Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 10:24
The disciple is not above [his] master, nor the servant above his lord.
24. The disciple is not above his master ] The disciples of Jesus can expect no other treatment than that which befell their Master Christ. The same proverb occurs in a different connection Luk 6:40, where Christ is speaking of the responsibility of the Apostles as teachers; “as they are, their disciples shall be.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The disciple is not above his master … – That is, you must expect the same treatment which I have received. They have called me, your Master and Teacher, Beelzebub, the prince of the devils (see Mat 12:24; Luk 11:15; Joh 8:48), and you must expect that they will call all of the family by the same name. Beelzebub was a god of the Ekronites. See 2Ki 1:2. The word literally means the god of flies, so called because this idol was supposed to protect them from the numerous swarms of flies with which that country abounded. The correct reading here, as in Luk 11:15, Luk 11:18-19; Mar 3:22, is supposed to be, not Beelzebub, but Beelzebul (Griesbach, Hahn, Robinson, Lexicon) an Aramean form of the word meaning the god of dung or filth. The name, thus altered by the Jews by changing a single letter, was given to Satan to express supreme contempt and aversion. The Jews seem to have first given to Satan the name of a pagan god, and then, to express their sense of the character of Satan, to have changed that name by altering a single letter so as to express their aversion in the most emphatic manner. By giving the name to Christ, they poured upon him the greatest possible abuse and contempt.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 24. The disciple is not above his master] Or in plainer terms, A scholar is not above his teacher. The saying itself requires no comment, its truth and reasonableness are self-evident, but to the spirit and design we should carefully attend. Jesus is the great teacher: we profess to be his scholars. He who keeps the above saying in his heart will never complain of what he suffers. How many irregular thoughts and affections is this maxim capable of restraining! A man is not a scholar of Christ unless he learn his doctrine; and he does not learn it as he ought unless he put it in practice.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
As much as if he had said, “Think not much if you meet with persecutions: I am your Lord and Master, you are my servants and household; you have no reason to look for better measure from the world than I your Lord meet with; it is honour enough for you to be used as well as I am. You know they have persecuted me, they call me Beelzebub, saying that I cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. Why should you expect better?” Our Saviour used the same argument, Luk 6:40.
Beelzebub was the idol of Ekron, 2Ki 1:2. The word signifies, the lord of flies; either because they invoked his help against the flies, or (as others say) the name was in derision to that idol given by the Jews to the prince of the devils, because the places herein they sacrificed to it were infested with flies, which they say Gods temple at Jerusalem never was, notwithstanding the multitude of sacrifices which were there killed. Certain it is they understood by it the prince of devils.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
24. The disciple is not above hismasterteacher.
nor the servant above hislordanother maxim which our Lord repeats in variousconnections (Luk 6:40; Joh 13:16;Joh 15:20).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The disciple is not above his master,…. So far from it, that he is inferior to him; as in knowledge, so in reputation and character; and cannot expect the same honour to be given him, and the same respect shown to him, as to his master; and therefore if his master is not used with that decency, and in that becoming manner he ought to be, he must not think it any hardship if he is treated in the same way. Our Lord hereby intends to fortify the minds of his disciples against all the reproach and persecution they were to meet with from the world, by observing to them the treatment he himself met with; wherefore, if he who was their master, a teacher that came from God, and taught as never man did, and was worthy of the utmost deference that could be paid, was maligned and evilly treated by men, it became them who were his disciples, to look for, and patiently bear such indignities; since they could expect no better usage than he himself had: the same doctrine is suggested in the next clause,
nor the servant above his Lord; and both seem to be proverbial expressions. The Jews have a saying h much like unto them,
, “no servant is worthier than his master”; and Christ might make use of such common, well known expressions, that he might be the more easily understood, and in the most familiar manner convey what he intended, into the minds of his disciples; as, that since he was their Lord, and they were his servants, if his superior character and dignity did not secure him from the obloquy and insults of men, it could not be thought by them, who were inferior to him, that they should escape them.
h T. Hieros. Maaser Sheni, fol. 55. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1) “The disciple is not above his master,” (ouk estin mathetis huper ton didaskalon) “A disciple is not (does not exist) above the teacher,” that is, a “learner,” scholar, or follower, is not above, or ahead of, his master, teacher, or leader, Joh 15:20; Heb 12:1-3. Disciples must learn obedience, through the school of suffering, endurance, discipline, and perseverance, Heb 5:8.
2) “Nor the servant above his lord.” (oude doulos huper ton kurion autou) “Nor does a slave exist (have a standing) above his master or lord.” The term “servant” means an honorable worker, Rom 1:19; Yet Christians are friends, beyond mere servants, to Jesus Christ in His labors. They are to be servant-friends, Joh 15:14-15; Joh 8:35-36.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
24. The disciple is not above his master By his own example he now exhorts them to perseverance; and, indeed, this consolation is enough to banish all sadness, if we consider that our lot is shared with the Son of God. To make us feel deeper shame, he borrows a twofold comparison from what is customary among men. The disciple reckons it honorable to be placed on a level with his master, and does not venture to wish a higher honor, and again, servants do not refuse to share that condition to which their masters willingly submit. In both respects, the Son of God is far above us: for the Father has given to him the highest authority, and has bestowed on him the office of a teacher. We ought, therefore, to be ashamed of declining what he did not scruple to undergo on our account. But there is more need to meditate on these words than to explain them: for, in themselves, they are sufficiently clear.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES
Mat. 10:25. Beelzebub.In the original, Beelzebul, which is probably the true reading in all the places of the New Testament where this name occurs. Two principal explanations have been given of the word as thus written:
1. According to the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the signification is, lord of the dwelling, a term, perhaps, corresponding to that of prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2). To this meaning there may possibly be an allusion in the choice of the expression, the Master of the house; our Lord thus appropriating to Himself, in another sense, as a term of honour, the name which His enemies had given in blasphemy.
2. In later Hebrew, the word Beelzebub means, lord of dung; and is possibly a contemptuous perversion of the name Baalzebub, lord of flies, the god of the Ekronites (2Ki. 1:2). Or, as Lightfoot (on Mat. 12:24) explains, an ignominious name, signifying, lord of idolatry. It is possible, however, that the change may be merely euphonic (Mansel).
Mat. 10:27. What ye hear in the ear.Lightfoot refers this to a custom in the Divinity School of the synagogue (see Mat. 4:23), where the master whispered into the ear of the interpreter, who repeated in a loud voice what he had heard (Carr). Upon the housetops.The flat roofs of which were often actually used by criers and heralds for their announcements (Plumptre).
