Day 4: Commissioning, Comforting, Challenging (Matthew 10-12)

At the beginning of this section of Matthew, Jesus sends his disciples out, giving them authority to heal and instructions regarding their journey.  Suddenly, they are not just disciples (students) any more, but they are called apostles (those who are sent out).

Do they know everything yet?

No.

Just a thought.

At the end of the reading, Jesus' family comes to see him, and he uses the opportunity to re-define the whole concept of family, "Everyone who does the will of my father is my mother and my brothers."  Depending on your pont of view, this could be good news or bad news.  I imagine Mary and Jesus' brothers (and what about his sisters? I want to know) leaving, rebuffed.  But I imagine that those who have been ostracized by their families for following Jesus might feel differently about his words.

Reading these three chapters, one of the things that strikes me is how we might (especially when we read large sections of scripture like this) gravitate to certain stories and sayings, and some to others.

Like right in the middle, Jesus' says the words, "Come to me, all you who are weary, and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."  If you are in a certain frame of mind (like, perhaps, weary), it's hard not to single that passage out, and sort of ignore the rest.  I like to delve deeply into passages like this, to discover that they are deeper than I think, with more layers of meaning.  (for example, what is so easy about wearing a yoke?)

Some of us enjoy the challenge of wrestling with the scripture passages that defy easy interpretation.  The passage regarding the unforgivable sin and "blaspheming the Holy Spirit" was a favorite discussion back in the days when I was associating with the Pentecostals.  People loved to weigh in on just what they considered it meant to "blaspheme the Holy Spirit."  (right now, today, conveniently, I remember none of those possible interpretations.)

In these chapters are the first inklings that not everyone is enamored of Jesus' teachings (i.e. the religious leaders).  There are warnings about coming persecution, and promises that God will be with disciples who endure.  (However, there are no promises that disciples of Jesus will escape harm.) 

I did notice that repentance (common called, in my version of the New Testament, "changing our ways"), or actually, failure to change our ways, is a recurring theme.  Failure to change our ways is a recurring theme, and not just in the Bible, actually.

There is much more to chew on in these verses than I have touched on here.  There is the difference between John the Baptist and Jesus, there is healing on the sabbath (and why we might not think it is such a big deal -- but what is it that offends US?), there are the instructions for the disciples turned apostles.  ("Travel light" is one instruction.  I took a large trunk with me to Japan.)

How do the warnings about persecutions strike us, as people who live in a time and place where Christians aren't actively persecuted?
Do you gravitate to the verses that challenge or those that comfort? 

One of the things that I'm beginning to realize is that I won't be able to resolve everything.  And tomorrow, there will be a new reading, which presents new insights and new issues.