans and tent-makers would someday stand in the presence of emperors and kings of the mighty Roman Empire stretching from India to Brittania! Or that on such an occasion these simply Galilean teachers would present a defense of the very Gospel that would soon shake that empire at its very foundations and overthrow it. (Daniel 2:44) But Jesus not only predicted it, but also gave detailed instructions how to act when it occurred. In this simple, unobtrusive way, Jesus identifies Himself as a true Prophet of the most fantastic accuracy!

NOTE:

Here again Matthew records words of Jesus similar to warnings that Mark (Mark 13:9) and Luke (Luke 21:12-13) set down in connection with that period preceding the end of the Jewish nation and Jerusalem. This fact seems to point to the certainty of the suggestion made earlier that the time schedule within this prophecy concerning the mission of the Twelve began with their first public witnessing for Jesus on Pentecost and ended with the destruction of the Jews-' power to persecute.

D. PROMISE OF POWER IN THE HOUR OF PERIL (10:19, 20)

If the general warnings just mentioned are clear illustrations of what Jesus meant by Be as wise as serpents, then what follows may well explain what He meant by being innocent, or guileless, as doves. But having impressed upon His men the importance of the testimony they must bear before governors and kings, Jesus now forestalls a disturbed reaction in their minds that this declaration foreseeably could produce. How understandable it would be for them to reflect: Well, if our witness before those great men is so important both to them and others, as well as to ourselves, then how desperately important it is that we make that testimony the best witness we can! Though this conclusion would be perfectly natural, Jesus reveals to them that it is not the correct deduction, for they must understand that the success of their witness does not depend upon their own frail powers, as if, in such a critical moment, they would be left alone to their own devices.

Matthew 10:19 But when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. 20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you. The complete absence of duplicity or conniving on the part of the Apostles could not be more heavily emphasized than Jesus does so here. The disciples are positively forbidden to spend anxious hours planning the form and content of the legal defense. But when they deliver you up. rather assumes now that this betrayal is a foregone conclusion for the Christians. It also teaches two other truths: it indicates most obviously the moment when the Christians would feel the deepest anxiety as they fear both inadequacy of their own endurance under trial as well as the possible failure to express the testimony of Christ in its proper perspective. This is why Jesus, long years before that moment arrived for any of His followers, takes the sting out of the dread of that hour. He says, When your time comes to be haled before the magistrates, do not worry a minute about what defense you are going to make or how you must make it! That is an order! A second truth comes out of this zeroing in on a point of time yet in the future: Jesus forbids anxiety in that moment when on trial, but in no way does He suggest that they may not prepare themselves well years before that crisis before the court.

It may be objected that preparation per se IS forbidden since the Master provides the antithesis to anxiety by specifically promising immediate inspiration. This valid objection, however, regards only one specific type of preparation, i.e. that anxiety vividly described by Lenski (Matthew, 400):

To be arrested and haled before judges low or high is enough to upset anyone. In addition to the shame, the fear and other conflicting emotions, the trial itself and the matter of their defense would cause the apostles terrible anxiety. They would, however, not merely be concerned that they might defend themselves and escape the infliction of penalties, their anxiety would be chiefly concerned with the honor of Christ and the gospel, and they would fear that because of their mental confusion, mistakes, weakness, ignorance or other handicaps they might injure the Lord's cause. After a sleepless night or more in a foul cell, with no advocate at tl.eir side, in what condition would they be to do justice to the gospel?

It is precisely these preoccupations that are discouraged. But the objection against that preparation that depends upon the leadership of the Spirit is not at all prohibited.

Jesus knows that if the Christians begin to take time out of their preaching to plan legal defense, they will do themselves untold psychological damage as well as put their own cause in doubt. So many uncertainties like what questions would be put to them, the unforeseen turns their trial could take, the personality of their accusers and of the judges, etc., could not be foreseen with any confidence. So they had no objective way of preparing for them. They must, instead, spend their time in preaching. Jesus knows that positive proclamation will accomplish more psychologically with the audience than would self-defense. Further, this confidence that the right answers will be provided when the Apostles are hauled into court, frees their minds psychologically to keep busy at the one major task to which they were to give themselves completely: the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. But, at precisely this point, something takes place that forms the finest kind of preparation for those fearful moments. In the normal proclamation of the Gospel, two separate, natural phenomena occur. By constant use of the supernatural revelations, inspired in them by God's Spirit here promised, their answers would become second nature to them. The same is true of their own reflections upon the message revealed over the years: out of these meditations would come the most convincing arguments that could be used to present Jesus-' message in its most reasonable form. Out of their broad experience in preaching, they would make the Gospel so much a part of themselves that, they could not but express in those critical moments what had been the transforming power of their whole previous Christian life.
But again it may be objected: Jesus did NOT here mention any such natural reflection and absorption of the Christian message so that it would become second nature with the Christians brought before the judges. Rather, He promised immediate inspiration. True, He does do this for very good reasons:

Because in the case of some Apostles and early Christians, there was not time available for such reflection from the beginning of their own personal testimony until they were attacked, tried and executed. The success of His program did not so much depend upon their maturity as upon the accuracy of the witness under His direct inspiration.

Because of the fact that they must learn to depend upon God for the revelation at the right moment, not upon their own wisdom, talents, courage or faith. It might be safe here to say that, had the Apostles dreamed that the success of their testimony should have depended upon the ripeness of their own understanding of the message, they might well have dedicated themselves to monastic reflection or theological research, rather than to preaching and revealing.

Further, Jesus could not very well put much emphasis upon this natural, habitual acquisition of the best presentation of the Gospel, since, before it developed, the Apostles themselves could gain little comfort from hoping for it. For them, it lay yet in the misty future.

So, Jesus devaluated this side of the Apostles-' growth altogether, assuring them that God would supernaturally provide His messageboth form and contentin the critical moments.

Then, why bring up this natural maturing from the life of the Christians, if it is not immediately apparent in the text? But that it IS in the text is obvious from Jesus-' negation: It is not you that speak, but the Spirit. This is a Hebraistic expression absolutely stated for what we would express in a relative idiom: It is not you alone who speak, but also the Spirit. The Apostles certainly would do the talking, but their thoughts would be directed by God's Spirit. There is, then, a you that speak, i.e. the Apostles who would have achieved a certain level of spiritual growth and power. but it is essential that Jesus deny this merely human power used in their testimony and defense, since they certainly, as normal human beings, would be tempted to depend upon whatever human resources were then available. Normal maturity is inserted here in order to point out a side of the Apostles that Jesus could certainly see, although He was not free to bring it into the question here, due to the natural anxieties of the men in their present state of preparation. It is a temptation to think of these noble followers as mere human radios who were tuned into God's wave-length and mechanically received and rebroadcast God's Word. But they were not mere instruments, but MEN, whom God inspired. This natural maturing is mentioned here also by way of application to modern Christians. As men like us, the Apostles must submit themselves to, and grow up into, their own supernaturally inspired message. Revelation received, whether by direct inspiration or indirectly by searching the Scriptures and reflecting thereupon, does not guarantee, nor instantly produce, maturity, sanctity or the memory fund of experience. (Witness Peter's misapprehension of the absolute universality of the Gospel, even though it were he who first revealed it by inspiration, Acts 2:39. It took special revelations and several particularly surprising experiences before he was convinced of it, although he had lived with his own gospel for several years, Acts 10 and Galatians 2.) By identifying ourselves with the Apostles as men, we see how to derive comfort from this same instruction:

Our confidence that the Apostles-' word is the Word of God, because it is a message revealed to and through them by this special inspiration of the Spirit, leads us to stake our lives, honor and eternal happiness on what these men say.

Then, our reflection upon that message, our constant preaching and practice of it gives us a fund of memory and experience that touches our lives so deeply that when we find ourselves in the same crises or trials, our dependence will not be upon our wisdom, our talents, our faith or our courage, but upon His word in us. It should not be at all surprising that a particular circumstance should call up from our learning of the Scripture a word or a wisdom that so well fits the situation that our enemies cannot withstand the spirit with which we speak.

As all good writers and speakers, artists and musicians know, purely natural inspiration-' cannot take place nor produce great art without great perspiration, i.e. without that real discipline that prepares the artist to produce his inspired masterpieces. So also here, the modern Christian, without benefit of the special gifts of the Spirit, must take the time and submit to the discipline of learning the Word for himself and of teaching it constantly to others, so that it may become so much a part of himself that, in critical situations where the testimony he gives is especially crucial, it is God's Word that is presented. The important question to us is: how much of the Word is really, intentionally and systematically hid up in our hearts so that it can really inspire us to truly great preaching and teaching?

For it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. Contextually and logically, in that hour would seem to limit the inspiration here promised to those moments when the Apostles stood trial. But the very reason Jesus adduces for their not needing to be anxious (Matthew 10:20) may be taken as an independent idea, not at all circumscribed by this phrase. Matthew 10:20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you. The intentional use of the present participles (ou gàr humeîs este hoi laloûntes allà tò pneûma. tò laloûn) leads us to look for an inspiration of the Spirit that was continually speaking through the Apostles throughout their ministry, and not merely when they stood trial. The force of Jesus-' argument, when seen from this angle, becomes even stronger, for, if God's Spirit could inspire the Apostles when they stood before the tribunal, He could certainly be able to guide them infallibly to accomplish far greater tasks at other times, as, for instance, preparing the written Gospel for all nations and times. The Lord inserts this statement as the reason why the men must not be upset about their defense, as well as to explain just how their answers would be provided them at the right moment. But this reason actually covers more circumstances than that just mentioned, i.e. the trial. Jesus-' argument is this: Since the Holy Spirit will be speaking through you throughout your ministry, do not be anxious for those few moments during your service to me when you must stand before the rulers of synagogues or governors of the Empire. The Spirit who has provided all your power up to that moment will certainly not forsake you then! He will speak through you just as much on that occasion as on any other.