Mat. 10:28. Fear Him.Lange in his Life of Jesus applies this with Stier, to Satan, but in his Commentary he acknowledges himself to have been in error and applies it to God (see Jas. 4:12). Hell.Greek, Gehenna.
Mat. 10:29. Sparrows.Any small kind of bird. Farthing.See note on Mat. 5:26.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Mat. 10:24-33
Further cautions.All the cautions of this passage seem to be alike in being all associated with courage. Fear not (Mat. 10:26). Fear not (Mat. 10:28). Fear not (Mat. 10:31). They seem to be distinguished from each other in being connected partly with passive courage (Mat. 10:24-26), and partly with aggressive courage (Mat. 10:27-32).
I. Passive courage or fortitude.Let there be strength to bear what has to be borne in the shape of ill-will; and that especially (here) in that form of it in which it is usually manifested the first. Ill words are usually the first fruits of ill will. People proceed from words to blows; not the opposite wayas a rule. Christs Apostles must begin with bearing the first. They must bear the less as well as the greater. Let those who hate you say of you whatever they will. Two reasons for this kind of courage are virtually given. One is, because, in manifesting it, they are only sharing the lot of their Master. Those who are enemies of Him and of His servants have already said the worst of Him in their power. Professing to come as Gods Son they have declared Him to be in reality the worst of Gods foes. They have called the Master of the house Beelzebub (Mat. 10:25). Little is the wonder, therefore, if they say the same of His household. Of the two things, indeed, it is not so bad as to say it of Him! The other reason is because this kind of trial can only last for a time. The future, in their case, was bound to much more than compensate for the injustice of the present. The day was coming which would bring to light everything which was at present concealed (Mat. 10:26). In that day, therefore, so far from being found really connected with the evil one, the true connection of such maligned ones with the Source of all good would shine forth as the light (Mat. 13:43; Rom. 8:19, etc.). That being so, leave the glories of eternity to reply to the slanders of time. Why seek to answer that which before long will for ever silence itself?
II. Aggressive courage.The Apostles of Christ were called upon to do more than endure. They were bound sometimes to speak, and that, too, with boldness (Eph. 6:19). This thought seems to account for the transition from Mat. 10:26 to Mat. 10:27. That day will declare all things. Do you, who know of this, do the same in your measure. Turn darkness into light; turn secrecy into publicity; fill the whole place with your words (cf. Jer. 36:2-6; Act. 5:20, etc.). A bold thing indeed to do with such a message as theirsa message which had already been spoken of as causing them to be hated of all (Mat. 10:22). The encouragements to make them equal to this were of three principal kinds. There was the consideration, first, of the limitations of time. Whatever the enmity aroused by such boldness, its operations were necessarily confined to this world. If it did its worst it would leave untouched that which God alone could either preserve or destroy, and which they knew in consequence to be most precious of all (Mat. 10:28). In doing its worst to them, in short, that kind of enmity may be said to destroy itself as it were; like a bow which, in shooting its arrow, has broken itself. There is the consideration, next, of the limitations of Providence. Even so far as this world is concerned no human enmity can do more than God allows it to do. Moreover, His care in this direction extends to preserving things far beneath them. Creatures so worthless in mens eyes that they part with them sometimes for nothing (cf. Mat. 10:29 with Luk. 12:6) are far from despicable in His sight. Not one, even of such, falls to the ground without Him (Mat. 10:29). Neither is one hair of the head of any one of His servants left unreckoned by Him. Well, therefore, may they leave that which is vital to them in those all-fatherly hands (cf. 1Pe. 4:19). There is the consideration, in the last place, of the order of grace. After all, it is only those who do thus practically confess Him before men whom He at the last will so confess before all (Mat. 10:32-33). This is not only true of the end; it is true of all the times we pass through. Those who eye a Providence, says an old writer, will always find a Providence to eye (see also 2Ch. 16:9). In other words, the more entirely we leave ourselves in the hands of Gods providence, the more of a providence we shall find it to be.
On the whole, therefore, we see of this courage in service, that it is the most prudent method as well. Leave the words of the wicked to say what they will. Leave the hands of the wicked to do as they will. God can restrain them better than you can from going too far. And God will do so, moreover, and that openly, if you openly confess Him before them. This is the secret, and this is the reward, of being bold for His name.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat. 10:24-25. Likeness to Christ.I Likeness to the Teacher in wisdom is the disciples perfection.The disciple is not above, etc. It is enough for the disciple, etc. If that be a true principlethat the best that can happen to the scholar is to tread in his teachers footsteps, to see with his eyes, to absorb his wisdom, to learn his truth, we may apply it in two opposite directions.
1. It teaches us the limitations, and the misery, and the folly of taking men for our masters.
2. It teaches us the large hope, the blessing, the freedom and joy of having Christ for our Master.
II. Likeness to the Master in life is the law of a disciples conduct.There is no discipleship worth naming which does not, at least, attempt that likeness.
III. Likeness to the Master in relation to the world is the fate that the disciple must put up with.If we are like Jesus Christ in conduct, and if we have received His word as the truth upon which we repose, depend upon it, in our measure and in varying fashions, we shall have to bear the same kind of treatment from the world.A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mat. 10:27.Revealed and, proclaimed,I. The matter of preachers sermons should be nothing but truth revealed by Christ.
2. Christ doth not reveal anything to His servants, whether ordinarily, as by reading and meditation, or extraordinarily, by His Spirit, but it is able to abide the light, and the trial of all who shall hear of it, and is worthy to be avowed openly.David Dickson.
Mat. 10:28. Is death the end?There is an essential difference between the soul and the body. Death is the end of the physical organism, but it is not the end of man. It is not to science that a man must go for proof of the life to come. When science has said her last word, the reasons on which we chiefly rely are yet to be heard.
I. One of the familiar indications that the soul and the body are not one, but twain, is seen in the utter disproportion which often exists between the physical and the mental powers, and especially in the fact that in many cases the ravages of disease in the body, and the near approach of death itself, seem to despoil the soul of none of its vigour. The late Samuel Bowlesone of the most brilliant men I ever knewperformed much the largest and best part of his life-work after his health was shattered. Mrs. Browning seems to have gained in intellectual power as her bodily strength waned. This is not the rule; but if in one instance the soul seems undisturbed by the sufferings of the body, that one instance strongly indicates that the soul may continue to live after the body has crumbled into dust.
