When Jesus sends His disciples to proclaim the Kingdom that has drawn near, He tells them: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.” A natural question arises: why does everyone around them turn out to be a wolf? And if that is so, why and for what purpose does Jesus...
When Jesus sends His disciples to proclaim the Kingdom that has drawn near, He tells them: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.” A natural question arises: why does everyone around them turn out to be a wolf? And if that is so, why and for what purpose does Jesus send the disciples out to preach?
The answer, however, lies in the very nature of their proclamation—in what those who are sent intend to proclaim and what they are to bear witness to. The disciples are to bear witness to the Kingdom: a Kingdom that, in the Saviour's own words, is “not of this world,” and which the world rejects for that very reason. This is not even because the Kingdom is alien in nature to the world, but because it is hostile to it. The world lies in evil. If it were simply different from the Kingdom, there might be no hostility: the Kingdom's action upon the world would transfigure it, change its nature, and the world would become the Kingdom by opening itself to God's direct action. But there are forces in the world that oppose the Kingdom, and the world has submitted to them and fallen wholly under their power—which is why it is called fallen. It is therefore hostile to the Kingdom, not by nature, but because of the present state of that nature. Consequently, everyone who lives by the laws of this world becomes hostile to everyone who lives by the Kingdom and bears witness to it.
This opposition is as organic as that between wolves and sheep. Wolves do not attack sheep out of malice, but out of hunger. Indeed, the same is true of predators in general and their prey: it is nothing personal, only the necessity of survival. Unlike the well-known character in Krylov's fable, neither wolves nor other predators look for excuses. “It is your fault that I want to eat”—that is a human view of the situation; animals know nothing of such concepts, and their instincts tell them nothing about moral categories.
People who live by the laws of the fallen world often react in much the same way to witnesses of the Kingdom and to those who live its life. They want to get rid of such people, to make them disappear from the world and from their own lives simply because they are different—because they bring into the world and into those people's own lives something that will destroy the existing order of things, outside which the fallen human being cannot imagine life. Unlike wolves and other predators, of course, people usually find some way to justify this desire. Yet at its core is the same instinct of self-preservation, the desire to survive and not perish that drives a wolf to attack a flock of sheep. Until a person wishes to change, until they wish to escape the power of the evil in which the fallen world lies, they will react to witnesses of the Kingdom as a predator reacts to prey—not from any personal motive, but simply according to the law of this world.
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10:2 Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that he would thrust forth labourers - For God alone can do this: he alone can qualify and commission men for this work. Mat 9:37.
10:3 Mat 10:16.
10:4 Salute no man by the way - The salutations usual among the Jews took up much time. But these had so much work to do in so short a space, that they had not a moment to spare.
10:6 A son of peace - That is, one worthy of it.
10:7 Mat 10:11.
10:11 The kingdom of God is at hand - Though ye will not receive it.
10:13 Wo to thee, Chorazin - The same declaration Christ had made some time before. By repeating it now, he warns the seventy not to lose time by going to those cities. Mat 11:21.
10:16 Mat 10:40; Joh 13:20.
10:18 I beheld Satan - That is, when ye went forth, I saw the kingdom of Satan, which was highly exalted, swiftly and suddenly cast down.
10:19 I give you power - That is, I continue it to you: and nothing shall hurt you - Neither the power, nor the subtilty of Satan.
10:20 Rejoice not so much that the devils are subject to you, as that your names are written in heaven - Reader, so is thine, if thou art a true, believer. God grant it may never be blotted out!
10:21 Lord of heaven and earth - In both of which thy kingdom stands, and that of Satan is destroyed. That thou hast hid these things - He rejoiced not in the destruction of the wise and prudent, butin the display of the riches of God's grace to others, in such a manner as reserves to Him the entire glory of our salvation, and hides pride from man. Mat 11:25.
10:22 Who the Son is - Essentially one with the Father: who the Father is - How great, how wise, how good!
10:23 Mat 13:16.