The basis of this interpretation is found, of course, in other instruction of Jesus on the same subject that covers the same general period of the Apostles-' ministry. (John 14:16-17; John 14:26; John 15:26; John 16:7-14, etc.) But these passages, that contain information given during the last week of Jesus-' ministry prior to the cross, refer to the post-Pentecost guidance of the Spirit. This latter fact lends additional strength to the opinion that, in this section (Matthew 10:16-23), Jesus is dealing primarily with the labors of the Apostles following His own ascension and prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish state, a period in which the special activity of the Holy Spirit was especially marked in the normal life of the Church. Jesus Himself is fully able personally to inspire His messengers to preach His Gospel, perform His miracles and perfect His program, without a direct baptism of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Spirit was not yet given (John 7:38-39), although the Apostles, and later the Seventy (Luke 10:9; Luke 10:17-20), had served Jesus in the capacity of instruments through whom He carried out His miraculous ministry. The Spirit's special service began only after Jesus left the earth to return to the Father. (John 16:7; John 16:13) This is why it may be concluded that Jesus is not discussing here the Apostles-' immediate, short-term mission in Jewish territory, but rather their later, world-wide mission to all.

While this promise of power was made here specifically to the Twelve, Jesus gave the Apostles to understand that this special aid was not only their special prerogative, since on other occasions He said the same thing to His disciples in the presence of the multitudes. (Luke 12:11-12) In the fulfilment of Jesus-' promise in the life of the early Church, Stephen, while not an Apostle, yet under the obvious control of the Spirit, shows how Jesus meant this promise to be understood. (Acts 6:3; Acts 6:5; Acts 6:8; Acts 6:10; Acts 7:55). While there was no doubt about the unique position and official stature of the Apostles among the orthodox Christians (excluding thus the few detractors of the Apostles here and there), yet these same Christians were to recognize the diversity of the manifestations of the same Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:4-11; 1 Corinthians 12:28-30; Romans 12:3-8; Ephesians 4:7-11) So it would not be surprising to find other Christians, besides the Apostles, speaking by direct inspiration both when under trial and on other occasions as well. In fact, this seems to have been the specific purpose of the laying on of the Apostles-' hands, that others might also be granted special gifts of the Spirit. (Cf. Acts 8:15-17; Acts 19:6; 2 Timothy 1:6) Presumably, when the Apostles passed from the scene, there would have been no others who could receive this special inspiration, since there is no evidence that anyone but an Apostle could convey such gifts by the imposition of hands. The likelihood that this is the case is rendered even stronger by the formation and diffusion of that body of writings recognized as Scripture, a phenomenon which rendered fundamentally unnecessary the special or sporadic, inspired revelations.

Something significant has come into existence since Jesus pronounced these promises of direct, immediate inspiration by the Holy Spirit: the New Testament. This book is unique in all the world, because it is the personal work and message of the Holy Spirit rendered available to all in a concrete and easily usable form. This book is the personal responsibility of the same Spirit that Jesus sent to reveal His will in permanent form for all ages of the Church. While only the early Christians, especially the Apostles and some of their companions, like Mark, Luke, James and Jude, received that promise of inspiration and participated in its fulfilment by setting down in written form what the Spirit willed, the servant of Jesus today can pour over those pages until its message becomes the heart and vitality of his life. As a natural consequence, the modern Christian can also have a share in the victorious witnessing under fire that those early Christians knew, the only difference being that the early pioneers depended upon an immediate inspiration to reveal God's Word, whereas the modern saints depend upon God's revealed Word to provide immediate inspiration. It should be obvious here that the early Christians depended upon a supernatural phenomenon, while the strength of the modern disciple is more natural, arising as it does out of memory and reflection upon the word revealed once for all. This does not rule out the possibility that the Spirit today should take advantage of our previous study, memorizing and reflection of the Word and sharpen our powers of recall at critical moments. But this is another subject. The point here is that the Apostles must trust, not in themselves to defend themselves, nor even in their God-given, natural powers in those fearful moments, but in the immediate guidance by God's Spirit in them, speaking through them. Would to God that we had the same confidence in the eternal Word of the Holy Spirit so that we depended completely upon it not only for the needed wisdom to respond to our detractors or accusers, but also for the choice of ideas and words that would help lead our fellows to know the living God!
The evidential value of the declarations made in this short section is obvious. Without once affirming his own obvious authority, Matthew reports this promise of Jesus that the Apostles would be divinely empowered to recall and reveal divine truth. By so doing, Matthew categorically claims his own inspiration, but since the claim is deeply imbedded in the history of Jesus-' acts and pronouncements, this becomes the most convincing sort of affirmation that could be made.

E. PERSECUTION BY THEIR OWN FAMILIES (10:21, 22)

Matthew 10:21 And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child: and children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. Until now Jesus has been discussing harassment by the unbelieving Jews, trials before the Jewish and pagan rulers and other similar difficulties. But now He bares the ugly reality: For many of my disciples, my service will mean martyrdom! The surprisingly rapid and successful spread of Christianity is often allowed to obscure those many heart-breaking trials in hundreds of Jewish homes, as one or more of its members took the crucial step to accept Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah. Only the Lord Himself knows how many harsh, bitter arguments were offered to recall those members of a family, that were leaving the good, old, tried-and-true ways of Moses to serve an unrecognized, itinerate Rabbi executed on a stake outside Jerusalem! As it probably seemed to those who remained bound to Judaism, those who left to follow Jesus Christ were embarking on an uncharted sea, leaving the security of the rich ceremonies of the worship of Jaweh to seek eternal joy at the hands of One whose very message denied nearly all that the rabbis had ever thought or taught about the Kingdom of God. How many families were literally shredded by the simple confession: I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ the Son of the living God? How many were the moral (if not actually literal) funerals at which a son, a grandmother, a daughter-in-law, a wife or husband or others, was considered thenceforth and forever dead? For how many Christians was it lamented: It were better for him that he had never been born?

But this is not merely a question of a family's excommunication of one of its members. This is nothing less than denunciation before the courts by bringing the case before the law in the clear understanding that the charge, if proved, must lead to a verdict of guilty and the death sentence. The most heart-breaking part comes when the brother, after having betrayed his own kin into the hands of those who would kill them, gives the fatal testimony that seals their doom.

Here Jesus puts the old proverb to the test: Blood is thicker than water (= Kinship is more binding, more important than baptism specifically, and, in general, worthy of more consideration than the tenets of one's belief.) This old piece of calculating human prudence is based on the general observation that the bonds which unite families are generally so durable that one could hardly think that differences of belief in religion could cause brothers and sisters, parents and children to sever these tenderest of relations. And, were there no proof to the contrary, we could hardly believe that this actually had been ever considered. Nevertheless, Jesus not only knows the human heart but He also prepares His disciples to face the realities He finds there. Nor would this malignant opposition arise only in the breasts of the vilest men most practiced in wickedness, but more especially in the hearts of the sincerest of men, who in their zeal for God, thought themselves doing Him service by destroying the disciples of Jesus! (Cf. John 16:1-3; Acts 26:9-11; Acts 23:1; 1 Timothy 1:13) What consummate blindness, what depth of conviction, what partisan bigotry, what inhuman opposition to rupture the dearest human ties and to be willing to hand over one's own kinsfolk or friends to torture and death!

It is important to recall that these same words are repeated by both Mark (Mark 13:12) and Luke (Luke 21:16) in connection with the end of the Jewish nation, but are deliberately omitted by Matthew at that point in his own account of the same discourse (Matthew 24). This fact harmonizes further with the suggestion that this section (Matthew 10:16-23) describes the Apostles-' mission from the beginning of their work alone (in His absence) until the fall of Judaea.

Matthew 10:22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. Surprisingly enough, this very declaration measures the emotional as well as the moral distance between the non-Christian world and the Christians. Nowadays this very sentence, once intended to mark the distance between Jesus-' people and the world's crowd, becomes the very standard by which one may judge how far the Church has shifted from her original heroic uniqueness to her present posture of compromise with the world! At the same time, this phrase proves how far wrong are those philosophers who would find in Jesus-' message and program only the perfection of those forms of thought already known to the ancient world. Jesus-' Kingdom stood out in stark contrast to the ideals of the then-current Judaism (although in perfect harmony with the then-ignored principles preached by the OT prophets) and the morals actually practiced by the non-Jewish world. Though the non-Christian world was badly splintered over many issues, it was to find itself united in its opposition to Christianity. No, Christianity did not find its origins, its divine message or its faith to live by in the garbage heaps of Rome, Athens or Jerusalem! Power, philosophy and religious law united in the endeavor to strangle the life out of Christianity. Ye shall be hated by all men is almost perfectly echoed in Tacitus-' (Annal. XV. 44) famous description of the reason for the persecution of the Church: odio generis humani, of which Tacitus-' words are the ironic opposite. Men hated Christians because Christians, supposedly, hated mankind! (See Newman, Manual, 148-150; Schaff, History, II, 85-104; Qualben, History, 57-60) Why?

Christians recognized an authority higher than the State, and in the event of conflict between the law of the State and that of God, they chose to obey God rather than men. This, in an era when the existing world-view held the State to be the highest good.

Christianity was a religio illicita because it was viewed as a religion introducing rites the character of which were unknown, or, at least, unrecognized by the State, whose society could be regulated by the laws of the Senate. It was looked upon as a secret society, hence came under the condemnation of such societies in general.

Christian morals contradicted the pleasure-mad philosophy of men of the world in general. Because they refused to live like other people, sharing the same selfish goals in life, they were regarded with suspicion as haters of all that is great, fair and noble in humanity.

Christians were charged with atheism and superstition, since they had no impressive external religion and rejected all other expressions of religion (temples, priesthood, altars, sacrifices, etc.) other than their worship offered only to the invisible Christ. Their intolerance of other religions was also unacceptable.

Christians were chargeable with high treason for their refusal to worship the Emperor.

Christians taught a religion that was truly universal without a national basis or barrier, that was destructive to social classes and fundamentally inimical to slavery, by exalting and honoring useful work by all classes.

Christians worked miracles, a fact that could be misconstrued for magic, a serious offense.

Christians conflicted with the material interests of the makers and merchants of idols, sellers of sacrificial animals and the priests of the pagan rites.

Christians held more or less secret meetings during the persecutions, a fact which easily gave rise to rumors that Christians practiced abominable immorality and cannibalism.

Bruce (Training, 113) makes this biting comment:

The ignorant, superstitious populace, filled with prejudice and passion, and instigated by designing men, play the part of obstructives to the cause of truth, mobbing, mocking and assaulting the messengers of God.