II. The fragmentary character of human experience, without this lengthening of the term of life, is another indication that life will be lengthened. There is no sign of a term in the growth of the human soul. Is the prospect of indefinite growth in knowledge which opens up so grandly before every thoughtful human being an illusion? Are these powers of knowing and of loving, that in the greatest and the best men seem to be only just beginning to unfold when death comes, never to reach perfection? If there be no future for men, every mans life is but the introduction to a book that never will be written, the prologue to a drama that never will be acted. Our faith in the wholeness and unity of nature discourages such a supposition.
III. The moral imperative within us seems to ask for its realisation a longer term than human life. The stringency and vigour of its injunctions seem cruel if there be not time for compensations hereafter. Its one word is, Wait! put the present pleasure by; wait for the enduring good. If there be no future, this most august voice is the voice of a mocker.
IV. The underlying sentiment of justice within us demands another life, where the miscreants that here go unwhipt shall get their dues; where the troubled and heavy laden shall find comfort and rest.
V. All the strongest reasons for this faith are summed up in the belief that God exists, and that He is good; and that the universe is the expression of His righteous will. For if God is, then, in the largest and fullest sense, what ought to be will be.Washington Ghulden, D.D.
Mat. 10:29-31. The providential care of God.
I. That in the estimation of the great God some of His creatures are more valuable than others.Men are more valuable than birds.
II. That over those of His creatures which are the lowest in the scale of value, He exercises a benevolent providence.
III. That the fact that He exercises a benevolent providence over the least valuable is an assurance that He does so over the most valuable.D. Thomas, D.D.
Mat. 10:32-39. The Kings charge to His ambassadors.
I. The duty and blessedness of confessing Christ.The therefore is significant. It attaches the promise which follows to the immediately preceding thoughts of a watchful, fatherly care, extending like a great invisible hand over the true disciple. Nothing can come between Christs servant and his crown. The river of the confessors life may plunge underground and be lost amid persecutions, but it will emerge again into the better sunshine on the other side of the mountains. The confession which is to be thus rewarded, like the denial opposed to it, is, of course, not merely a single utterance of the lip. Judas Iscariot confessed Christ and Peter denied Him. But it is the habitual acknowledgment by lip and life, un-withdrawn to the end.
II. The vision of the discord which follows the coming of the King of peace.The ultimate purpose is peace; but an immediate purpose is conflict, as the only road to peace. Christ is first King of righteousness, and after that also King of peace. But if His kingdom be righteousness, purity, love, then unrighteousness, filthiness, and selfishness will fight against it for their lives. The conflict ranges the dearest in opposite ranks. As when a substance is brought into contact with some chemical compound which has greater affinity for one of its elements than the other element has, the old combination is dissolved, and a new and more stable one is formed, so Christianity analyses and destroys in order to synthesis and construction. Perhaps it is fanciful to observe that the persons set at variance are all junior members of families, as if the young would be more likely to flock to the new light. However that may be, the separation is mutual, but the hate is all on one side.
III. Our Lord passes from the warnings of discord and hate to the danger of the opposite, viz., undue love.He claims absolute supremacy in our hearts. He goes still farther and claims the surrender, not only of affections, but of self and life to Him. Self-denial for Christs sake is the badge of all our tribe. Observe that word take. The cross must be willingly and by ourselves assumed. No other can lay it on our shoulders. Observe that other word his. Each man has his own special form in which self-denial is needful for him. Mat. 10:39 contains a lesson, not only for times of persecution; the words go down into the very depths of Christian experience. Death is the gate of life. To die to self is the path to living in Christ.A. Maclaren, D.D.
Mat. 10:32-33. Confessing Christ.Notice:
I. Whom are we to confess?Me, says Christ. Not a denomination or a creed, but a Person. He must be confessed in His offices, sufferings, His ministers, His people. He that receiveth you receiveth Me. Forasmuch as ye have done it, etc.
II. Before whom are we to confess Christ?Before men. Good and bad, poor and rich, ignorant and learned.
III. How are we to confess Christ?
1. Verbally.We should never blush to own that we,
(1) need Him;
(2) trust Him;
(3) love Him.
2. Practically.Actions speak louder than words. Christ must be confessed in sanctuary, shop, family.
3. Passively.The Christian in poverty, affliction, bereavement may confess Christ.
IV. What hinders us from confessing Christ?
1. Fear of being reviled (Mat. 10:25).
2. Fear of mens hatred (Mat. 10:21-22).
3. Fear of persecution and loss. The parents of the blind man had this fear (Joh. 9:22).
V. What are the advantages of confessing Christ?
1. An approving conscience (Rom. 10:9-10).
2. Open deliverance. The three Hebrew young men. Peter.
3. Open acknowledgment and approval (Rev. 3:5).
VI. What will be the consequences of not confessing Christ?
1. A guilty conscience.
2. A useless life.
3. A miserable death.
4. A dark eternity.B.D.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(24) The disciple is not above his master.The proverb was probably a common one, and is used by our Lord (as in Luk. 6:40; Joh. 13:16; Joh. 15:20) with more than one application. Here the thought is, Be not amazed or cast down at these prophecies of evil days; in all your sufferings you will but be following in My footsteps; what they have said and done with Me, they will say and do with you also.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
III. THE DUTY, THE STRUGGLE, AND THE ISSUE, Mat 10:24-42.
The duty: The reasonableness, the safety, and the reward of confessing Christ, Mat 10:24-33. The struggle: A division between the nearest connections, a stern necessity of preferring truth to human ties, Mat 10:34-39. The issue: All that receive Christ in his apostles, and who benefit and further their mission in faith, shall join them in the reward, Mat 10:40-42.
This, the closing part of the discourse, stands in close connection with the train of thought which it completes. The previous part has described their mission and duties as apostles; what follows describes rather the case of those to whom they preach, yet including also those who preach. If persecutions must be suffered, to suffer is reasonable, it is safe, it attains a reward.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Duty, Mat 10:24-33.
24. Disciple is not above his master So, according to many Jewish proverbs, the pupil of the rabbi was far his inferior. If the master undergo indignity, still deeper insult must the servant accept. And so with what force could our suffering Saviour, who endured the cross, require his disciples to endure by his own previous yet unparalleled example! He is our precedent for suffering, our pattern in suffering, but infinitely above us in the measure of suffering. He is our Lord, not by suffering less, but in the supremacy of his endurance.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzeboul, how much more those of his household!”
