NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER TEN

Part II

Verse 11: When you enter a city or town, find some generous person there and stay in his home until you leave.

With these instructions Jesus shows that He had no intent on making beggars out of His disciples. Charitable giving was encouraged throughout Israel. The Psalmist said: “How blessed are those who care for the poor! When calamity comes, Adonai will save them. Adonai will preserve them, keep them alive, and make them happy in the land.”¹ But the Jewish teachers also taught against taking alms under false pretenses. Let the person know who you are and what you plan to do with their gift of support.

Perhaps seeing these instructions in the context of their own day, two early church fathers gave their impressions of what Jesus was really saying here. First, Jerome says: “Entering a new town, the apostles were unable to know what kind of persons they were meeting. Therefore a host must be chosen according to his reputation and the judgment of his neighbors. Otherwise the dignity of the message preached might be tainted by the ill repute of the recipient. Since they must preach to all, only one host is to be chosen; and they are not to bestow favor on persons with whom they stay but to receive it.”² Then Chrysostom adds this to what Jesus said: “You are intentionally to seek out honorable persons. You are not then to move from house to house, looking constantly for better fare, which would vex those who would be receiving you and give you the reputation of gluttony and self-indulgence. This seems evident in His saying.”³

In the mind of these two scholars, and others as well, Jesus was giving His followers instructions on how to ensure they were welcome into whatever town they entered. In all towns there were those who had reputations of being good, honest, and honorable people. If such town leaders were to openly receive these disciples of Jesus, then certainly they would be much more acceptable to the town’s residents. As such, Jesus was then warning them not to take advantage of such hospitality. Nor should they pick and choose for even better accommodations so that their prestige would rise even higher.

There is certainly nothing wrong with a pastor and his congregation showing guest speakers their respect through proper etiquette by providing the best accommodations they can afford. But for any guest to complain that what they have been given is not up to their standards is a slap in the face of those to whom they came to minister.

On one occasion when I visited a rural church in what was then called Yugoslavia, the host did not have a spare bedroom in the small house where they lived, so they put me up in a tool shed that had been turned into a small bedroom. As I went to lay down on the mattress and put my head on the pillow, I found out that they were not filled with feathers, but straw. As I lay there thinking about these less than comfortable conditions and how far I had driven to speak to this small congregation, I also thought of all that my Savior endured when He was here on earth, and suddenly the straw felt much better.

Verses 12-14: As you enter that home, say, “Peace be with you.” If the people in that home welcome you, they are worthy of your peace. May they have the peace you wished for them. But if they do not welcome you, they are not worthy of your peace. Take back the peace you wished for them. And if the people in a home or a town refuse to welcome you or listen to you, then leave that place and shake the dust off your feet.

While the greeting of “shalom,” meaning “peace,” was a common greeting, it carried more inferences in Hebrew than just “be at ease.” It also wished tranquility, safety, well-being, welfare, health, contentment, success, comfort, wholeness and integrity.⁴ When such a greeting was met with joy and openness, then Jesus says the peace that you wished them will come true. We know what happened each time Jesus said: “Peace.”⁵

However, as they went in peace to share the good news and be used by God to heal the sick and deliver the bound, should they be rebuffed they were not to insist on staying or try and win the host over to their cause. There was a teaching in Judaism about uncleanliness. Among them was one on the dirt or dust of Gentile lands. It speaks of private domains and how when one enters there, because of the dust it maybe an unclean place.⁶ In other words, they either did not know you were coming and so were not prepared for visitors, or they knew you were coming but didn’t bother to prepare for your arrival. So we can take it that in this case anyone refusing to welcome the ambassadors of the gospel were to be considered unworthy of staying with.

We must keep in mind that Jesus was not sending out these disciples on a permanent basis where they would settle down and continue growing the number of believers they were able to win to the Gospel. This was a temporary outing in order for these disciples to exercise the power and authority given to them by the Lord. It was a training mission. Jesus knew that once He left, they would be on their own and so they needed to learn how to spread the Gospel through teaching and miracles. So the instructions and restrictions Jesus gave them for this transitory effort should not be held as the model by which the Gospel is to be spread today since the church is now an established entity.

We must understand that this commission by Jesus was in line with the customs and traditions prevalent in His day. Even as far back as Job, we can see this custom, “The people in my house know that I have never let anyone go hungry. I always invited strangers into my home so that they would not have to sleep in the streets.”⁷ And later on during Lot’s time we read: “That evening the two angels came to the city of Sodom. Lot was sitting near the city gates and saw them. He got up and went to them. He bowed to show respect and said, ‘Sirs, please come to my house, and I will serve you. There you can wash your feet and stay the night. Then tomorrow you can continue your journey.’ The angels answered, ‘No, we will stay the night in the city square.’ But Lot continued to ask them to come to his house, so they agreed and went with him. Lot gave them something to drink. He baked some bread for them, and they ate it.”⁸

Jesus also uses the salutation of His day. We note that this is the same greeting Jesus used after His resurrection when He visited His disciples in the Upper Room. But what Matthew’s scribe did not include here was the normal responsive Jewish greeting, “Blessed be the one who comes.” That’s how they welcomed Jesus on His way to Jerusalem on the donkey.⁹ But our Lord restricted this salutation to only those homes where they were welcomed. In those days it was not customary to show respect or be courteous to wrong doers. As a matter of fact, Jesus told them that if they were not welcomed, to shake the dust off of their feet as a way of saying, “I’m not wasting my time with you.”¹⁰

Verse 15: I can assure you that on the judgment day it will be worse for that town than for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.