Even at times when the Gentile population would have been inclined to welcome the Gospel preached by the Christian missionaries, zealous men, moved by jealousy for their business (cf. Acts 13:6-12; Acts 16:16-22; Acts 19:23-41) or for their religion (cf. Acts 13:45-50; Acts 14:1-6; Acts 14:19; Acts 17:4-8; Acts 17:13), deliberately incite to violent action the clots of unthinking, unquestioning people here and there by the use of a few catch phrases or shouted slogans packed with emotion.

For my name's sake (See on Matthew 5:10-12, Vol. I) This practically universal hatred shall arise dià tò ònoma mou. (Cf. Luke 6:22; John 15:18-21.) This means more than that the mere mention of the word Jesus will ignite all the vile bitterness and unrelenting hostility foreseen here. For my name's sake means: You will be execrated for all that I stand for and am. This includes, of course, Jesus-' message, its proclamation by which His name became known, and Jesus-' Church for she bears His name before the world. (Cf. Acts 3:16; Acts 4:7; Acts 4:10; Acts 4:12; Acts 4:17-18; Acts 5:41-42; Acts 8:12; Acts 9:20-21; Acts 9:27; Acts 26:9-11) Note again here the extremely personal cause to which Jesus calls and challenges His men to suffer. (See on Matthew 10:16)

Again, it is interesting to see that all three Synoptists set down this very declaration in Christ's great prophetic discourse. (Matthew 24:9; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:17) This is significant because Matthew, who is sometimes accused of taking liberties with Jesus-' words, arranging them somewhat capriciously as the mood strikes him, also records this concise notice in BOTH Chapter s 10 and 24. From a human point of view, it is difficult to see how this fact could be thought to have escaped his notice, if he ever reread what he wrote before releasing it for publication. His inspiration lends divine authority to this repetition, assuring us thus that Jesus actually said this on the two separate occasions. The point of noticing the repetition here is that it assures us that we are on the right tract in finding correspondence between this section (Matthew 10:16-23) and the general description of Jewish national affairs from 30 A.D. circa until A.D. 70 circa. For, while it is true that Jesus could easily use similar language to describe two widely separated, totally unconnected events, we may be justified in understanding Him as describing the same general period or the same events on various occasions, unless He Himself clarifies our confusion by pointing out the difference, which, it seems, He does not. (See notes on Matthew 24.)

But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. The major thrust of this verse is Do not grow weary of trusting in Me. The details, however, are a bit stickier to explain, for the major term to interpret is the end. To what end does Jesus refer? the end of what? Several possibilities come to the surface:

The end, coming indefinitely as it does to us in this text, might seem here to be left intentionally indefinite, a possibility that would allow the words to refer as well to one's death as to the second coming of Christ at the end of the world, or perhaps also to the end of the Jewish nation. This indefiniteness has the certain advantage of keeping the disciple on his toes spiritually, since he could never have known for certain in those days when any one of these three ends should take place.

But since the coming of Christ and the end of the world would be an event having little consequence beyond the psychological stimulation of preparation for an event about the time of which one must necessarily be uncertain, it would not seem as likely that Jesus would put this particular event forward as of primary interest and importance.

Death, of course, would be the particular end of the individual and, at the same time, be an event which would seal his destiny. Elsewhere (Revelation 2:10) Jesus makes this explicit. While the mention of death is assuredly in the immediate context (Matthew 10:21) and is an end whose date is uncertain enough to require patient endurance on the part of any Christian at any time, but does this exhaust Jesus-' meaning when we compare this expression with other pronouncements He made on the subject?

But when this passage is placed along side Jesus-' great prophetic discourse (Matthew 24; Mark 13:9-13; Luke 21:12-19), it becomes clear that the end may have had a closer reference to the judgment then coming upon the Jewish nation. If so, then the application of the exhortation is to remain faithful to Jesus during that period of Jewish persecution which came to an end, never to be repeated after the total defeat of the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem.

It may be helpful to note these similarities:

Matthew 10:22-23

Matthew 24:9 b - Matthew 24:14

and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

9b and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

10 And then many will fall away

11 and betray one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And

12 because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold.

But he who endures to the end will be saved.

13 But he who endures to the end will be saved.

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel,

14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations.

before the Son of man comes.

And then the end will come.

Besides the obvious parallels in words at certain points, there are intriguing parallels of thought at others. (See special study on the Coming of the Son of Man.)

Those who remained patient to the end of the Jewish persecutions and of the nation of Israel could say, By the grace of God, we have remained faithful this long: we can go even further! We have already held on faithfully to Jesus, beyond what we thought even possible. But the end of the world is not yet. So we have learned to remain loyal even to the judgment or to our death, which ever comes first! But there is an unyielding warning lying just below this promise: He who quits before the end, will be lost! (See on Matthew 10:32-33) This matter is so personal that Jesus uses the emphatic demonstrative pronoun hoûtos: The man who holds on till the end, this man (and no other) will be saved. (Cf. Hebrews 10:36-39)

F. PRUDENCE IN PERSECUTION (10:23)

Matthew 10:23 But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. Here is a summary application of the principle: Be wise as serpents; harmless as doves. The disciples must be alert to dangers hidden in any situation that might bring disaster to the cause they promoted, but, at the same time, they must not become involved in witch hunting, i.e. smelling dangers where there are none. Ye shall not have gone through. indicates that their first target must always be Gospel proclamation. (See below) Bruce (Training, 113) summarizes this:

How, then, are the subjects of this ill-treatment to act?. by avoiding the storm of popular ill-will when it arises. and by giving the utmost publicity to their message though conscious of the risk they run.

The principle thrust of this verse is: Keep moving, in order to keep preaching as long as you have the opportunity. You do not have to give up your life to the first persecutor that comes along. Go to another town: be elsewhere when they come to take you. I will come, so if you must fear at all, fear that your mission will not be completed in time. Jesus knew that the scribes and Pharisees would harass the Christians from town to town. (Matthew 23:34 b) Since there are so many cities and villages, not only in Palestine but in the world, that need the Gospel, towns where people would give a joyful hearing and an obedient reception, it would be an unwise expenditure of lives and effort to continue in an area where persecution rendered it impossible to continue preaching the Gospel effectively or where people rejected it by continually ignoring the messengers.

Before this idea is seized upon to justify ignoring certain countries of the modern world where Gospel proclamation is either illegal, due to a majority heathen religion (as, in Islamic nations) or practically impossible, due to a denominational Christian State Church (as in Catholic or Protestant countries where small evangelical free churches are hindered for one reason or another), let us remember the context. Jesus urges this advice in view of a definite terminus to their actual opportunity to evangelize. This juncture is believed to be the end of the Jewish nation. (See Special Study on the Coming of the Son of Man.) If this be correct, the absolute application of this principle of flight in the face of persecution is no longer necessary, since we have already passed the boundary marker that staked off that time period. We have entered rather into that era in which we Christians must patiently stay put, despite the hindrances or handicaps under which we must labor. Naturally, we must seek the very best possible means to communicate the truth of the Gospel in each situation. For example, great economic, social and political revolutions are afoot in Italy that can drastically change the climate within which the Gospel is preached in what is usually thought of as a 100% monolithic Catholic system. But the Churches that have kept hammering at the problem of evangelizing in Italy since World War II have both gotten a foothold in the country from which to move with these revolutions as they take place, as well as a thorough working knowledge of which methods function best in reaching this people. It has historically taken that time to perfect the materials, develop the leaders, prepare the groundwork, become aware of each other's efforts, etc. Had the brethren closed up shop and fled at the harsh persecutions faced in the early years, the free churches in Italy today would not be in their present posture of strength and readiness.

Jesus-' advice to flee in the face of persecution is to be interpreted within the contextual time limits He set for it: till the Son of man be come. After that event, presumably, the requirement that they flee would be no longer relevant.

Flee to the next. This command may sound like cowardice until the Lord's principle is understood. In the same way that banks, knowing the value of human life and realizing that their trained personnel is difficult to replace, give the general advice to surrender the money in the event of a robbery, and in the same way flyers are encouraged to ditch a million-dollar airplane that cannot be safely flown back to base, in order to have the even more valuable life of the trained aviator, so the Master puts a high value on the lives of His men. When it is possible to flee without compromising your commitment to me or my message, save your lives to fight another day! But even in this section Jesus takes for granted that there would come a day when flight would be impossible and apprehension by the authorities inevitable. (Matthew 10:17-18)

Study the following examples of fleeing before persecution, or of going on to other cities after being refused in a city: Acts 8:1 b, Acts 8:3-4; Matthew 9:23-26; Matthew 9:29-30; Matthew 11:19; Matthew 12:17-19; Matthew 13:44-51; Matthew 14:5-7; Matthew 14:19-20; Matthew 17:10; Matthew 17:14-15; Matthew 22:17-21.

Here are some examples of remaining firm in the face of persecutors: Acts 4:23-33; Acts 5:17-42; Acts 6:8 to Acts 7:60; Acts 8:1 b except the Apostles! Matthew 12:2-3; Matthew 18:1-18; Matthew 20:22-25; Matthew 21:4; Matthew 21:12-14.

There is real wisdom in knowing when to escape and when to stand and die. However, the decision may not be as complicated as it might seem, since the rule for the early Christians was: If you can leave, do so; if not, give faithful witness. Therefore, they were not to flee in terror for their lives, but out of determination not to be hindered from delivering Jesus-' message to the largest number of people possible.

There is no fanatical enthusiasm or hysteria here! Christian witness is valuable! The longer it is maintained, the more effective and helpful it can be to all. (Cf. Philippians 1:19-26) A dead Christian cannot evangelize, cannot comfort others as well as a living one. Lives are not to be thrown away; death is not to be courted. No self-appointed martyrs allowed here! This is not cowardice, just good sense. No one could accuse Jesus of encouraging His men to be faint-hearted milksops, after taking seriously the bracing demands of cold courage and unyielding commitment stated elsewhere in this same discourse!

You shall not have gone through the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. Three major terms in this text must be explained: gone through; the cities of Israel and the Son of man be come. The difficulties arise from the fact that each of the three terms are interlocked, complicating the interpretation, since each must be understood not only for itself, but in relationship to the other two. The result must be a whole, with no pieces left over. Notice:

Gone through has been explained as referring to:

Using all the cities of Israel as a refuge from persecutors who menace them from town to town in Palestine.