But they must expect persecution. For Jesus their Teacher and Lord is being, and will be, persecuted, and thus they must expect to be so too. For a disciple is not more important than his Teacher (for Jesus as Teacher see Mat 9:11), and a servant is not more important than his Lord. Rather they should be happy that in this they will be parallel with Him. And as their antagonists have called Him as the master of the house Beelzeboul, they of His household must expect to be called so too.
Note how Jesus now sees His band of disciples as a ‘household’. They are the new ‘house of Israel’, or, as He will later speak of them, the new ‘congregation’ (ekklesia – church). It was the households of the Patriarchs that made up the old Israel (Exo 1:1). Now it is His new household which makes up the new Israel. Note also how it is therefore ‘like Teacher, like disciple’, and ‘like Lord, like servant’. They are one with Him in His persecution, (compare ‘I am Jesus Whom you are persecuting’, spoken by Jesus of the persecution of His disciples – Act 9:5). In the same way those who receive them receive Him (Mat 10:40), and those who do them good do good to Him (Mat 25:40). He and they are one, because the household is one, and they are united with Him in it (as they are in the true Vine – Joh 15:1-6).
‘Beelzeboul.’ Compare Mat 12:24; Luk 11:15. Different manuscripts and versions present the full name differently It is given as ‘Beelzebub’ in the Syriac and Vulgate versions – probably as taken from the name of the oracular god in 2Ki 1:2-3, and as ‘Beelzeboul’ in most manuscripts. It is given as ‘Beezeboul’ in only a few manuscripts, but these include weighty ones (Aleph, B). The latter may, however, simply have dropped the ‘l’ because ‘lz’ was difficult to Greek speakers.
The correct name may well thus be Beelzeboul. ‘Zeboul’ may represent ‘zebel’ (dung) or ‘zebul’ (dwelling). Thus the name may mean ‘lord of the house (or dwelling)’ (see Mat 10:25 b which seems to confirm this). Or it may be ‘lord of dung’ as an insulting name for Satan. The former would explain the stress on ‘house’ in Jesus’ repudiation. The name Zbl is also found in a Ugaritic text, linked with baal, where it may be a proper name or mean ‘prince’, and thus ‘Prince Baal’ (but why is it then changed to ‘zeboul’). Mat 10:25 b thus suggests that Beelzeboul is seen as master over a household of demons (compare ‘Lord of the house’). The thought was horrific. Jesus being compared to the Prince of Demons. But it was clearly set policy for His opponents (Mat 9:34; Mat 12:24). They had to have some explanation for the wonders that they saw in front of their eyes and could not explain away. As the narrative goes on we learn that this is a synonym for Satan, as we would gather from him being the prince of the demons.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 10:24-25. The disciple is not above his master, &c. “That you may bear all with a becoming fortitude, consider that they have calumniated, traduced, and persecuted me your Master; for which cause you, my disciples, cannot think it hard ifthey calumniate and persecute you.” This is a proverbial expression, which our Lord applies on different occasions. Here, and Joh 15:20 it relates to the persecutions that his disciples were to undergo. It is applied to another subject,Joh 13:16. Luk 6:40. Concerning Beelzebub, see the note on 2Ki 1:2.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 10:24 . Similarly, what follows from here on to the close consists of anticipations of later utterances. Comp. as far as Mat 10:33 ; Luk 12:1 ff., and from Mat 10:34 onward; Luk 12:49 ff.
Do not be surprised at such intimations beforehand of the sad troubles that await you; for (as the proverb has it) you need not expect a better fate than that which befalls your Lord and Master. Comp. Joh 5:20 ; Rabbinical passages in Schoettgen, p. 98.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
8. Christ has suffered Persecution before His disciples, and they only suffer along with Him. Second warning and comfort. Mat 10:24-25
24The [A] disciple is not above his [the] master, nor the [a] servant above his lord. 25It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called [surnamed]32 the master of the house Beelzebub [Beelzebul],33 how much more shall they call34 them of his household?
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Mat 10:24. The disciple is not, etc.A proverb. See the corresponding passages in rabbinical writings in Schttgen.
Mat 10:25. This is enough for the disciple, in order that () he may be (treated), etc.; i. e., the subordination of the disciple to his teacher implies that he must share his fate. The same remark applies to the servant in reference to his lord. So Meyer, against the common explanation of the word in this passage.
.The Syrian Codd., the Itala, the Vulgate, and the Latin Fathers have Beelzebub. This, then, may be regarded as the first explanation of the termas equivalent to (2Ki 1:2), the fly-god. The second explanation is furnished by Winer as follows: By a Jewish pun, this name was, by the change of a letter, converted into (, Chaldee), i. e., dominus stercoris, lord of dung, in a manner analogous to that in which was turned into . It is very natural that the later Jews, in their burning hatred of heathenism, transferred the name of a celebrated idol in their neighborhood on Satan. Accordingly, Lightfoot, Buxtorf, and most modern critics explain it as the name of Satan, being the prince of all impurity. A third interpretation renders by habitation, and Beelzebul by dominus domicilii. This means,a. according to Gusset, Michaelis, and Meyer: lord of the kingdom of darkness, where the evil spirits dwell; b. according to Paulus: lord of Tartarus; c. according to Jahn: prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2); according to Movers: Saturn as holding a castle in the seventh heaven.With reference to the first interpretation, it is enough to say, that most of the readings are opposed to the form Beelzebub. It is evidently an exegetical explanation of the name Beelzebul from Beelzebub, the god of the Philistines, to whom the chasing away of flies was imputed.Against the second explanation it is urged, that the word for mud or dirt is , not . Winer indeed, suggests that uncommon forms are occasionally used in a play upon words. Still, they must have some warrant in the use of the language. Besides, Meyer rightly calls attention to the fact, that the word bears reference to the expression , which Christ had here chosen. Hence, lord of the habitation.35 Perhaps, then, this designation of Satan may refer to the habitation of demons in the possessed. The parallel passage in Matthew 12, where the Pharisees say ( Mat 10:24): This fellow doth not cast out devils but by Beelzebul, the prince of the devils, seems in favor of this view. The Lord Himself afterward characterizes the rule of the demons over the possessed under the biblical expression of dwellers in a house ( Mat 10:25; Mat 10:29; and especially Mat 12:45, They enter in and dwell there). If this be the correct interpretation of the term, it will also explain how it does not otherwise occur in Jewish writings. The enemies of the Lord charged Him with casting out devils through the prince of the devils, whom they in derision called Beelzebul (Mat 9:34; Mat 12:24). Jesus comments upon this in the following manner: The Pharisees designate as the prince of the devilish possession the Master of the house, who rightfully claims the