Matthew 10:18

Matthew 10:18. And moreover. An additional thought. Besides trials before Jewish spiritual tribunals, they should be brought before governors and kings, before the civil tribunals as common criminals. All kinds of magistrates and rulers are meant. The civil power has often aided ecclesiastical persecutors. Romanists still justify this step.

For a testimony to them and the Gentiles. Probably an allusion to the ‘witness-bearing' of martyrdom. This testimony was, of the truth, and made to the Jews (‘them') and the Gentiles, yet it was also ‘against' both, in so far as they rejected the truth. Persecution extended the testimony; the martyrdom extended the truth.