Matthew 10:1

Matthew 10:1

In Matthew 10:1-8 Jesus sent out the twelve disciples to go from village to village with the message that He gave to them. He gave them power to perform miracles; probably to validate the authority of the message that the disciples presented. Today, our authority is the written Word of God.

The disciples had turned from their sins to follow Jesus. They had sat at His feet and learned His teachings. It was now time to share what they had learned with others. There is a time to be saved, and there is a time to learn. There is also a time to speak what you have learned. Even the meaning of the word "apostle" that is used here in Matthew 10:2 indicates this. The word "apostle" means one who is sent out. The apostles came to God, they learned from God and then they were sent out by God.

We know that all of the 12 apostles were Jews, just as Jesus was also a Jew. We also know that the ministry of Jesus was a fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that He came to fulfill the law. Some of the promises about the Messiah centered around the nation of Israel. God had planned that the nation of Israel could have been His instrument to bring the knowledge of God to the rest of the world. The Israelites were never supposed to draw wagons around themselves and separate themselves from the rest of the world, because God’s purpose for them was to be a blessing and to spread the truth about God to all other nations and peoples. For example, in Deuteronomy 10:19 God says to the Israelites, "Love you therefore the stranger: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Remember that the Lord had promised to Abraham that through his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed. Even though Israel ultimately failed as a nation to fulfill this divine purpose, God did not fail to keep His promise. It was through the Messiah, who came through the nation of Israel, that the ultimate blessing is offered to all the peoples of the earth. Isaiah 42:6 says about the Messiah, "I the Lord have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." Jesus came by way of the Jews, but His life ended forever the difference between Jew and Gentile.

Before Jesus came, the Israelites lived under the law and they were often warned of the consequences that they would bring upon themselves if their hearts became hardened and they forgot the Lord their God. Deuteronomy 4:26-27 says, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed. And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the heathen, where the Lord shall lead you."

For hundreds and hundreds of years God showed His great patience with the nation of Israel. Finally, during the ministry of Jesus the Messiah, God gave the nation of Israel one last chance. In a real sense the gospel was offered to the Jews first. One who was greater than Abraham, greater than Moses, and greater than King David came by way of the nation of Israel and came to the nation of Israel. But as a nation, they rejected Jesus the Messiah. God did not reject the Jews. The Jews rejected Him on a national level. In Matthew 23:37-38 Jesus said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets, and stone them which are sent unto you, how often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." Today the Jews are the same as the Gentiles and they are treated the same by God. They are individuals who are sinners in need of a Savior to forgive them their sins.

The question might be asked, "What about the nation of Israel today?" because there is a nation in the Middle East with the name of Israel. Today the nation of Israel is no longer any different from any other nation on the earth. They are the same as Russia, France, Syria, China, or the USA, etc. They are simply a nation made up of people who are sinners in need of a Savior and sheep in need of a shepherd.

As a matter of fact all barriers between people can be broken down by God through Christ. Don’t let the prejudices of the world remain as a part of your philosophy of life if you are a believer. Galatians 3:28 says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus." It is a great shame in American culture that there are organizations and churches that call themselves Christian and yet are made up of people from only one race. I hope that it is not because other races are not welcome.

When Jesus told the disciples to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, in Matthew chapter 10, Jesus meant for that to be a temporary circumstance only. Jesus himself had already offered forgiveness of sins to both the Jew and the non-Jew. We find later in the New Testament that the disciples were very confused about this offer of the gospel to both Jew and Gentile. In the book of Acts we know that it took several miracles in the form of dreams and the appearance of angels, in order for Peter and the other disciples to understand that there was no longer any difference between Jew and Gentile in the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Acts chapter 10 goes into much detail to explain what it took to get Peter to realize this. The key verses of the whole chapter are Acts 10:15 which says, "What God has cleansed, that call not thou common," and Acts 10:45 which says, "And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit."

There is something to always remember about what the disciples did in the Gospels and in the book of Acts. The 12 disciples were all Jews who lived in a strict Jewish culture of 2,000 years ago. Some of the Jewish traditions and beliefs of the disciples were misguided and ill advised, and it took the disciples years to get straightened out about some issues. For example, like most Jews of their day, they did not understand that the promises about the Messiah would be fulfilled in two phases. The first phase was when Jesus came to fulfill the law and die for the sins of the world, and the second phase is when He will come again to transform the world’s system and to deliver the final blow to put an end to all that opposes and resists God.

Make sure to spread the message of the gospel, but be careful about copying some of the things that the disciples did just because they did them in the gospels or in the book of Acts. Some of the things that the disciples did they probably should not have done and we should not copy those things. For example, some things the disciples did simply because they were Jews and they had traditions left over from their Jewish past. We certainly should not copy these things. For example, the disciples cast lots to pick a replacement for Judas, and Paul shaved himself bald and took a Jewish vow on one of his visits to Jerusalem. These types of things we definitely would not copy.

Human traditions come about when humans copy the actions or man-made phraseology of other humans. By following the traditions of men, you will set aside the commandments of God. This tendency to be a follower of men instead of a follower of God is one of the reasons for the establishment of the various denominations and the resulting divisions among Christians. First Corinthians 3:3-4 speaks of this problem and says, "For you are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are you not carnal, and walk as men? For while one says, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are you not carnal?"