heart of man as His dwelling (Mat 12:29), and casts out the usurper, who occasionally performed cures of demoniacs, for the purpose of blinding his victims. Hence the expression Beelzebul would refer only to the prince of devils who take possession of men on earth, not to the prince of evil spirits generally. Christ paraphrased the fact, that they stigmatized Him as acting under the inspiration of Beelzebul, by saying that He had been called Beelzebul because His enemies asserted that Satan had virtually devolved on Him the supremacy over demons. The expression is used in a sense similar to that in which the terms Satan and Antichrist occur in 2 Thessalonians 2. This may serve as a sufficient answer to those who ask, When the Jews had called Christ Beelzebul. Comp. Mat 12:24; Joh 8:48. Similarly, it explains the inference drawn by the Lord: How much more them of His household? If the Jews had designated Christ as the prince of devils absolutely, that name could not have been applied to His household. But if they meant that He was the author and patron of demoniac possession, they might apply this even more boldly to His Apostles. Undoubtedly, however, the term bears also some reference to the god of the Philistines. Perhaps the connection may be traced in the following manner: As Beelzebul was supposed to banish, but also to bring, the plague of flies, so Jesus was accused of expelling demons, because He was the lord of their habitation.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
Christ, the Lord of the kingdom of heaven, who sends the Holy Ghost, the rightful Master of the human heart, is characterized by His enemies as prince of the kingdom of darkness, acting under the inspiration of Satan, the chief of the demons, or as Antichrist. Similarly, the disciples of Jesus cannot expect other than that their activity shall be characterized as demoniacal and antichristian.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The disciple is not above his Master: this the watchword of Christs faithful witnesses: 1. As to their conduct. They are subordinate in everything to Christ. 2. In their sufferings. Every true disciple must be willing to share the rejection of his Master.The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord: this is sufficient comfort when misunderstood or misrepresented: 1. As a disciple, he feels that if the Masters work has been calumniated, he need expect no better; 2. as a servant, he feels that if the Lord of the house was stigmatized as a diabolical destroyer, he need not wonder if his service in the Church or to individuals is traduced.It is a sad, yet an effectual, consolation to the witnesses of Christ when they are calumniated, that their Lord and Master was called Beelzebul.Christ passes through the blasphemies of His enemies unharmed, as through a mist; let His people follow Him joyously.Satan condemning himself even when he blasphemes. He must,1. call that devilish which is divine; 2. he must represent as divine what is devilish.
Starke:What comfort and honor, that Christ is the Master of the house, and His people its members!Cramer: Ministers must, in the discharge of their office, have regard to God and the truth of the gospel, not to the threats of men.
Heubner:The example of Christ is the most blessed encouragement.
Footnotes:
[32] Mat 10:25. , B., C., [Cod. Sinait.] Lachmann, Tischendorf, [Alford, Wordsworth. Meyer regards the of the Elzevir text as an arbitrary substitution of the more usual verb.]
[33] Mat 10:25.[ is the true reading, adopted by Tischendorf, Lachmann, Meyer, Alford, Wordsworth, Conant, Lange. The E. V. notes it in the margin. Comp. Exeg. Notes.P. S.]
[34] Mat 10:25.[This interpolation is unnecessary.]
[35][For this reason Alford, also, adopts Meyers derivation, while Wordsworth adheres to Winers interpretation: dominus stercoris.P. S.]
[36] Mat 10:28.[Lachmann and Tischendorf read: (imper. prs. pass.) nolite timere, metuere ab iis, on the authority of Codd. B., C., (to which may be added Cod. Sinait., which reads twice. in Mat 10:28; Mat 10:31 : , a mere writing error for ). But Cod. B. or Vatieanus, as published by Angelo Mai, reads: (conjunct. aor. i. pass.), and in the more correct edition of Buttmann, with different accentuation: (imperat. aor. i. pass.). So also Cod. Alexandrinus, as published by B. H. Cowper, Lond., 1960 (), Origen, and, of modern critics, Alford (), Fritzsche and Conant (). Meyer explains from Mat 10:24 and reads also in Mat 10:31 with B., D., L., Cod. Sinait, Lachmann, and Tischendorf. The main point for the sense, however, is the difference in the construction, the after the first and the acc. after the second, concerning which the critical authorities are all agreed. In English this difference can be best reproduced by translating in the first case: be not afraid of, and in the other: fear him. See Exeg. Notes.P. S.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Chapter 44
Prayer
Almighty God, thou hast given unto every day its own light, and to this day of all the seven dost thou often give the brightest light of all. Sometimes thou dost make us glad by the mere power of the light that shines around us, for it touches our stony hearts into music and upon our eyes it sheds the brightness of a new hope. We come to thee this Sabbath day, with all the memories which make it the day blest of heaven and dear to earth. We have seen the Crucified One; we have seen the grave wherein he was laid; we were early at the place of sepulture, and behold he was not there, for he had risen, as all good men must rise, and all good causes that have been smitten and wounded and slain must come up again and behold we have found him, and in his “All-hail” we have stood still to receive his blessing and to hear his instructions.
We have come to thine house today with expectations not easily fulfilled; we have heard of the wondrous things thou hast promised to them that love thee; we have been told that the riches of Christ are unsearchable, we have been given to understand that thy spirit only can reveal the heavenly things to souls prepared for the disclosure, and satisfy our expectation so as to create in it a new expectancy, a wider and brighter hope. Thus do thou satisfy us by always showing us that there is more to be done and more to be received; this satisfaction is the inspiration of our manhood, it is a benediction upon our growth, it lures us by many a gentle compulsion to still stronger endeavour and still more patient endurance and industry.
We bless thee for the corn we have reaped this week: thou hast granted unto the fields plentifulness of produce, and thou hast given our arm strength, and thou hast sharpened our sickle, and we have cut down the golden grain, and we rejoice in the abundance of the provision. Thou hast done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Thou hast filled us with the plenteousness of thine own grace, thou hast established us in a confidence that cannot be shaken, thou hast preserved unto us our friends the old man by the fireside, the little child in the cradle, the busy man full of distress about his daily bread, the mother and the sister we are all here, and behold our psalm is one of homage and adoration to heaven. We will bless the Lord with all musical instruments, we will call upon the very stones of the temple to join us in our loud Hallelujah, for thy mercy has been tender, thy kindness has been loving, thou hast kept our eyes from tears, our soul from death, our feet from falling.