Reaching all the cities of Israel, whether in flight or by deliberate choice, to work in them by bringing the Gospel to them. This interpretation is preferable both on the basis of the meaning of the word used (telésçte, to bring to an end; finish or complete, Arndt-Gingrich, 818) and in light of the Apostles-' commission to evangelize. This view has the advantage also of including most of the sense of the other one.

The cities of Israel. In whatever sense Jesus-' coming is to be understood, this geographical limitation is important. He is to come to these cities, not to the world in general. Thus, Israel, as a nation with its cities, would still have corporate existence. Israel here may even be intended in the same sense used earlier (Matthew 10:5-15) to refer to Palestine, not Samaria nor Gentile territory. From this it is clear that the term cities of Israel does not allude to those areas in Gentile country where Jews eventually would be found living throughout the world.

The fact that Jesus mentions here the cities of Israel should not be taken to mean that these were the only cities being evangelized by the Apostles during the period now alluded to, since in the same section the Master has already pointed out that this period would be characterized also by testimony before (governors and kings) and the Gentiles as well. So He is no longer speaking of that mission on which the Twelve were to preach to Jews only. (Cf. Matthew 10:5-6) This is rather a time when the Apostles would be evangelizing the nations, Israel included. With regard especially to Israel, says Jesus, you will not have terminated your work in this land during your world evangelization, until your time of opportunity will be brought to an end by my coming.

Till the Son of man be come. Four interpretations have been offered:

Does Jesus mean that they cannot possibly have fled throughout the entire length of Palestine, before Jesus Himself comes preaching through those same cities? If so, He would be viewed as coming to their rescue when in trouble, or coming to recall them in from their labors to rest. This view, chosen by Foster (SLC, 1965, 35), presumes that their task was so great and so urgent that they were commanded not to weigh themselves down with any extra equipment; they were to go with all effective speed. Like the seventy, the twelve were sent before Jesus to announce His coming and to prepare the various cities to receive Him (see Luke 10:1-16). This view is, of course, based on the supposition that every detail of the discourse in Matthew 10 is to be applied with (relatively) equal force to the first mission of the Twelve in Galilee, a standpoint at least problematic, if not indefensible in light of the factors mentioned in the introduction to this chapter. For, while it is certainly believed here that this entire discourse was delivered prior to, and in preparation for, that first limited mission, it does not follow that every detail of the discourse is to be applied to that first mission. Many of the details, of which this verse (Matthew 10:23) is one, have relevance to later missions, This view has the handicap of failing to explain the relatively certain absence of serious persecutions during that early mission of the Twelve which would have driven them from city to city only to be rescued by Jesus-' personal coming to the particular Galilean town in which they were then endeavoring to work.

Or did Jesus intend that the missionary of the Church would not be finished before the return of Christ at the end of the world? However, how could this exhortation be relevant to the immediate needs of the Apostles, since He has not yet returned in this sense? Would this tactic (persecuted in one city, flee to the next) be at all applicable to the present age of the Church, or for that matter, to ANY age of the Church from the end of the Jewish nation until Jesus-' return?

Or does Jesus refer to the establishment of the Church on Pentecost as the significant coming here? This seems unlikely, inasmuch as the Apostles-' movements, just ahead of the persecutors, were intended to render possible the thorough evangelization of Palestine, a fact which would more likely be connected with their post-Pentecost activities. However, it is true that other missions did intervene between the early mission of the Twelve and Pentecost (Cf. Luke 10) which would turn this specific warning into a general order for observance by the Apostles and other workers during any mission. However, the other characteristics of the period described in this second section of Jesus-' discourse (Matthew 10:16-23) do not match what we know of the pre-Pentecost missions of the disciples.. This latter observation would tend to eliminate a pre-Pentecost application of the Apostles-' fleeing and, consequently, a Pentecost application of Jesus-' appearance. (See the Special Study on the Coming of the Son of Man, for further discussion of the Pentecost problem.)

Or does He mean that some great manifestation of His glory would soon take place before they have the opportunity to evangelize all of Palestine and or flee through all the cities thereof? If we identify the coming of the Son of man with the retributive justice meted out on Jerusalem and Palestine, then Jesus-' final victory over Judaism with the fall of Jerusalem would actually take place before the Apostles could have covered all the cities of Jewish Palestine with the Gospel message. (See the Special Study for the reasons for this identification.) This declaration, so understood, becomes a precise prophecy having remarkable fulfilment in the uncertain times which were characterized by many hindrances to effective, continuous evangelism and which were caused by the rebellions that precipitated the Jewish War. This, in turn, culminated in the fall of the Jewish State.

If this latter interpretation be accepted, Jesus-' urgent demand means that the Apostles had only one generation in which to work freely among the Jews in Palestine, i.e. that forty-year period from Pentecost until the Jewish War. To Jesus, every soul was equally precious, so if one hamlet would not accept the message, perhaps another would. Consequently, every moment was precious. Time was not to be lost, trying to convince those who would not be convinced, when there were others who would be.

While these words refer specifically to the ministry of the Apostles, yet there is a real truth about Christian service, hidden just below the surface. When that great hour arrived for the coming of the Son of man, the Apostles would not have reached all the cities of Israel. Their work would be cut short and left largely unfinished. Vaughn (PHC, 253) suggests this implication:

Our Lord thus ministers to our necessities by warning us against several mistakes which are apt to spoil and ruin true work. One of these is the demand beforehand for a roundness and completeness of defined duty, which is not often to be found, and which must certainly not be waited for. The life and work, and the Christ-work of which this text tells, are never finished.. A deeper reason lies in the nature of the work. The most real work of all is the intangible, impalpable thing which we call influence. Influence is the thing which Christ looks for, and it is an indefinite, and so, an interminable thing.

G. THE SUFFERING OF THE SAVIOR AND HIS SERVANTS (10:24, 25)

Here Jesus seems to begin another major section of His discourse. (See Introduction of Chapter 10, where the outline is discussed.) In order to feel the general nature of this passage, as opposed to specific instructions for Apostles only, notice the terminology by which He describes the people for whom these exhortations are intended: disciple (Matthew 10:24); slave (Matthew 10:24); those of His household (Matthew 10:25); every one whoever (Matthew 10:32-33); he who (Matthew 10:37-39); you (Apostles, Matthew 10:40); prophet (Matthew 10:41); righteous man (Matthew 10:41); one of these little ones, a disciple (Matthew 10:42). But these general expressions do not at all exclude the Apostles, for what Apostles was not all of these and more? There is no such thing as an Apostle who was first a disciple of the Lord, but there certainly are many disciples who never were Apostles. In this section the Master addresses all those disciples who would have a part of His ministry from that day forward until He comes again. There is considerably less emphasis on the strictly apostolic ministry here and more attention is given to the entire work of the Church.

Having mentioned some of the great hazards these followers must risk, Jesus proceeds to provide them adequate motives for enduring them (Matthew 10:24-33). The first of these motives is: I your Master and Teacher have endured; you too can make it!

Matthew 10:24 A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his lord. Lenski (Matthew, 406) thinks this double statement is axiomatic, so self-evident as to need no proof. But we may ask ourselves why the Lord would say the obvious. He begins with what all could admit as true, in order to carry His listeners to see what emotionally they would not be so ready to admit, but what intellectually they must grasp as certainly true. But why begin with THESE two varied illustrations: what have they in common?

The disciple is identified with his teacher by his own choice.

The slave is identified with his lord by his master's choice, his master's purchase, hence he renders service because he is his master's property.

The slave here (doûlos) is not merely a servant who renders service for a wage. So it actually takes both illustrations to describe our unique relation to Jesus. We are not simply and only his disciples to discuss with Him His views, His program, and then decide what parts of it are not acceptable to our growing minds, or are, in our view, inadequate or unnecessary. Rather, we are also His slaves to do His bidding, and since our service to Him is self-chosen, we have also chosen not to question His word.

But in what sense is it true that Jesus-' follower is not above his teacher (nor) above his lord?

Some think this verse has something to do with how high a student can rise. They see Jesus as affirming that the best thing that can happen to a disciple is to tread in his professor's footsteps, learn his mentality, his approach to the search for knowledge, learn his truth. This is an idea certainly taught in similar language elsewhere, however from the negative side applied to disciples who trust ignorant authorities. (Cf. Luke 6:39-40; see my comments on Matthew 7:4, Vol. 1, 402) While it is true that this can happen in regard to the student, was there ever hope that this be also true in the parallel case of the slave and his lord, i.e., was there much hope for a slave to rise to the level even of his master? If not, the discussion, then, is not centered upon the accomplishments of the student, but upon his being better off than his superior.

It is better to take this expression in the sense that no inferior is too good to escape the destiny of his superior. What ever was good enough for the Lord and Master is good enough for the servant-disciple. If it was not below the dignity of the Lord to humble himself to serve ungrateful men, suffer their abuse and ultimately die for them, it surely should not be considered below the dignity of His servant to do the same. (Cf. John 13:14-16; John 15:20)

This latter seems to be the better interpretive translation of not above (ouk. hypér): no better than. The implication is that Jesus-' disciples are not to think of themselves as exempt from any of the obligations to render service in Jesus-' spirit of humility or immune to the same persecutions the Lord Himself must suffer. But is it not even possible to harmonize the two interpretations above and consider both as inherently possible in the text? Consider the following:

The main point of these two parallel illustrations is that all subordinates in a given situation generally undergo the same destiny, for good or ill, as their superiors. If the teacher'S doctrine is brilliant and true, his students who followed him will be led into the same glorious truth in which the teacher himself lived. If, on the other hand, the teacher's premises are false, all his students who remain faithful to him, will plunge with him into intellectual gloom. Either way, they owe what they are to him and share his destiny (so long as they follow him, of course). If a lord makes wise decisions that raise the honor and wealth of his house to greatness all his lowliest slaves will be privileged to share in his glory, since they are a part of his house. Contrarily, if he suffers for his bad leadership and unwise decisions, all his house declines with him. Thus, the hopes of the disciples are literally bound to the destiny of Jesus! If these alternatives were in Jesus-' mind, then they become instant tests of the disciples-' confidence in Him, since He warns them of what will certainly seem to them like an impending tragedy. Important people were already calling Jesus dirty names (Beelzebul) and with seeming impunity, which, if left unchecked, could proceed further, bringing Him into extremely dangerous collision with the highest religious authorities in Israel. These fears of the disciples were certainly justified, but Jesus here must inform them that theirs would be the same fate.