We must make sure that we have the same message as the disciples, but not necessarily the same methods. It is obvious how important it is that we have the same message. Paul said in Galatians 1:8, "But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." But the methods that we use need to fit our culture, and the opportunities of the day in which we live.

In too many ways Christians do what they do because of tradition, and eventually become ineffective because tradition is the following of men; but the work of God can only be done by following God. One example of this is the modern missionary movement that began in the last century. In the 19th century, some Christians in Western countries came to realize the hypocrisy of enjoying the blessings of God, while not doing enough to spread the gospel to those in other parts of the world. Believers began going to isolated places of the world with the purpose of presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ. To do this required certain types of sacrifice, spending years learning another language, being dependent upon financial gifts from others, and facing disease and deprivation. It can truly be said that the world will never be able to give the proper credit to some of those missionaries for the years of sacrifice and labor that they gave. Some believers gave their own lives in the cause of Christ. They did all this for the sake of seeing a few more people have the opportunity of hearing the good news about the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ.

In spite of their great accomplishments, a tradition was established whereby some Christian organizations began to think that to serve God and spread the gospel around the world meant that one had to leave one’s occupation and means of income, become dependent upon others in a financial sense, and spend years learning another language and living in another culture. Actually, every believer is called to be a missionary: to say and do things to help spread the gospel. There should not be a difference between missionaries and the rest of the believers. Much of the terminology and organizational arrangements by which missionaries are outfitted and sent around the world has today lost its effectiveness because it has now often become based upon human tradition to do these things, instead of what motivated the believers 100 or more years ago who first did them.

One of the lessons learned from all of the years of missionary activity has been that usually the most effective believers at reaching a certain people are those who are natives of that country, and usually not the foreigners who came there. Who would you more readily listen to in your neighborhood: a foreigner who spoke with a thick accent, who dressed and looked differently than you, and who was a total stranger; or someone from your own town who spoke the way you speak?

This entire concept of language and its importance in spreading the gospel was probably the reason for the gift of tongues that was given to many of the early Christians. The word "tongue" simply means language, as we use it when we say, "What is your native tongue?" Acts chapter 2:4 says, "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues..." The next few verses in Acts 2 explained what was meant by "tongues". Verse 6 says, "...every man heard them speak in his own language." And verse 8 says, "And how hear we every man in our own tongue?"

Hearing the gospel clearly and fluently in one’s own language was so important during the days of the New Testament that God gave the gift of tongues. It is just as important today that people hear the gospel clearly in their own language. Who can better spread the gospel than someone who is a native of a given country. Things have changed. There are different kinds of opportunities to spread the gospel in our day than existed a hundred years ago. There are better ways of using the resources that are now available, than simply following the traditions of what believers did one hundred or more years ago. It is very obvious that there is still a tremendous potential to reach people with the use of mass communications, as well as computer networks such as the Internet.

There are other opportunities of reaching people around the world that perhaps have never been used before. It is only for you and I to think of them. The world is getting smaller. People from many countries are traveling and coming into contact with each other as never before in the history of the human race. There are probably more immigrants in America now as never before, both legal and illegal. There are literally thousands upon thousands of people from all over the world right here in our country. Most of them are learning English, so we do not usually have to learn their language in order to speak to them. They have been uprooted from their cultures, and they are strangers here in America, and they are therefore much more receptive to an American befriending them and offering them the gospel. Some of them will eventually go back to their native land to visit old friends or relatives or to retire. Just think of the possibilities if they should do so and take the gospel with them. The point is that there may be better ways, more effective and more cost efficient ways, of spreading the gospel around the world than could be done by copying the methods of believers who lived one hundred years ago. You should thank the Lord whenever a foreigner moves into your community because the Lord might be giving you the opportunity to reach out to them with the gospel. Instead of sending you to a mission field, the Lord has brought a mission field to you. Time will tell what you will do with these opportunities. As the Lord said, "The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few."

In Matthew 10:8-10 the Lord told the disciples, "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses. Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat." The emphasis of this passage is the little phrase where Jesus said, "freely you have received, freely give." When anyone receives the gospel, they receive it from God. Forgiveness of sins is free. Truth is free. Eternal life is free. They were purchased by Jesus Christ. He gave His life in order that we might receive these things freely. Therefore, when Jesus sent out the apostles with the message of the gospel, He reminded them that His purpose was to send them out to give and to give freely.

One of the problems with organized Christianity is that so many churches and organizations have put themselves into the place where they must constantly seek large sums of money in order to continue to do all the things that they do and in order to continue to support the massive organization that they have built up. If anyone ever tells you to send your money to Jesus and to put their name and address on the envelope, you should at least question seriously if they were sent by Jesus. Jesus told the disciples to be givers and not takers. The gospel is free because it was paid for by the blood of Christ. No minister of the gospel of Christ should ever give the impression that their primary purpose is to obtain large sums of money in offerings. No minister of the gospel should ever live in luxury because of offerings that were given to them for spreading the gospel. Jesus said, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

___________________________________________________