The Lord anoint us every day from heaven as with a new baptism, rekindle every morning the fire upon the altar of our heart, give us increasing delight in the broadening revelations of thy truth, may we obey every indication from heaven of the will and purpose of our Father. Help us to lose our life that we may find it, and save us from the delusion that if we would save our life we must find it of our own strength. The Lord help us to trust his law, to live upon his grace, to answer his calls, then shall there be in our hearts a great peace, and in our eyes a shining light.
Look upon us as we are bowed down here at thy throne. We have come, not to plead against thy law, but to confess that we have broken it. We have not brought our virtues for thy survey, but our vices for thy pardon. We do not boast of our strength, we are humbled by our weakness, and now with the outstretched love of our hearts we grasp the great cross, the cross of Christ, the one and only cross by which men can be saved.
Thou knowest what we are, what we need, what our single pain is, what is the story we dare not tell to human ears, what are the prayers for which there are no words, our heart-yearnings, our deep desires, our solicitudes that are often expressed in sighing and in tears. All these things thou knowest come to us through Jesus Christ thy Son, our Saviour, not according to the narrowness of our prayers, but according to the infinite fulness of thine own love. Amen.
Mat 10:24-42 .
Christ’s Consolation for Workers
Let me call your attention to an instructive fact. All these tender consolations were given beforehand. Jesus Christ did not wait until the disciples returned, bruised and shattered, and then gather them into his heart and heal them, as it were, with his sympathy and blood. Jesus Christ once said, “I will give the multitudes bread, lest they faint by the way.” That text gave us a discourse upon the preventive ministry of Christ. He did not wait until the people had actually fainted, and then give them bread: he gave them bread to prevent the fainting. He hath prevented me with his lovingkindness that is to say, he hath run before me to get ready for my weakness and hunger, and ere the blow has been struck the healing has been made ready.
I hold it to be a noteworthy fact that this comfort formed part of the inspiration of the disciples. The comfort was, so to say, part of the capital on which they had to live. If Jesus Christ had been sending forth men to add to the leprosy of the world, to strike thousands more of its inhabitants blind, and to deafen as many as possible, he could not have forewarned his disciples of greater dangers and distresses. “Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.” How are we to account for this issue? He gave them power against unclean spirits, and he sent the disciples forth to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease, and to preach, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and then he added, with an abruptness which must receive some profound explanation, “Ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.” Where is the balance between the men and the fate? I repeat, had he sent forth his disciples to break up the world, to diminish its joys, to add to its distresses, he could hardly have painted a more tragical issue. He sent them forth on a beneficent errand, and told them that they should be brought before governors and kings, be cast into prison, be called Beelzebub, and be forsaken and hated of all men for his name’s sake. Herein once more is the statesmanship of that wondrous Peasant, and herein do I find his Godhead. Not in the small grammatical clevernesses of the Biblical exegete, but in these disclosures of his shrewdness, of his insight, the penetration that pierced everything, and saw essences and realities, and the vital parts and secrets of all things. Who but himself could have seen that the casting out of devils, the cleansing of lepers, the giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, and the preaching of the nearness of a new kingdom could have ended in scourgings and contempt, and hatred and death? But his forecast has been abundantly established by facts.
Jesus Christ knew that there are men who will never allow good to be done, if they can help it, by any method but their own. There are men who would rather see you damned than see you saved by irregular means. They would rather have you lost in what they would term an orthodox manner, than see you saved by a method which to them would seem to be heterodox or heretical. They would like their own little prophecies confirmed; they do not want their conceptions, low as a ceiling, heightened into a sky; they do not want their little conceptions of fellowship, narrow as the walls of a man-built house, widened out until they touch God’s horizon.
This was the principle which Jesus Christ proceeded on in delivering his charge. He told his disciples they would everywhere meet the diabolical spirit of sectarianism; they were irregular, they were nomadic, they were persons who had not upon them the usual seal, they did not bear upon their arms the accustomed badge, and though they might have good in their heads, good in their hearts, good in every tone of their speech, they would be hated of all men. Let us beware of the sectarian spirit; it blinds us to the excellences that are beyond our little boundaries; let us say with Paul, “Some preach Christ in one way, some preach him in another; whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached. Therein,” said the grand old prisoner, “do I rejoice; yea, and will rejoice.” Is the Pauline spirit dead?
As we have read this chapter you must have been struck with the number of times the word therefore recurs. If would seem as if nearly every other verse was a statement of some logical sequence. There is a deep logical sequence in the fact, that as the warning was given beforehand, so the consolation was laid up in store. Jesus Christ set forth the whole case; he told his disciples what to expect alike from man and from God. And this is precisely what he tells every one of his followers today. Jesus Christ regarding him now as nothing more than the greatest of statesmen said to himself, “These poor little children (for they were little better) must be delivered from the peril of surprise. Things must not happen suddenly to immature minds. I must go before them, and give them the outline of the whole course. They must not come back when they have accomplished their journey, expressing any surprise at the greatness of the difficulty. When they do come back it must be with the surprise of joy.” To that surprise he sets no period. It is his plan that no man shall ever come back to Christ and say, “Thou didst not tell me half the peril, and thy description of the burning, cutting pain was understated.” No; he said, “Ye shall be brought up in the synagogues and scourged there, and the scourge shall cut your flesh and find the bone, and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my name’s sake, and ye shall be hated of all men.” This was not a Man who tempted a few disciples by vivid pictures highly coloured, and glowing promises. He told them they were going into a black tunnel, and at every step an enemy would endeavour to seize him, but he also said, “In the midst of that dark and terrible valley God’s revelations will flame upon you, and many an angel will surprise you into sudden and ecstatic joy.” We know the future perfectly well. All its great broad lines are drawn in a manner which cannot be misunderstood trouble and joy, tears and delights, the grave and the bright heaven are all before us not in detail, indeed, for no man knows the hour of his death; it is enough for me that I know I must die; the day and the hour hath no man known they are hidden in heaven. Jesus Christ gives his disciples the infinite consolation of knowing that when they suffer the Master suffers along with them. “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” No blow falls upon you that does not also fall upon your Lord and Master. Your tears flow through his eyes. We have not an High Priest that cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities: he knows what the force of temptation is, for be has felt its entire strain upon his own beating heart. It is something for the private soldier to know that he is fighting side by side with his General; there is something in such companionship that amounts almost to an inspiration. I suffer less when I suffer in certain society. The very pain that would distress me if I were in society that I hold in contempt lifts me up into a new strength when I endure it in association with men whose names are the inspiration of history and the hope of the world. What more could he have said than that “Whoever undervalues you undervalues me: the insult is not meant for you; it is meant for your Master. When they spit upon your face they mean to spit upon mine. They could despise you from a social point of view; from the point of view of rabbinical learning and culture they could hold you in ineffable contempt; but it is through you that they see me: when they scourge you it is upon my flesh that the thong falls?” If the men heard these words right they must have been ennobled for the occasion. In proportion to their love for their Master would be their joy in thinking that they should suffer anything in his name, and afterwards men went out of the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. That was the heroic age of the Church, when men lived in God, and represented the very sun of the divine image.