Matthew 10:25 It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord. But in what sense must the disciple-servant be as his superior? To disciples, blind with materialistic messianic hopes, these words may have had a positive, hopeful ring, since they wanted above all else to share Jesus-' future. (Cf. Matthew 20:20-28)

Their most optimistic view of their own chance for glory could not include being as glorious as their Lord, even though they would hope to be put in positions of authority and honor from the very first. But to the Lord who pronounced them, these words contained a succinct warning that envisions the suffering and dying of His faithful disciples for their convictions about Him.

Or, if we eliminate the negative, unworthy elements in the disciples-' hopes, we see the disciples identified with (be as) their Lord in their service for Him. Morgan (Matthew, 108) puts it:

The King teaches us that, in all our service for Him, He reckons us as identified with Himself, as going in His place. He is above us; but His teaching is to make us become as He is, and all He is, is ours in this matter of service.. The bond-servant, bound to obey, because the property of the King, is yet as he goes forth, identified with His Lord, with his Lord's royalty, his Lord's dignity, his Lord's authority, delegated by the king to speak for the King, in the name and nature and power of the King.

This is not absolute equality with the Lord and Master, for the very terms which describe the followers, i.e. slave and disciple, preclude this. But this identification with Jesus is not mistaken. (Cf. Matthew 10:40)

But this realization, that there were to be moments when the disciples would be as their Master and Lord, means that this proposition of Jesus is also reversible: the Master and Lord shall fare no better than His own people. What a shock to the Apostles themselves to hear Jesus say: After all, I have said to you about your sufferings, remember: the Teacher is not above His disciples at this point either! If you are to suffer for the cause of righteousness, how much more will I, who am its chief proponent! Jesus was going to receive the same treatment that He here pictures for His men. What comfort these words would bring to these men in later years as they themselves underwent difficult days of hindrances, frustrating imprisonments, harassment and death! They would stay steady under fire, remembering, Our Lord Himself has passed this way too: by His grace we too shall stand!

Jesus-' emphasis in this section is upon the identification of His disciples with Him in His suffering, even though their identification with Him through their service in His name is a necessary corollary. If men would not accept the doctrine of Jesus, for whatever reason: misunderstanding, ignorance, deceit, conceit, prejudice, moral opposition or whatever, the disciples must expect no different experience. If it would appear that Jesus has not been able to get His instruction across to some people, the disciples who are teaching the same truth to the same kind of mind will face the same problems.

Wisely Jesus informs His men ahead of time what they may certainly expect. So doing, He removes the element of shock for the Apostles themselves, since the rude surprise of this evidence of men's rejection of their teaching might tempt them to use the tremendous supernatural power at their disposal in ways unworthy of the Lord who give it to them. (Cf. Luke 9:51-55) Rather than retaliate, they must learn to continue patiently seeking the redemption of those who might yet be saved. (See on Matthew 5:11-12; Matthew 5:44) By giving Himself as the chief example (see below on Beelzebul). Jesus renders His men more capable of dealing with this vicious abuse, since they will have seen their Lord Himself under fire.

Against what frame of mind was Jesus-' warning directed? As the disciples thought of their inability and the greatness of the task He sends them forth to accomplish, they must have trembled. Jesus had mentioned the unrelenting hostile powers that would mobilize against them. Now He fortifies them for that onslaught: Yes, you will be facing difficulties beyond description, but always keep in mind that this is but the necessary outcome of your identification with me. (Romans 8:29)

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household! To reinforce His meaning, the Lord reminds the disciples of a shocking example that they had already heard and were yet to hear with increasing intensity even before Jesus died: Beelzebub! (Cf. Matthew 9:34; Matthew 12:24; John 7:20; John 8:48) According to the better manuscripts, this dirty name is not Beelzebub, but Beelzebul. Edersheim (Life, I, 648) sees a vivid pun in Hebrew here, which, of course, is lost in Greek and its translation, a pun which would carry both the ready wit of Jesus in His being able to combine memorable word combinations as well as give His disciples a taste of the harsh treatment they could expect. Edersheim points out that Beel-Zebhul means in Rabbinic language Master of the Temple but sounds so much like Beel-Sibbul which means, figuratively, lord of idolatrous sacrificing, or, literally lord of the manure pile, that one can immediately catch the bitingly sarcastic epithet when used in reference to Jesus. If Edersheim is right, or even near it, this crude humor of the scribes would have cut to the heart those who loved Jesus and would be anguished at this reference to their Lord. I still remember vividly the angry tears of a dear friend when he first read a certain theologian's blasphemous suggestion that Jesus might be the bastard son of a German soldier. While this was a splendid reaction for one whose heart is bound up in Jesus, yet the disciples of the Lord must learn to steel themselves against this kind of brutal misrepresentation, lest they be so deeply shocked or offended by it or take it so seriously that they dismiss their mission as hopeless or give up their discipleship altogether. Whether the specific word be Beelzebul or any other blasphemous epithet that intentionally misrepresents everything Jesus stands for or is, some of the sting has already been removed from it by the Lord Himself. He proved He could face such hostility against Himself and despise the shame of the cross and endure it. (Hebrews 12:1-4) To the alert disciple, this vicious abuse heaped on the disciple himself becomes the clearly outlined path where the Master has already walked! (Cf. 1 Peter 2:19-25)

There is another practical application of the text in the immediate situation of those early Christians: this abusive name-calling becomes the pre-attack warning signal that alerts them to the need for planning their flight to the next city. (Matthew 10:23)

How much more them of his household? It is as if Jesus had said, If our enemies have been a bit reticent about attacking me directly, out of fear of divine retaliation, they will hardly have this same fear of you and will the more readily slander you. In fact, when they will have begun to see that we do not use the terrible, destructive powers at our disposal in our own self-defense, they will grow bolder and bolder in their attacks. You may not have it so good as Iand they will crucify me! In none of this does Jesus outline a plan for retaliation against those who slander, harass or kill His men. He leaves them no alternative but that of accepting the suffering or else of playing the traitor to His cause. Although He guarantees them ultimate victory, yet there is no rancor or retaliation. He demands that they leave it to the judgment of eternity to rectify the injustices of time, the praise of God to silence the slanders of men. It takes a long view and a grand faith to believe Jesus and see God's eternity as more real than time, in order to keep asking oneself, under the ever-present din of men's taunts, why bother to answer these men who before long will be forever silenced? (Cf. 1 Peter 4:12-19)

His household we are! (Hebrews 3:6; 1 John 3:1-3) What a glorious privilege to belong to such a royal house! We belong to it, but before we will have enjoyed the privileges of so noble a connection, we will have paid dearly for it. As Barclay (Matthew, I, 395) preaches,

When Christianity costs something, we are closer than we ever were to the fellowship of Jesus Christ; and if we know the fellowship of His sufferings, we shall also know the power of His resurrection.

(Cf. also Philippians 3:8-16; 1 Peter 3:9-18; 1 Peter 4:1-2; 1 Peter 4:12-19)

FREEDOM FROM FEAR (Matthew 10:26-31)

THE TRIUMPH OF TRUTH (Matthew 10:26-27)

Matthew 10:26 Fear them not therefore. But why did Jesus say therefore? While this is normally a good translation of oûn, does it have this meaning here? If Jesus is making an inference from the preceding material, what are the premises? Two solutions are possible:

The actual reasons behind the inferential use of oûn (=therefore) are not stated in the text, hence must be supplied by the reader. If so, in light of the immediately foregoing context we might suggest something like the following: You, my disciples, will be treated much worse than me. What is to be your response as my disciples, my servants? This relationship precludes your doubting my provision and care. Therefore, do not fear them!

Dana and Mantey (Manual Grammar, 256-258) suggest a slightly adversative use made of oûn, in the sense of however, which would function admirably here to solve our problem. Accordingly, the sense would be: You, my disciples will be treated much worse than me. However, do not fear them! (See also Arndt-Gingrich, 597 on oûn.)

With good reason Jesus hammers on this theme throughout this discourse (Matthew 10:26; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 10:31), even as He had emphasized earlier the needlessness of anxiety under trial (Matthew 10:19). The Lord has depicted ugly days ahead for those who follow Him and minister in His service and most of the opposition they must meet will come from men who will stop at nothing to hinder their witness. It is absolutely essential for Jesus to continue to drum on this theme: DO NOT FEAR! Why? If fear is caused by uncertainty, and uncertainty is caused by disbelief of what Jesus has revealed, then fear is sin! Jesus will not have any disciple be uncertain about anything He has declared. Certainty that God will do and provide all that Jesus promises is the absolute answer to fear. Fear betrays this lack of trust. (Cf. Hebrews 10:32-39; Hebrews 13:5-6) Though these early Christians would have many reasons to react negatively to opposition raised to their labors, they must never allow their opponents to become bigger than God. But it is not enough just to say to people who have good reason to fear: Do not be afraid! There must be reasons, good ones, that can really allay their fears. The first reason the Master offers is His own personal guarantee of the triumph of truth.

For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.

This Hebrew parallelism states in two parallel phrases essentially the same observation: truth will out! This is one of the hardest, most concrete maxims in the universe and is worthy of stating in proverbial form, since it has many applications. (Cf. Mark 4:22; Luke 8:17; Luke 12:2) Truth is the way things are, not as people tell it nor as they wish it to be. Any philosophy, or view of life, that refuses to admit the true nature of things as they are, can only break itself upon the rocks of this reality. Truth will triumph. Jesus guarantees this by stating categorically that no amount of ignorance or hiding one's eyes can impede truth's ultimate conquest and complete vindication .

This realization immediately puts to test the disciples-' trust in Jesus to be telling the truth. Jesus does not mean merely the truth of the assertions He had just made about the dark, bloody future ahead of them, but He may also mean the truth of all of His message. This He lays on the line, I am willing to place my whole revelation in this framework. If I have been deceiving you, this fact too cannot be hidden. It too will be discovered. But in the meantime, you have enough evidence to decide whether my message comes from God or not, whether it is ultimate truth or not.
What is there about men that Christians are not to fear? This depends partly on what we think Jesus meant by what is covered that must be revealed, hidden that must be made known.

