THE EQUIPING AND CONDUCT OF THE DISCIPLE OF GOD.

Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food. (Matthew 10: 8b-10)

This is a passage in which every sentence and every phrase would have rung an answering bell in the mind of the 1st century Jews who heard it. In it, Jesus was giving to his men the instructions which all the Rabbis, or at least the best of them would have also tried to give to their students and disciples.

"Freely you have received," says Jesus, "freely give," Jesus as a Jewish Rabbi was bound by the Mosaic law to give his teaching freely and for nothing. The Rabbi was absolutely forbidden to take money for teaching the Law which Moses had freely received from God. In only one case could a Rabbi accept payment. He might accept payment for teaching a child, for to teach a child is the parent's task, the Mosaic law said. No one else should be required to spend time and labour doing what is the parent's own duty to do; However, sometimes parents would pass that responsibility on to a Rabbi and pay them for the privilege, but generally religious teaching had to be given without money and without a set price.

This principle applied at other times also. In the Mishnah the Law lays it down that, if a man took payment for acting as a judge, his judgments were invalid; also, if he takes payment for giving evidence as a witness in court, his witness was void. These are legal principles that still apply to this day. 

A famous teacher from the time of Christ called Rabbi Zadok said, "Make not the Law a crown wherewith to aggrandize thyself, nor a spade wherewith to dig." Another contemporary teacher of that time called Hillel said, "He who makes a worldly use of the crown of the Law shall waste away. Hence thou mayest infer that whosoever desires a profit for himself from the words of the Law is helping on his own destruction." So, it was laid down that: "As God taught Moses freely, so should a Rabbi also. 

There is a story of another teacher from that time of Jesus called Rabbi Tarphon who told a story of how as a young Rabbi he was once walking through a fig grove after the fig harvest had taken place. As he passed through, he ate some of the figs which had been left behind. The watchmen came upon him and started to beat him. He told them who he was, and because he was a famous Rabbi they stopped and let him go. All his life he said he regretted that he had used his status as a Rabbi to save himself. In his writing he wrote, "All my days did I grieve, for woe is me, for I have used the crown of the Law for my own profit!”

When Jesus told his disciples that they had freely received and must freely give, he was telling them what the teachers of his own people had been telling their students for many years. If someone possesses a precious secret it is their duty not to hold onto to it for just themselves, but willingly to pass it on. It should be a privilege to share with others any riches God has given us, both practically and spiritually.

Jesus also tells his disciples not to set out to acquire wealth “gold or silver or bronze for their purses”. The Greek word for purse literally meant, girdle. The girdle, which the Jew wore round their waists. It was a sort of rather broad double belt, and at each end for part of its length it was double sided creating a gap within which you could keep money relatively safely. Money was carried in the double part of the girdle; so that the girdle also acted as a purse for the Jewish traveller. When Jesus told the twelve not to take a bag for the journey. The bag he is talking about was used for two things. It was often a bag like a modern-day haversack in which provisions would ordinarily have been carried. But there is another possibility. The word could have meant a collecting bag, sometimes the wandering Rabbi’s and philosophers took up a collection in a special bag after addressing a crowd. In all these instructions Jesus was not laying upon his men a deliberate and calculated discomfort. He was once again speaking words which were very familiar to all Jews of that era.

The Talmud tells us that: "No one is to go to the Temple Mount with staff, shoes, girdle of money, or dusty feet." The idea was that when a someone entered the temple, they must make it quite clear that he had left everything behind. Everything that had to do with their trade and their business and worldly affairs, all were to be left behind. What Jesus is saying to his disciples by applying this principle when the head out on mission is that they must treat the whole world as the Temple of God. If you are a child of God, you must never give the impression that your faith is in any way a business, or a profession through which one can store up wealth. How much that seems to stand in contrast to so many modern preachers who often to me seem to focus on financing their ministry or lifestyle. Jesus' instructions mean that the man of God must show by his attitude to material things is always secondary to his first interest which is to spread the message of God.

Finally, Jesus says that the workman deserves his wage/sustenance. Once again, the Jews would recognize this. It is true that a Rabbi might not accept payment, but it is also true that it was considered at the same time a privilege and an obligation to support someone who teachers from the scriptures. It was the ordinary persons responsibility to financially support a Bible teacher, if he was truly a man of God and they were learning spiritual truths and benefiting from his ministry. 

Another famous 1st century, Rabbi Jochanan, laid it down that it was the duty of every Jewish community to support a Rabbi, and the more so because a Rabbi naturally neglects his own affairs to concentrate on other people and their application of the things of God. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob said: "He who receives a Rabbi in his house, or as his guest, and lets him have enjoyment of his possessions, the scripture ascribes it to him as if he had offered the continual offerings." Here then is the double truth. 