When we suffer alone we get no advantage out of the suffering we must offend CHRIST; when we think we are suffering alone we go contrary to his whole teaching, for he says, “Whoso receiveth him I send receiveth me: whoso believeth on me, believeth not on me but on him that sent me, As my Father hath sent me even so I send you. He that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God.” This is the root out of which all consolation comes. We do not suffer alone; we have a fellow-sufferer. Whenever you are laughed at because of your Christianity, if it be real, simple, true, noble, honest, and healthy, the laugh is at the cross. Whenever you suffer, which few men now do, for your faith’s sake, it is not you that suffer the Son of God is crucified afresh and put to an open shame. Let us take care lest we mistake this matter of suffering in Christ’s stead. Sometimes we suffer for our errors and not for our truth, for our impertinence and not for our fidelity, for our selfishness and not for the divine breadth of our character-building. If, therefore, we suffer on our own account, I wonder not that the pain should be sharp and intolerable; but in so far as our character and spirit and action are right, and we suffer, it is not we that suffer only; it is the Son of God whose face is smitten and whose heart is bruised.
Jesus Christ goes even further than this, for he connects the whole mission of the Church expressly with the Father. It is God himself that suffers, and it is God that identifies himself with the whole purpose and issue of the Christian economy. When the disciples were speaking in their own defence, Jesus Christ told them, “It is not ye that speak, but the spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” “A sparrow,” said Christ, “cannot fall to the ground without your Father.” So the universe is one: no man can touch the truth without touching the whole kingdom of heaven; no man can injure a single truth without injuring the whole quantity called truth, for the truth is not a question of single filaments and threads, particles and details: the truth is one, indissoluble, and to touch it to the injury of any part of it is to touch it to the pain of its very heart.
The universe is one: some of us worship in one place and some in another; but to God there is no space that can be mapped out in separate localities. He filleth all in all. If you are not against him you are on his side. Therein have I sometimes endeavoured to teach men that though they be not nominally in Christ they may be under the inspiration of his Spirit. Men know not what they do even when they put the Son of God to shame. There is a forgiveness that may follow their blasphemy; there is in heaven a consideration for human ignorance, though that ignorance culminate in the tragedy of Gethsemane and Golgotha. Truth, let me say again and again, is one as the universe is one. There is nothing despicable or contemptible; the fall of the sparrow is watched, and the very hairs of your head are all numbered. God putteth our tears in his bottle, and he writes our names in his book of life. Sacred universe, sensitive universe; if I lift a hand I send a shudder to the stars.
So my whole thought and wish and purpose and prayer what are these but so many vibrations that tell upon lines that do not come within my purview, and that stir influences which I can neither understand nor control? So Jesus Christ identifies himself with his disciples, and identifies himself and his disciples with the Father that is in heaven. It is one Church, one life, one temple, and to touch it at any point is to cause an influence to be felt throughout the whole living faculty. These are not tiny solaces, these are not little plasters for little wounds: these great solaces are redemptions; they enter the very secret place of the life; they do not evaporate in the sun they feed the very soul.
Another consolation you find in the words, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved.” There is where so many of us may fail: we endure a little while; the seed springs up speedily, and because there is no deepness of earth soon withers away. This is not a question of enduring for a little time; it is a question of enduring to the end. The end who can tell when that shall come? Life is full of endings life is full of beginnings. Knowing how distressed we are by monotony God has taken care in the economy of the universe that there shall be little or none of it. So he has broken up our life into day and night, the beginning of the week and the end of the same, the day of birth, the day of marriage, the day of peculiar joy so many beginnings are there to tempt us into new views and lure us into deeper resolutions and give us fresh chances in life, and yet all these beginnings and endings culminate in one supreme finality no man can tell when it may be: my end may be this day. It is well we do not know when the final point comes into the literature of life.
“He that endureth to the end.” Paul did. He said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.” Weary not in well doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not. Jesus Christ himself said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” And again he said, “It is finished.” Take care lest you come almost to land, take care lest you be almost saved. The old Puritan divine, the Shakespeare of the pulpit of his day, wound up one of his grandest appeals to his people by saying, “To be almost saved, is to be altogether damned.” Take care lest you be almost in possession, and yet fail of clasping within your glad hand that after which you have been aspiring. Let us endeavour to the last hour. To fail within sight of the prize, to perish within sight of land, to be able to hear the welcomes that ring from the shore, and yet not to land there Oh, that is painful beyond realisation.
I shall never forget how, recently, we approached the city of our desire. The day before the rain had been continuous, and the mists afterwards very thick, and there was a sudden fear in the minds of men. Then came out the evening sun, and touched up all the sullen clouds into a very apocalypse of glory and beauty. I never saw such a sign in all the heavens, that are full of pictures to the eye that searches for them. We moved on through the water, and the day of landing came, and when persons saw their friends in the near distance, there was much signal giving and signal exchanging. One young boy came to me with his eyes alight and, to explain his joy, he said, “I see my father.” I heard a lady say, “I see my brown-eyes.” I heard another say, “I see my sister.” Was it possible to fail just then to fail within a few minutes of the landing-place to be lost before hands were grasped in the reunion of grateful affection?
Take care: we are going towards the end, but we may not accomplish it; God give us strength to fulfil every mile of the road, and to fight the last battle, and to pluck the sting from the last enemy. It is the end that determines everything. The goodliest ship may go down in sight of port. Oh, may we many of whose ships are not good, much tried, storm-beaten, creaking because of weakness may we all be brought in, and so at last
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.
