NOTES for Mat 9:36-10:8
36 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. |
37 Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; |
38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. |
1 And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. |
2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; |
3 Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; |
4 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. |
5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: |
6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. |
7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. |
8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. |
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Sending the apostles out to preach, Jesus entrusts them with doing the same thing He Himself did throughout His earthly ministry: bearing witness to the Kingdom that has drawn near. And He gives them a universal principle not only for witnessing to the Kingdom, but also for life in it: freely you received, freely give.
This is not about a witness being unable or forbidden to receive anything from his hearers. He needs food and shelter, at least for the time he spends in a given city or village as he bears his witness. It is about something else: witness to the Kingdom cannot be a matter of personal gain. And the point is not simply whether someone takes payment for talking about Christ, about the Kingdom, or about one's own spiritual experience. The point is the very attitude toward what one is bearing witness to and bringing to others. A fallen person, consciously or unconsciously, considers everything within reach to belong to himself. Something ownerless is possible in the fallen world only if it brings no practical benefit to anyone or is beyond human reach. The instinct of ownership tolerates no vacuum, and every available gap is filled very quickly. A fallen person is inclined to treat the Kingdom as something "his own" in the earthly sense, that is, as something he can dispose of at his own discretion, even if in theory he understands and agrees that such an attitude is inappropriate and impossible here. A fallen person always wants, often without realizing it, to separate off a piece of the Kingdom and carry it away.
But there can be no such "Kingdom for oneself"; the very nature of the Kingdom does not allow it. Everyone who shares in it can receive it wholly, in all its fullness, but only on one condition: it must be available just as wholly and fully to each neighbor who shares the life of the Kingdom with him as it is to him himself. Such readiness to share with everyone everything one has received by being joined to the Kingdom is an indispensable condition of life in the Kingdom and witness to it. And no wonder: none of us has deserved or earned even a grain of the life that we receive in the Kingdom, all of it, as much as there is there. We truly have no right to the Kingdom. We receive it freely, not as property, but for open-ended and unpaid use, together with those who want to share it with us. Just as open-ended and just as free.
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