Is it their secret, unscrupulous plans whereby they plot against the disciples?

Is Jesus promising a sort of divine counter-espionage that provides the people of God with information regarding the movements of the enemy? (Cf. 2 Kings 6:8-19) But the question arises whether Jesus refers to the discovery of enemy plots to destroy the disciples and whether the revelation of the malicious plotting would be made known during this life and not rather later at the judgment, (However, see Acts 23:12-22; Acts 9:23-25; Acts 9:29-30) Another doubt about this view is seen in the Hebraistic parallelism formed by Matthew 10:26-27, in which the latter identifies more clearly, if not absolutely, what was covered. hid in the former.

Is Jesus guaranteeing the total vindication of His servants, if not in this life, certainly in the next? (Cf. Revelation 2:9) McGarvey (Matthew-Mark, 92) suggests:

Disciples often suffer from injustice that is so covered up from the eyes of the world as to appear like justice, and there is nothing more disheartening than this. But Jesus assures them that no hidden or covered up iniquity shall escape exposure.

Here again is a test of their discipleship: can they ignore the harsh words, the sneers, the insinuations, the scoffing, the unreasonableness, the threats of reprisals, the loss of all the profit or advantages by which they must earn their living, in order to remain loyal to Jesus? Can they commit their lives (and all that sustains it) to Him who judges justly? (1 Peter 2:23; 1 Peter 4:19) If so, He is saying, You will get justice, not in this life necessarily, but before God. That is the only important tribunal to take into serious consideration, no matter how painful or unjust may be men's punishments.

Or, in line with the foregoing context, there is another hidden thing that will ultimately be disclosed: the secret fears of Jesus-' followers themselves. This is the fear which takes all the fight out of them, that turns them into self-justifying cowards unable to face danger or death. This too will one day be discovered! (See on Matthew 10:32-33) Not only is this rationalizing cowardice wickedness, since it justifies denying Jesus in practical ways by refusing to take a stand for Him when that stand must be taken, but it involves an inexcusable hypocrisy. It is hypocrisy, because the disciples know that Jesus is supreme Lord, but they who give in to their fears, acts as if their tormentors are much more. But this self-excusing pretense is useless and senseless therefore and wicked, for one day God will mercilessly expose it. (Cf. Luke 12:1-9)

Are the disciples afraid that their inability, in view of the tremendous task before them, will cause them to fail to succeed in proclaiming the Gospel?

There was much of the Gospel that Jesus could scarcely reveal even to His chosen Twelve, due to their spiritual immaturity and their strong prejudices against the foundational principles of His Kingdom. (Cf. the mysteries, or secrets, of the Kingdom of heaven Matthew 13:10-17; Matthew 16:20; Matthew 17:9) They had hardly grasped the reality of His deity or the character of the Throne He was to establish, nor could they understand the necessity for His death for the world's sins. (Cf. Matthew 16:21-23; Matthew 17:22-23; Luke 18:31-34) After these mighty facts were established and evaluated, the Apostles could understand and broadcast the full message in all of its power. But now, before the factat least two years before Calvary, the Resurrection and Pentecostthe disciples, from a human point of view, could not but doubt their own ability to make this glorious message known, especially since there was much in it that they themselves did not comprehend.

Jesus argues: My present revelation of the Kingdom, that I challenge you to preach, will be misunderstood and misinterpreted and thus remain hidden to the majority of people to whom we all preach. But this is no motive for giving up! Sooner or later this very message we struggle to make real in the lives of those who hear us will come to light. It HAS to! The very secrets of God's Kingdom that you will try to make men see, will not be any better understood when you proclaim them than when I say the same thing. But this is no reason to give up preaching. The truth will triumph!

So, out of this indefinitely applied proverb come three admonitions: Do not fear therefore that the proclamation of the Gospel shall fail, or that the enemies of the Gospel shall succeed, or that your own cowardice can remain hidden! What a motive for enduring: Jesus is in full control of all the unknowns in our ministry! He says, Do not fear the opposition, even though it forces you to work harder, for I intend to make progress in the face of the opposition.

Matthew 10:27 What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in the light; and what ye hear in the ear, proclaim upon the house-tops. This Hebrew parallelism may identify what must be revealed in the preceding verse. However, this sentence could also be an independent thought, not entirely connected with the preceding, hence the other interpretations are also offered in Matthew 10:26. It may be that Jesus is taking the foregoing thought in a specific direction, even though Matthew 10:26 itself permitted wider application.

What I tell you means Jesus-' own teaching, that is what must be revealed, not more nor less, A man has nothing worthwhile to say who has not listened to Jesus and learned. But having learned, a man has to speak what he has heard from Christ, as if he were standing himself in the presence of the living God. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 2:17; 2 Corinthians 12:19; 1 Peter 4:11) This is the principle truth of which Jesus guarantees the triumph.

What I tell you in the darkness,. what you hear in the ear is that classified information He had intrusted to the inner corps of disciples, much of which He required to be kept confidential until the proper moment. (Cf. Matthew 16:20; Matthew 17:9) The time would come when the Lord could make clear His own true nature and identity as well as vindicate His program. But that time was not yet, since, for a long time then future, He must use dark parables for the masses, while taking His close disciples aside to explain their meaning in private. (Cf. Matthew 13:10-17)

In harmony with the suggested outline of this discourse, indicated in the Introduction to Chapter 10, it should be noted that this demand for the widest possible publicity for Jesus-' teachings proves that He is now referring to a period in the disciples-' work later than Pentecost, when the Christians-' witnessing was geared to a world-wide evangelistic effort. (Matthew 28:19-20; cf. Matthew 17:9: Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead.)

Speak ye in the light. proclaim upon the house-tops. When the moment came for the Apostles to break the story, they were to show aggressive courage in publishing it. (Cf. Acts 4:13-20; Acts 4:23-31; Acts 5:20; Acts 5:29-32; Acts 5:41-42; Ephesians 6:19-20; Ezekiel 3:9) The housetops, or the flat roofs of Palestinean houses, were the scenes of many activities. (Deuteronomy 22:8; Joshua 2:6-8; Judges 16:27; 1 Samuel 9:25; 2 Samuel 11:2; Nehemiah 8:16; Isaiah 15:3; Matthew 24:17; Acts 10:9) Plummer (Luke, 318) claims that to this day proclamations are often made from the housetops. This makes it evident that Jesus is pleading for the widest possible publication of His message, a fact that demands that the Church adopt every medium her finances can reach, that succeeds in bringing the Word to the greatest number of hearers.

2. THE RIGHT REVERENCE (10:28)

Right after picturing nothing better than blood, sweat and tears for His men, the Lord demanded that they not only fly in the face of the enemy but bombard his fortresses with the most vigorous public proclamations of the Kingdom of God. This is entirely foolhardy from any human point of view, for if Jesus is serious, He is asking His followers to commit social, religious, political and individual suicide. But Jesus IS just that serious, and He IS expecting His men to go on these suicide missions. (Cf. Matthew 10:38-39) He knew fully well that His people were going to be reduced to fools for Christ's sake, the scum of the earth, the dregs of humanity. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 4:9-13) He also knew that only genuine disciples can be made to suffer to this extent in order to carry out His mission to the world. But He must provide them the motive strong enough to drive them forward no matter the cost, the obstacles or temporary set-backs. He must stiffen the moral reserves of the very men whom He must continually scold for having painfully too little faith. (Cf. Matthew 8:26; Matthew 14:31; Matthew 16:8; Matthew 17:20; Mark 16:14) But this cannot be done merely by showing them that their fear is without basis. They need stronger compulsion than this! Intellectually based convictions are absolutely necessary, but they must be deep enough to touch the sentiments, the emotions, fundamental enough to activate the will in only one direction despite all opposition. So the Creator of men here reaches into His men and takes hold of one of their most fundamental drives: fear. But notice His tactic: before He sets the right reverence, the proper fear, before their eyes, He removes the mistaken fear.

Matthew 10:28 And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Those that kill the body is the way Jesus labels the enemy, and his disciples cannot miss the implication. Jesus spares no words now as He bares the horrible reality that lurks just ahead for His people! The early Christians, along with their thrilling stories of heroic martyrs, also honestly remember those black days for the Church when fear of physical death tempted many to deny any relationship with their Lord. But the fearful torments and horrible death to which the persecutors can put the human body are not to be permitted to dim the disciple's view of God! Jesus wants His men to be able, even in the very face of their tormentors and murderers, to look up and see Him who is invisible, the real Governor and Judge of the universe. (Cf. Hebrews 11:27) Their loyalty to Him and their even more painful awareness of His judgment, despite their seemingly endless pain, affliction and brutal death, are to hold them firm. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 4:7-12, 2 Corinthians 4:16 to 2 Corinthians 5:11 a; see how Paul develops this motif further.) How different is the ring of these words of Jesus from those frightened excuses of those moral cowards who would try to justify the committing of any sin, merely in order to have one's life! This is the kind of challenge that appeals to real men and contains within itself ample motive for enduring whatever suffering must be faced for Jesus-' sake!

Right at the very heart of this bloody description of apparent defeat for the Christians is another bold declaration that guarantees victory for the man who accepts the presuppositions on which it is based. Those that kill the body. are not able to kill the soul! The presuppositions will be discussed later. Luke (Luke 12:4 b), on another occasion, includes the victorious shout of the Christian, even while gasping his last: ... after these things, they HAVE NO MORE THAT THEY CAN DO. Matthew's word is just as forceful: They CANNOT KILL THE SOUL. The frustrated murderers stand helpless before a broken hunk of human clay! Their prey has escaped beyond their grasp: the Christian witness has just been introduced into the presence of his King! But, mark, it is Jesus who makes this declaration, and it is Jesus who showed how to make it work. Morgan (Matthew, 109) puts it beautifully:

There is no utterance more vibrant with victory.. Presently this King went to the Cross without faltering, without flinching, with regal bearing, so that the man who condemned Him look for all time mean and contemptible in His presence.