But our Lord makes it much more stringent with His warning that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah will be better treated on judgment day than those who reject His followers. Was this warning just an unguarded verbal outburst from our Lord? Did He fail to assure Himself of correct exegesis? Is this a crack in His sound theology? If not, then we must take notice of its implications.

First, He affirms that there is such a thing as a Day of Judgment for all who disobey God and reject His word. Secondly, He suggests that the judgment carried out on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah was still not the worst to be feared. His message was commensurate with what the rabbis taught saying: “The men of Sodom have no portion in the world to come, since it is said, ‘Now the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against the Lord exceedingly’.¹¹ ‘Wicked’ – in this world, ‘and sinners’ – in the world to come, but they will still stand in judgment.”¹²

One Jewish commentator made note on this Scripture by surmising: “The reason that God, after a lengthy interval, again speaks to Abraham might be that Abraham had second thoughts about having driven Lot away seeing that 1) he practically had forced him to associate with wicked people, and 2) he himself now left without relatives, and still had not sired any offspring. God therefore decides to reassure Abraham at this stage”.¹³ Therefore our Lord warns, any town that has seen a Man more righteous in their midst than Lot was in Sodom and Gomorrah that refuses to hear the Gospel, will be in danger of an even worse judgment. Lastly, He contributes to a theory that when this judgment takes place, varying degrees of tolerance will be evident. The penalties will be more or less severe according to the accused’s sinfulness. We see this in the Rabbi’s teaching about the punishment of Sodom.

The list of all the things that brought them judgment included their wickedness with their bodies – immorality; their money – uncharitable; blasphemy – willful sinning; and bloodshed – murder of innocent people. But also included was their lack of hospitality. They said, “Why should we suffer wayfarers, who come to us only to deplete our wealth?”¹⁴ This insight was shared by many Jewish thinkers. One of them commented: “Why did Lot have to repeat the invitation [to the angels] by saying: ‘please,’ twice? He told the men that the people of Sodom are wicked and that they had passed legislation designed to banish the poor from even entering the town.”¹⁵ So often people spend a lot of the time hassling over the greatness of our heavenly reward; the great honor that will be bestowed upon the faithful, while consigning all sinners to one common, unvarying sentence of eternal judgment.

We often hear the phrase: “Let the punishment fit the crime.” We find that promulgated in the laws of the O.T. Even Jesus practiced this with the woman caught in the act of adultery. Not that it will change the course of the River of Life, but still should be made note of. Had it not been even slightly important, Jesus would not have mentioned that Sodom and Gomorrah will be treated less harshly than cities that reject the Gospel. Some scholars think that Jesus was comparing the judgment cast upon Sodom and Gomorrah for ill treating the angels and Lot, to the judgment that would be carried out on the Jews who ill treated the Son of God and rejected His teachings. And we can add, if this was the plight of cities who rejected the Gospel, how about nations?

We know that forty years after Christ’s death and resurrection, Jerusalem received its judgment; and over the centuries Jews have had to endure some of life’s harshest torture and punishment. One such case was by the Spanish born priest Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, France; born in 779 AD and died June 6, 840 AD; one of the principal opponents of Judaism in the ninth century. In his time the Jews of Lyons inhabited a special quarter, situated at the foot of the hill of Fourvière. Not all prelates of that time shared Agobard’s sentiments. Nibridius, bishop of Narbonne, did not hesitate to maintain cordial relations with the Jews, and even invited them to his table. Therefore Agobard considered it his duty to induce him to break off all communication with them. “It seems to me to be unworthy of our faith,” he writes to him, “that the sons of light should associate with the children of darkness, and that the Church of Christ, which ought to present herself for the kisses of her celestial spouse without blemish and without wrinkle, be disgraced by contact with the defiled and repudiated Synagogue.”

Then after being reminded of all his efforts to prevent all communication between Jews and Christians, notwithstanding the opposition of Eberard and the royal commissioners, he adds: “You know that one should not only not make use of those who do not want to accept the apostolic preaching, but should shake off the dust of their dwellings; in the Day of Judgment, Sodom and Gomorrah will be pardoned sooner than they.” And he concludes by requesting Nibridius not to allow any of the faithful to communicate with such accursed ones, and to exhort all the neighboring bishops to concur in that work.¹⁶

I don’t think our Lord intended for us to take such treatment of Jewish believers that far. It was only meant to show the seriousness of rejecting the Messiah, the One they believed would come. It was such antisemitism on the part of many in the Catholic church that sowed the seed for the hatred of the Jews in Europe up until WWII. What Jesus was really teaching His disciples here was not to force their faith on anyone. As we know, this is the total opposite of what Mohamed taught his followers.