X. (1) What is described here is not the choice, but the mission of the Twelve. That selection had been made before (Luke 6:13), and the number at once suggested the thought that they represented the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28), and were as such to be His messengers to the whole people... [ Continue Reading ]
A comparison of the four lists of the Apostles (Matthew 10:2; Mark 3:16; Luke 6:13; Acts 1:13) brings out some interesting facts. (1.) The name of Peter is always first, that of Judas always last. In the former case we recognise acknowledged preeminence. The position of the latter may have been the... [ Continue Reading ]
GO NOT INTO THE WAY OF THE GENTILES. — The emphatic limitation seems at first sight at variance with the language which had spoken of those who should come from east and west to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God, and with the fact that our Lord had already taken His dis... [ Continue Reading ]
PREACH — _i.e.,_ “proclaim — act as heralds,” as elsewhere. The repetition of the self-same words as had described first the Baptist’s teaching and then our Lord’s, seems to suggest that this was actually a formula of proclamation. The two envoys of the King were to enter into town or village, and t... [ Continue Reading ]
RAISE THE DEAD. — The words are omitted by the best MSS., and their absence is more in accordance with the facts of the Gospel history, which records no instance of that highest form of miracle as wrought by the disciples during our Lord’s ministry. That was reserved for His own immediate act. The i... [ Continue Reading ]
NEITHER GOLD, NOR SILVER. — “Silver” alone is named in St. Luke; brass — _i.e.,_ bronze or copper coinage — in St. Mark. St. Matthew’s report includes all the three forms of the money then in circulation. The tense of the word rendered “provide” requires notice. It implies that if they had money, th... [ Continue Reading ]
SCRIP. — The practical obsoleteness of the word in modern English makes it necessary to remind readers of the New Testament that the “scrip” or wallet was a small basket carried on the back, or by a strap hanging from one shoulder, containing the food of the traveller. So David carried in his scrip... [ Continue Reading ]
ENQUIRE WHO IN IT IS WORTHY. — The command was a plain practical rule. The habits of Eastern hospitality would throw many houses open to the preachers which would give no openings for their work, or even bring on them an evil report. From these they were to turn away and to seek out some one who, th... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEN YE COME INTO AN HOUSE. — The English indefinite article is misleading. We must read “into _the_ house,” _i.e.,_ the dwelling of the man who had been reported as worthy. The salutation, as the words that follow imply, was the familiar, “Peace be with thee — Peace be to this house” (Luke 10:5).... [ Continue Reading ]
IF THE HOUSE BE WORTHY. — The doubt implied in the “if” seems at first somewhat inconsistent with the supposition that they only went into the house after having ascertained the worthiness of the occupant. It must be remembered, however, that the missionaries entered each city or village as stranger... [ Continue Reading ]
SHAKE OFF THE DUST OF YOUR FEET. — The act was a familiar symbol of the sense of indignation, as in the case of St. Paul (Acts 13:51) at Antioch in Pisidia. The Jewish maxim, that even the very dust of a heathen land brought defilement with it, added to its significance. It was a protest in act, dec... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THE LAND OF SODOM AND GOMORRHA. — The thought implied in the previous verse is now expressly asserted. The cities that stood out, in the history of the world, as most conspicuous for their infamy, were yet less guilty (as sinning less against light and knowledge) than those who rejected the mess... [ Continue Reading ]
I SEND YOU FORTH. — The nominative pronoun is emphatic, “It is I who send,” and that not so much as an assurance of protection, but, as the words that follow show, as reminding them of their responsibility as His delegates. AS SHEEP IN THE MIDST OF WOLVES. — Nothing can be more striking than the un... [ Continue Reading ]
TO THE COUNCILS. — The plural shows that our Lord referred, not to the Great Council or Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, but to the lesser councils connected with provincial synagogues that had power to judge and punish persons accused of offences against religion. THEY WILL SCOURGE YOU IN THEIR SYNAGOGUES.... [ Continue Reading ]
YE SHALL BE BROUGHT BEFORE GOVERNORS AND KINGS. — The words are significant as looking forward (if we assume the unity of the discourse) to that future work among the Gentiles upon which the Twelve were told that they were not as yet to enter. “Rulers” stands always in the New Testament for the gove... [ Continue Reading ]
TAKE NO THOUGHT. — In the same sense as in Matthew 6:25, “Do not at that moment be over-anxious.” The words indicate an almost tender sympathy with the feelings of Galilean disciples, “unlearned and ignorant men,” standing before those who were counted so much their superiors in power and knowledge.... [ Continue Reading ]
IT IS NOT YE THAT SPEAK. — The words are strong. Human thoughts and purposes seem as if utterly suppressed, and the inspiring agency alone is recognised. It would be obviously beside the drift of our Lord’s discourse to make this promise of special aid in moments of special danger the groundwork of... [ Continue Reading ]
THE BROTHER. — The nouns are in the Greek without the article, “brother shall deliver up brother,” and are thus, perhaps, more forcible as statements of what should happen often. Our English idiom, however, allows the use of the article with nearly the same meaning. The words reproduce almost verbal... [ Continue Reading ]