The presuppositions involved in Jesus-' demand cry out for examination, since He who created man (John 1:3) and knows what is in man (John 2:25) is making a clear pronouncement on human psychology, which at such a critical moment in the service of His servants, i.e. when they face trials, persecution and death for Him, must not be merely nice theory. Jesus must express something here that is fundamental to the very essence of humanity, if He would provide any real comfort to suffering disciples. Jesus states without explanation that the soul (psychç), as over against the body (sôma) is a reality to be reckoned with. Death separates the soul from the body, since persecutors and murderers were powerless to damage the soul. On the other hand, God could certainly touch the psyche, bringing both it and the (resurrected) body into judgment and condemn the whole man! (Cf. John 5:24-29; Revelation 20:11-15; Acts 24:15) Out of this information arise several important conclusions:

Man is not merely an animal, although his mammalian body certainly shares many characteristics with animals. The destiny of his psyche is not enmeshed with that of his body. (It is the other way around, Romans 8:23) Therefore his morality must not be that of an animal morality devolving into civilized bestiality. His psyche certainly lives in the body and is definitely influenced to a certain extent by it. (See 1 Peter 2:11; 1 Peter 4:1-6; Galatians 5:17; Galatians 5:24; Romans 6:1 to Romans 8:39) But Jesus-' demand (and the Apostolic theology of the NT backs Him up) is that man's psyche is that part of man which makes the decisions hence is responsible to God. (Cf. Matthew 10:39; Matthew 16:24-27; Luke 12:20; Revelation 6:9; Revelation 20:4; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 13:11-14)

Man's soul, contrary to the views of many, has real existence beyond the grave, and after the resurrection of the just and unjust (John 5:28-29) must stand whole, body and soul reunited, before his Maker to give account. And in this state God will destroy those fearful recreants who denied Jesus.

It is fruitless to speculate whether God intends to annihilate the wicked after their judgment (destroy the soul and body in gehenna,) since many clear texts and single Greek words (like apòllumi, apoleia, olethros) solve the problem by stating in unequivocal language what the fate of the wicked shall be after a few billion years more or less. However, we must remember that human language is a very limited tool for describing the exact nature of the fate of the wicked, since that is not an experience which is common enough to humans to require words to express it. Even the best of human language to express this is figurative, since we have not experiences of infinity (boundless space) or eternity (endless time) or hell (endless punishment). So, every word God has used to warn us of the latter is a word borrowed from the usual human vocabulary, invented to describe the experiences we do have. (See below on Gehenna and compare the same figurative use of language to describe heavenly realities, Revelation 21:22.)

So what the Scriptures actually do produce is a picture of what the fate of the wicked will be like. Just as the reality of God's plans for the saved will be better than any word-picture He has drawn of it, so the reality of God's punishment for the wicked can be worse than any terms He has used to describe it.

Even if annihilation were the actual meaning of the Bible language, this offers no hope in any way to the sinner who hopes to have his way in this life, dash through God's judgment on his way out past a short period of punishment for his misdeeds, after which he just fades out into a blissful nonexistence. There is no hope even in what the human sinner thinks will be non-existence, since God is able to punish him even in that state which human beings describe as non-existence. How? Even if God had used the word non-existence or annihilation, it does not follow that the sinner fully understands the objective reality God is describing by that term, any better than he understands inextinguishable fire or undying worms. (Cf. Matthew 3:12; Mark 6:48)

In an excellent article that presents the view held by this author, James Orr (ISBE, 2501-2504), after giving practically unassailable Scriptural evidence for the view that the finally unrepentant will be eternally punished, still remarks:

While dogmatisms like the above (i.e. universal salvation, annihilation and second probation, HEF), which seem opposed to Scripture, are to be avoided, it is equally necessary to guard against dogmatisms of an opposite kind, as if eternity must not, in the nature of the case, have its undisclosed mysteries of which we here in time can frame no conception. The difficulties connected with the ultimate destinies of mankind are truly enormous, and no serious thinker will minimize them. Scripture does not warrant it in negative, any more than in positive, dogmatisms; with its uniformly practical aim, it does not seek to satisfy an idle curiosity (cf. Luke 13:23-24). Its language is bold, popular, figurative, intense; the essential idea is to be held fast, but what is said cannot be taken as a directory to all that is to transpire in the ages upon ages of an unending duration. God's methods of dealing with sin in the eternities may prove to be as much above our present thoughts as His dealings now are with men in grace. In His hands we must be content to leave it, only using such light as His immediate revelation yields.

For further notes on the punishment of the wicked, see below.

Another important conclusion that comes out of this revelation of the dual nature of man is the realization that Jesus is challenging to the very core His disciples-' real acceptance of the existence of the spirit world. In the most emphatic way the Lord is demanding that they decide immediately whether they believe in His dual-sided world view with its immediate, tangible, physical world so near at hand, and its invisible, apparently distant world of the spirit. This contrast will become even sharper as well as more evident later (Matthew 10:32-33): men (here on earth) versus my Father who is in heaven.

But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Here again the Master puts the real faith of His people to the test by probing their grasp of this reality: You stand, not before the judgment of human persecutors but before the bar of God! (see on Matthew 10:32-33) He is sounding out the firmness of their real convictions about future, hence seemingly unreal, events. He does this, because He knows there is nothing so anchoring to the soul as a sound eschatology. But rather fear him. There is nothing basically wrong with being afraid, since God Himself created in us this drive to self-protection, of which fear is the emotional expression. The burning question is, then, not whether we should fear or not, but of WHOM should we be afraid, of dying men or of the living God? Bruce (Training, 114) reminds us that the wisdom of the serpent lies in knowing what to fear.

That we may assume that him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell is God, and not Satan, is proved by the observation that, while the tempter. is him who, when one is in danger, whispers, Save thyself at any sacrifice of principle or conscience, (Bruce, Training, 115), Satan is not the ultimate reality, not the final Judge with whom we have to do. It is true that his conniving results in getting men destroyed in hell, but he himself will suffer the same fate at the hands of the living God against whom he has led the human rebellion. (Revelation 20:10-15) So it is God who executes the sentence mentioned here and thus must be feared. Plummer (Luke, 319) is right to observe that we are not in Scripture told to feat Satan, but to resist him courageously (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9);. Fear God and resist the devil-' is scriptural doctrine.

But is fear a proper motive for ethical conduct? Jesus thinks so and does not hesitate to produce it in any disciple who is tempted to be disloyal. With so much at stake as the faithful proclamation of the Gospel and the salvation of men, especially the soul of the Christian witness himself, Jesus must appeal to the strongest motivation possible. Lenski (Matthew, 410) writes:

By the fear of God (He would) drive out the fear of men.. This is not childlike fear, the motive of filial obedience, but the terrifying fear of God's holy burning wrath which would strike us if we yielded to the fear of men and denied His Word and His will, Psalms 90:11; Matthew 3:7. This is the fear which really belongs to the enemies of God and Christ, the fear from which they try to hide by their self-deception, which yet will at last overwhelm them. It is really not to touch the disciple's heart save as a last extremity when nothing else will keep him true.

This is not a slavish fear, based only on the conviction of God's sheer power to destroy, a conviction bare of any sense of His love or justice. It is rather a fear of God because He is right. Our deep sense of the sheer holiness of God will not only deepen our fear that God will punish us, but it strengthens our fear that we should grieve His love. Here is a paradox: He teaches us to fear, that we might be fearless! The explanation: the man who fears God has nothing else to fear. Yes, fear is a worthy motive for ethical conduct. Bruce (Training, 114) points out that there are two kinds of deaths, one caused by the sword, the other by unfaithfulness to duty. In so saying, he puts his finger on the menace of the second death. (Cf. Revelation 20:11-15) Barclay (Matthew, I, 400) carries the thought further:

There are things which are worse than death; and disloyalty is worse than death. If a man is guilty of disloyalty, if he buys security at the expense of dishonour, life is no longer tolerable. He cannot face men; he cannot face himself; and ultimately he cannot face God. There are times when comfort, safety, ease, life itself can cost too much.

The most cruel persecution is child's play compared with falling into the hands of the living God! (Hebrews 10:26-39) While fear is not the highest motive for ethical conduct and granted that love and a sense of duty should be the driving force that keeps a Christian faithful under fire, Jesus meets His disciples where they might be at their weakest. He says, If you must fear, fear God! (For the other side of the question, see my article The Reasonableness of the Redeemer's Rewards for Righteousness, Matthew, I, 198-201.)

Destroy both soul and body in hell. Hell here is not a literal translation of Jesus-' word, but it is a good paraphrase of His meaning. Jesus said Gehenna, and, in so doing, illustrated perfectly the state of our knowledge (or better: our ignorance) of the spirit-world just beyond this life, as well as illustrating what is meant by the word revelation. As stated above, we do not have any absolutely correct or even adequate concept of hell, so anything God (or Jesus here) wants to say about His punishment of the wicked, He must reduce to human concepts, language and thought-forms. That is, He wants us to understand something significant about it; otherwise, He could tell it the way it is and still leave us in the dark about its nature, because of our inability to understand such profound concepts. Jesus makes a passing reference to a place where God destroys people, in, Gehenna, (en geénnç). Though Gehenna is the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic form of the Hebrew Gç-Hinnom, valley of Hinnom, referring to a ravine south of Jerusalem, its literal meaning has little to do with eternal divine wrath. But every time the word is used in the NT it designates the place of eternal punishment of the wicked. (See Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 18:9; Matthew 23:15; Matthew 23:33; Mark 9:43; Mark 9:45; Mark 9:47; Luke 12:5; James 3:6) How Gehenna came to mean hell is not so important at this point as the fact that it DOES mean it.

Two causes are offered to explain this use of the valley of Hinnom as the technical designation for the place of final punishment. This valley of Jerusalem has been the zone near Jerusalem where the abominable worship of Molech was perpetrated (cf. Leviticus 18:21; Leviticus 20:2-5; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 2 Chronicles 33:6). Due to this practice, when these repulsive idolatries were abolished by King Josiah (2 Kings 23:10), the zone was defiled. Later Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7:32; Matthew 19:1-13), in reference to this defiled area, prophesied that all Jerusalem would be so defiled. Refuse of all kinds, even human carcasses, was cast into this area, making it the garbage dump of the city. Fires were kept burning to consume the rubbish. Gesenius (Lexicon, 872) takes Topheth as signifying a place of burning (the dead), and even place of graves, although he admits that many commonly derive the word from a place to spit upon, i.e. abhorred. However, since this place appears to have borne this name among even idolaters themselves, he prefers a place of burning. It is this meaning that causes Isaiah to use the word Topheth metonymically of the burning place for the King of Assyria. The idea of Gehenna, or valley of Hinnom in which the Topheth was located, as a type of Hell seems to be derived by making a symbolic name from the above passages and from the horrible practices that took place in this valley. The continual burning of the garbage there may have also rendered the name synonymous with extreme defilement. (See ISBE, 1183, 1371; Edersheim, Life, I, 550, 551; II, 280, 281) The passage from earthly and temporal defilement in a place notorious for human sin and suffering, to the place where the wicked would be finally and eternally punished, then, becomes a natural step.