Firstly, the man or woman of God must never be over-concerned with material things, but secondly, the people of God must never fail to see their duty to see that the Bible teachers receives reasonable support. This passage lays an obligation on both the teacher and on the people benefiting from the teaching alike.

THE CONDUCT OF GOD’S MESSENGERS

"When you enter into any city or village, make inquiries as to who in it is worthy, and stay there until you go out of it. When you come into a household, give your greetings to it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not receive you, and will not listen to your words, when you leave that house or that city, shake off the dust of it from your feet. This is the truth I tell you--it will be easier for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that city." (Matthew 10: 11-13)

Here is a passage full of the most practical advice for the Lords messengers. When they entered a city or a village, they were to seek a house that is described as worthy. The point is that if they took up their offer of support or accommodation in a house which had an bad reputation for morals or for conduct or even just for poor fellowship, it could seriously harm their reputation and thereby hinder their utility in spreading the gospel message. They were not to identify themselves with anyone who might prove to be a moral handicap. That is not for a moment to say that they were not to seek to win such people for Christ, but it is to say that the messenger of Christ must take great care with whom they make close friendships with. When they entered a house, they were to stay there until they moved on to the next place. This was a matter of courtesy. They might well be tempted, after they had won certain supporters and converts over in one place, to move on to another house which could provide more luxury, more comfort, and maybe better comfort or entertainment. The messenger of Jesus must never be seen to give the impression that they are courting people for the sake of material things, or that his movements are dictated by the demands of their own comfort.

The passage talks about giving a greeting of peace  and, as it were, taking the greeting back again. This may sound strange to us, but this was a typically middle eastern thing to do in those days. In the middle east a spoken word was thought to have a kind of active and independent existence. It went out from the mouth as independently as arrow from a bow. This idea emerges regularly in the Old Testament, especially in connection with words spoken by God. Isaiah hears God say, "By myself I have sworn, from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return void" ( Isaiah 45:23).  "So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it" ( Isaiah 55:11). Zechariah sees a flying scroll, and hears the voice: "This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land" (Zechariah 5:3). To this day in the middle east, if someone speaks their religious blessing to a passer-by, and then discovers that the passer-by is of another faith, he will sometimes come and take his blessing back again. 

The idea here is that the messengers of God can offer their blessing to rest upon a house, and, if the house is unworthy of it, can, as it were, recall it. There for when travelling as an evangelist if they find in any town or village their message is refused, then the messengers of God was free to “shake the dust of that place off their feet” and to move on. The picture painted here come from the idea that to the Jew of Jesus’ day the dust of a Gentile place or road was defiling; therefore, when the Jew crossed the border of Palestine, and entered into his own country, after a journey in Gentile lands, he shook the dust of the Gentile roads off his feet so that that the last particle of pollution might be cleansed away. So, Jesus said, "If a city or a village will not receive you, you must treat it like a Gentile place." 

Again, we must be clear as to what Jesus is saying. In this passage because there is both a temporary and an eternal truth.

(i) The temporary part of this truth is this, Jesus was not saying that certain people had to be abandoned, or that they were in any way outside the message of the gospel and beyond the reach of grace. This was an instruction like the opening instruction about not going initially to the Gentiles or the Samaritans. It came from the situation in which it was given. It was simply due to the time factor. Time was short; as many as possible must hear the proclamation of the Kingdom; there was not time then to argue with people who were seeking to be stubborn; that would come later. At the moment the disciples had to tour the whole country as quickly as possible, and therefore they had to move on when there was no immediate welcome for the message which they brought.

(ii) The permanent of this truth is this. It is one of the great basic facts of life, that time and time again an opportunity comes to someone and if not taken it passes them bye and does not come back again. To these people in Palestine there was an opportunity coming to receive the gospel, but if they did not take the opportunity, it might very well never return.  As the proverb said: "Three things do not come back, the spoken word, the spent arrow, and the lost opportunity." This happens in every sphere of life. The tragedy of life is so often the tragedy of the lost opportunity.

Finally, Jesus says, that it was said that it will be easier for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for the town or the village which has refused the message of Christ and the Kingdom. Sodom and Gomorrah are repeatedly quoted in the New Testament as proverbial representations of wickedness (Matthew 11:23-24; Luke 10:12-13; Luke 17:29; Romans 9:29; 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 1:7 ). It is interesting and relevant to note that just before those cities destruction, Sodom and Gomorrah had been guilty of an appalling breach of the laws of hospitality (Genesis 19:1-11). They, too, had rejected the messengers of God and abused his messengers. But, even at their worst, Sodom and Gomorrah had never had the opportunity to reject the message of Christ and his Kingdom. That is why it would be easier for them at the last judgement than for the towns and villages of Galilee; for it is always true that the greater the privilege has been the greater the responsibility is to respond.