HATED OF ALL MEN FOR MY NAME’S SAKE. — Here, as before, the words sketch out the history of the persecution with a precision which marks and attests the divine foreknowledge. From the days of Stephen to that of the last martyr under Diocletian it was always as a Christian and for the name of Christ... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEN THEY PERSECUTE YOU The counsel is noteworthy as suggesting at least one form of the wisdom of the serpent. Men were not to imagine that they were “enduring to the end “when, in the eagerness of their zeal, they courted martyrdom; but were rather to avoid danger instead of courting it, and to ut... [ Continue Reading ]
THE DISCIPLE IS NOT ABOVE HIS MASTER. — The proverb was probably a common one, and is used by our Lord (as in Luke 6:40; John 13:16; John 15:20) with more than one application. Here the thought is, “Be not amazed or cast down at these prophecies of evil days; in all your sufferings you will but be f... [ Continue Reading ]
IT IS ENOUGH. — Here also we note a tone of grave and tender sympathy, not without the gentle play of feeling which the words seem to betoken. To be as their Master in anything, even in shame and suffering, might well be enough for any scholar. BEELZEBUB. — The Greek gives the form _Beel-zebul._ Its... [ Continue Reading ]
FEAR THEM NOT THEREFORE: FOR... — The words that bid them banish fear look backward and forward. Why should they be afraid when they were only suffering what their Master Himself had suffered, and when they could look forward to the open publicity of His triumph? In that day the veil that now concea... [ Continue Reading ]
WHAT I TELL YOU IN DARKNESS. — The words point to our Lord’s method of teaching, as well as to the fact of its being esoteric, and disclosed only to the chosen few, and to them only as they were “able to bear it” (John 16:12). Parables, and dark sayings, and whispered hints, and many-sided proverbs,... [ Continue Reading ]
ARE NOT ABLE TO KILL THE SOUL. — Here our Lord uses what we may call the popular dichotomy of man’s nature, and the word “soul” includes all that truly lives and thinks and wills in man, and is therefore equivalent to the “soul and spirit_”_ of the more scientific trichotomy of St. Paul’s Epistles ... [ Continue Reading ]
ARE NOT TWO SPARROWS SOLD FOR A FARTHING? — The coin mentioned here is not the same as the “farthing” of Mark 12:42. The word there is _kodrantçs,_ the _quadrans,_ or fourth part, of the Roman _as;_ here it is _assarion,_ the diminutive of the _as,_ and equal to the tenth part of the _denarius._ The... [ Continue Reading ]
THE VERY HAIRS OF YOUR HEAD. — The apparent hyperbole of the figure is but the natural expression of the thought that even the incidents of life that seem most trivial are in very deed working together for good to those that love God. They are not at any moment of their lives to think that they are... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL CONFESS ME. — Literally, _make his confession in and for me;_ and so in the corresponding clause. The promise points forward to the great day when the Son of Man shall be enthroned in His kingdom, and then before His Father and before the angels of God (Luke 12:8) shall acknowledge His faithfu... [ Continue Reading ]
WHOSOEVER SHALL DENY ME. — As with all other eternal laws, the blessing on those who fulfil the conditions to which it is attached has its counterpart of woe on those who do not fulfil them. To deny Christ on earth by word or deed, to live as if His work were nothing to us, must lead to His denying... [ Continue Reading ]
THINK NOT THAT I AM COME TO SEND PEACE. — Truth appears again in the form of seeming paradox. Christ is “our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), and came to be the one great Peacemaker; and yet the foreseen consequences of His work involved strife and division, and such a consequence, freely accepted for the s... [ Continue Reading ]
The words are partly, as the marginal reference shows, an echo of Micah 7:6, but the selection of the special relationships as typical instances suggests the thought of some personal application. Had Zebedee looked with displeasure on the calling of his two sons? or was there variance between the da... [ Continue Reading ]
HE THAT LOVETH FATHER OR MOTHER MORE THAN ME. — The words are important, partly in themselves, partly as explaining the stronger phrase of Luke 14:26, which speaks of a man “hating father or mother” as a condition of discipleship. Where two affections come into collision, the weaker must give way; a... [ Continue Reading ]
HE THAT TAKETH NOT HIS CROSS. — The words were hardly a specific announcement of the manner of our Lord’s death, though they imply, interpreted by events, a distinct prevision of it, such as that which we trace in John 3:14. To the disciples they would recall the sad scene which Roman rule had made... [ Continue Reading ]
HE THAT FINDETH HIS LIFE. — The word is the same as that translated “soul” (_i.e.,_ that by which man lives in the lower or the higher sense of life) in Matthew 10:28. The point of the maxim lies in the contrast between the two senses. To gain the lower now is to lose the higher hereafter, and conve... [ Continue Reading ]
The discourse which had so clearly told of suffering ends with words of promise and the assurance of victory. As Christ was sent by the Father (John 20:21; comp. Hebrews 3:1), so were they His apostles and representatives; and He would count all honour and affection shown to them as shown also to Hi... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THE NAME OF A PROPHET — _i.e.,_ for the sake of that which the name connotes — the prophet’s work as a messenger of God, the righteousness of which the living righteous man is the concrete example. The distinction between the two involves the higher inspiration of the prophet as a messenger of Go... [ Continue Reading ]
ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES. — The term was familiarly used of the scholars of a Rabbi, and in this sense our Lord, as the great Master, sending forth His disciples, now employs it. He would not disregard even the cup of cold water given to the humblest disciple as such and for the sake of Christ. Take... [ Continue Reading ]