The point is that Jesus, in attempting to reveal to us what we cannot otherwise know or even imagine about the garbage dump of the universe, makes use of a well-known word that conveys to the Jewish mind all the abhorrence, defilement, pain and suffering associated with Gehenna, the garbage dump of Jerusalem. But this offal heap will be like no other destruction we have ever known, since its character is also like a lake of fire (Revelation 20:14), eternal fire (Matthew 18:8); a furnace of fire (Matthew 13:42) and yet with all the light one usually associates with fire, the same place is called outer darkness! (Matthew 8:12), a place where men gnash their teeth, even though they have been toothless for years. In order to form a clear idea about the revelation Jesus has given of the ultimate fate of the unrepentant, consult the following pertinent passages: Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 10:28; Matthew 18:8-9; Mark 9:43; Mark 9:45; Mark 9:47-48; Luke 12:5; Matthew 23:15; Matthew 23:33; Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:41-42; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 25:41; Matthew 25:46; James 3:6; Luke 16:22-24; Luke 16:28; Jude 1:12-13; Revelation 14:9-11; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10; Revelation 20:14-15; Revelation 21:8; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9. Two excellent articles on the question are Foster's The Teaching of Jesus Concerning Hell, (The Final Week, 102-119) and Orr's article Punishment in ISBE, 2501ff.

What a motive for endurance! Those who have put God in His rightful place in their scheme of things and fully understood what this must mean to them in the moment of trial before human tormentors, have nothing more serious to fear than death from them. But those who have not settled this one fundamental question, or who have settled it wrongly, must necessarily find themselves prey to the usual human terrors and die a thousand times before their deaths. (Cf. Isaiah 8:11-15; 1 Peter 3:14; Hebrews 13:6; Revelation 2:10)

3. THE CARE OF THE CREATOR (10:29-31)

Here is Jesus-' next motive for steadfastness despite all that man can contrive, God is not merely the Judge before whom the disciples must stand: He is your Father, and, with this word that evokes all of the encouraging, comforting power of that relationship, the Lord excites all the unyielding incorruptible allegiance that family pride can demand. Here is the perfect mixture of a proper fear of the Lord nicely balanced with a confident love for the Father. Jesus is not satisfied to place before His people only the sterile fear of a critical Judge. Nor can He permit His children to conceive of Him as an indulgent great Buddy in the skies, who has only endless love and requires nothing from those selfish monsters who would call themselves His people.

Matthew 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Jesus-' use of oucbi instead of mç, indicates that He expected His listeners to agree that this was the going price on these seemingly insignificant birds, incidentally informing us that sparrows were an article of commerce. ISBE (2839) comments: This is a reference to the common custom of the East of catching small birds, and selling them to be skinned, roasted and sold as tid-bitsa bird to a mouthful. And not one of them shall fall on the ground, whether caught in a trap (cf. Psalms 91:3; Psalms 124:7; Proverbs 6:5) or killed, without your Father'S knowledge and consent (àneu toû patròs humôn, Arndt-Gingrich, 64). Not one of them: this is a bit more expressive than none of them taken in a collective sense, even though, ultimately, the general meaning is the same. This throws the emphasis upon the one bird: Not even one of them, though many of them could be bought for little. The bird-seller in the market would cry Two sparrows for one thin copper coin! Today five birds for the price of four, with one thrown into the bargain! (Cf. Luke 12:6) This means that even the odd sparrow, the one thrown in for good measure, is dear to God. Luke has Not one of them is forgotten before God. Jesus could not have made it any plainer that each and every bird is individually present in God's mind when it dies. This will be driven home when He makes His application in verse 31.

Your Father is a far different concept from the Creator of sparrows, as far different as the emotional impact that it makes. (See notes on Matthew 6:26; Matthew 6:32, Vol. I) While assuring us of God's omniscience, the Savior intimates that our Father not only knows such detailed information as the fall of sparrows, but feels and cares about us.

Matthew 10:30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Several commentators have insisted upon the difference between counting hairs and numbering them. Does the Greek word aritheméo justify this distinction?

If so, then perhaps Morgan (Matthew, 110) is right in saying,

Jesus said God numbers them. Counting is a human process. Numbering is more than counting. It is attaching a value to every one, almost labeling each; a far more wonderful thing than counting.

Or, as Lenski (Matthew, 412) has it:

Jesus says that each hair is not only counted as one but has its own number and is thus individually known and distinguished. So if any one hair is removed, God knows precisely which one it is.

However, Arndt-Gingrich (105) translate arithméo simply count, which, in relation to the practical insignificance of human hairs in the universe, may merely affirm that Jesus-' expression is but a proverbial expression, without intending to affirm that God spends His time operating a current file on the past, present and future vicissitudes of hairs! (Cf. 1 Samuel 14:45; 2 Samuel 14:11; Luke 21:18; Acts 27:34)

Thus, in these two parallel illustrations, Jesus advances His argument from God's interest and care about relatively minute things outside us, to God's care for minutiae connected with us. The smaller the object used as a basis of comparison, the less its value, the greater is the force of Jesus-' argument: God knows what is happening to His children, and He knows how to care for them. This puts muscle into the demand the Lord had made earlier that the Apostles go out without what would seem to be absolutely necessary provisions. (Matthew 10:9-10)

Matthew 10:31 Fear not therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows. This deliberate understatement is similar to another: If your Father notes the fall of the tiniest sparrow, do you suppose He could somehow miss a Boeing 747? (Cf. Matthew 12:12) Not only is man so much larger than a sparrow, and consequently would be more obvious visible to the gaze of God, but also man is of so much more consequence to God than any number of other creatures. But Jesus is not describing the importance of His Twelve Apostles alone, so much as He is pointing to the excelling importance of any disciple. (Cf. Luke 12:6-7)

Fear not therefore. This admonition connects this lovely picture of the love of God, with the horrible revelations of the uncertainties and the unknowns in the disciples-' future, mentioned earlier. But this is just the point: God's concern for and care of His people is not just pie in the sky by and by, but practical strengthening, comfort and provision in the present. Fear, then, is SIN and punishable in hell. The list of hell's inmates has the cowardly, the timid, those without faith at the top of the list! (Revelation 21:8) This is because fear presupposes that God is somehow paying no attention to our needs or else our plight could somehow escape His notice. Fear would even blame God for appearing not to care about us or feel our weakness or pain. Fear would hold that the mere mechanics of running the universe, a task suitable for an omnipotent and omniscient Being, could occupy the entire attention of Him who created man for His own fellowship! To this Jesus cries: No! Your care, your needs, your struggles, your sufferingYOU are of more value to God than any combination of intricate or minute details involved in steering the stars or spotting sparrows! What a motive for enduring faithfully whatever may come! Barclay (Matthew, I, 402) puts it so well:

God's love for men is seen not only in the omnipotence of creation and the great events of history; it is also seen in the day-to-day nourishment of the bodies, of men. (Cf. Psalms 136, esp. Psalms 136:25) The courage of the King's messenger is founded on the conviction that, whatever happens, he cannot drive beyond the love and care of God. He knows that his times are forever in God's hands; that God will not leave him nor forsake him; that he is surrounded for ever by the care of God. And if this is soof whom then shall we be afraid?

Is it possible to imagine, much less actually meet, the man who was in want, because he had trusted God too much and gave too much to Christ and His work? Even if that man loses every possession he ever owned and actually were wondering where his next meal were coming from, would he consider himself in want, so great is his love for and dependence upon God? Jesus takes man's other responsibilities into consideration elsewhere (see notes on Matthew 6:19-34), so He is not encouraging indolence at all. Rather, the commands in this context require that the disciple work to the limit of his capacity as if everything depended upon his achievement, and God will provide his needs, since, ultimately, everything depends upon God.

FACT QUESTIONS

Explain the figures of speech involved in this section, showing to what Jesus referred by each figure: sheep, wolves, serpents, doves.

Name several occasions upon which the very things predicted in this passage actually took place in the life and ministry of the people regarding whom Jesus was here speaking. Show how they responded in splendid obedience to Jesus-' instructions.

List the specific instructions Jesus gave whereby the disciples were psychologically prepared to avoid anxiety.

What does Jesus mean by the expression: It is not you that speak but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you?

To the end of what must the disciples endure?

Explain why the disciples were to flee to another city when they were not received in one city.

List some of the various explanations offered for the phrase: till the Son of man be come, and then give your reasons why you accept the interpretation you do.

Explain what Jesus meant by the reference to students and teachers, servants and lords. How does this reference advance His argument?

Define the word Beelzebul and explain its reference in this context.

10.

Explain the reference to revealing what has been covered or hid. About what part of the disciples-' ministry was Jesus talking? Was this a promise or a threat, an encouragement or a warning, or both?

11.

How did people account for the miracles of Jesus? How did others account for the miraculous phenomenon seen among the Apostles at Pentecost?

12.

What is Jesus-' meaning in His argument about who has real power to destroy both soul and body?

13.

To whom does Jesus refer when He describes someone who can destroy both body and soul in hell?

14.

In this serious discussion involving the life and death questions touching the survival of His disciples, what is the point of the reference to the price of sparrows?

15.

In what other connections had Jesus used His argument based on the value of sparrows and the exact count of hairs on one's head? What is the underlying connection in each case that makes this a pithy proverb expressing a great truth?

16.

Does the expression destroy both soul and body in hell refer to total annihilation of the wicked or those who deny Christ, or is this merely a vivid expression describing eternal punishment? On what basis do you answer as you do?

17.

Give a short summary of the biblical teaching on the subject of hell. In so doing, explain the reference to Gehenna.

18.

State the declarations in this text that suggest or openly emphasize Jesus-' divine authority.

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Matthew 10:16-31

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