Ver. 24. The disciple is not above his master ] Sweeten we the tartness of all our sufferings with this sentence, as with so much sugar. Blandina the martyr being grievously racked and tortured, cried out ever and anon, Christiana sum, I am a Christian; and with that consideration was so relieved and refreshed, that all her torments seemed but a pastime to her. ( Sub Antonino Philosopho in Gallia, &c., Bucholcer.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
24 42. ] THIRD PART OF THE DISCOURSE. See note on Mat 10:5 . It treats of (I.) the conflicts ( Mat 10:24-26 ), duties ( Mat 10:26-28 ), and encouragements ( Mat 10:28-32 ) of all Christ’s disciples. (II.) The certain issue of this fight in victory; the confession by Christ of those who confess Him , set in strong light by the contrast of those who deny Him ( Mat 10:32-33 ); the necessity of conflict to victory , by the nature of Christ’s mission ( Mat 10:34-37 ), the kind of self-devotion which he requires ( Mat 10:37-39 ): concluding with the solemn assurance that no reception of His messengers for His sake, nor even the smallest labour of love for Him, shall pass without its final reward . Thus we are carried on to the end of time and of the course of the Church.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
24. ] This proverb is used in different senses in Luk 6:40 and Joh 13:16 . The view here is, that disciples must not expect a better lot than their Master, but be well satisfied if they have no worse. The threefold relation of our Lord and His followers here brought out may thus be exemplified from Scripture: and , Mat 5:1 ; Mat 23:8 ; Luk 6:20 ; and , Joh 13:13 ; Luk 12:35-48 ; Rom 1:1 ; 2Pe 1:1 ; Jud 1:1 ; and , Mat 26:26-29 [116] : Luk 24:30 ; Mat 24:45 ff. [117] .
[116] When, in the Gospels, and in the Evangelic statement, 1Co 11:23-25 , the sign () occurs in a reference, it is signified that the word occurs in the parallel place in the other Gospels, which will always be found indicated at the head of the note on the paragraph. When the sign () is qualified , thus, ‘ Mk.,’ or ‘ Mt. Mk.,’ &c., it is signified that the word occurs in the parallel place in that Gospel or Gospels, but not in the other or others .
[117] When, in the Gospels, and in the Evangelic statement, 1Co 11:23-25 , the sign () occurs in a reference, it is signified that the word occurs in the parallel place in the other Gospels, which will always be found indicated at the head of the note on the paragraph. When the sign () is qualified , thus, ‘ Mk.,’ or ‘ Mt. Mk.,’ &c., it is signified that the word occurs in the parallel place in that Gospel or Gospels, but not in the other or others .
is a broken construction; it would regularly be , . . .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mat 10:24-25 point to another source of consolation companionship with the Master in tribulation. A hard lot, but mine as well as yours; you would not expect to be better off than the Master and Lord.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat 10:24-25
24″A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. 25It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!”
Mat 10:25 “if” This is a first class conditional sentence which is assumed to be true from the author’s perspective or for his literary purposes.
“Beelzebul” This was a compound term from Ba’al and Zebub. This was the local Ba’al of Ekron (cf. 2Ki 1:16). The Jews changed the names of pagan rulers and pagan gods by changing the vowels, to make fun of them. The term can be translated as “Lord of the house,” ” Lord of the flies,” or “Lord of the dung.”
The second term was often spelled Zebul, the chief demon in Jewish folklore (cf. Mat 12:24; Luk 11:15). This explains why NASB and NRSV have Beelzebul, while NKJV and NIV have Beelzebub.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
The disciple = a pupil.
above. Greek. huper.
master = teacher. App-98. Mat 10:4.
servant = bondservant.
lord = master.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
24-42.] THIRD PART OF THE DISCOURSE. See note on Mat 10:5. It treats of (I.) the conflicts (Mat 10:24-26), duties (Mat 10:26-28), and encouragements (Mat 10:28-32) of all Christs disciples. (II.) The certain issue of this fight in victory; the confession by Christ of those who confess Him, set in strong light by the contrast of those who deny Him (Mat 10:32-33); the necessity of conflict to victory, by the nature of Christs mission (Mat 10:34-37), the kind of self-devotion which he requires (Mat 10:37-39): concluding with the solemn assurance that no reception of His messengers for His sake, nor even the smallest labour of love for Him, shall pass without its final reward. Thus we are carried on to the end of time and of the course of the Church.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Our Lord had been sending forth his twelve apostles to preach the gospel of the kingdom, and to work miracles in his name. Having given them their commission, he warned them of the treatment they must expect to receive, and then fortified their minds against the persecutions they would have to endure.
Mat 10:24-25. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?
The name, Beelzebub or Beelzebul, meaning the god of filth, or as some say, the god of flies, was applied by the Jews to the very worst of the evil spirits. They supposed that there were some devils worse than others, and the very head and master of them all they called Beelzebub, and now they supplied this title to our Lord Jesus himself. Well then, if men should give us ill names and evil characters, need we marvel? Shall Christ be spit upon and despised, and shall you and I be honoured and exalted? You have heard of Godfrey de Bouillon, the crusader, who entered Jerusalem in triumph, but who refused to have a golden crown put upon his head because he said, he never would be crowned with gold where Christ was crowned with thorns. So do you expect to be honoured in the world where your Lord was crucified?
Mat 10:26. Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.
They will misrepresent you, slander you, and speak evil of you; but if your good name be covered up now, it shall be revealed one of these days, perhaps in this life; but if not in this life, certainly at the day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known. It really is marvellous how sometimes in this life, misrepresented men suddenly obtain a refutation of their calumniators, and then it seems as if the world would serve them as the Greeks did their successful runners or wrestlers when they lifted them upon their shoulders, and carried them in triumph.
Mat 10:27. What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.
This is what we are to preach, what Christ tells us, and this is how we are to get the matter of our discourses, be alone with Christ, let him talk to us in the darkness, in the quietude of the closet where we commune with him in prayer. Then this is where we are to preach, upon the housetops. We cannot literally do this here in this land upon our slanting roofs; but, in the East, the housetops were the most public places in the city, and all of them flat, so that anyone proclaiming anything from the housetops would be sure of an audience, and especially at certain times of the day. Preach ye, then, ye servants of God, in the most public places of the land. Where ever there are people to hear, let there not be any lack of tongues to speak for God.
Mat 10:28. And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
A philosopher Anaxarchus, I think it was, was wont to say when a certain tyrant had threatened to kill him, You cannot kill me; you may crush this body, but you cannot touch Anaxarchus. So fear not those who cannot kill the soul, if that be safe, you are safe. Even Seneca frequently asserted that it was not in the power of any man to hurt a good philosopher, for, said he even death is gain to such a man; and certainly it is so to the Christian. For him to die is indeed gain. But oh! fear that God who can destroy the soul, for then the body also is destroyed with a terrible and tremendous destruction: fear him.
Mat 10:29-30. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
So, then, God takes more care of us than we take of ourselves. You never heard of a man who numbered the hairs of his head. Men number their sheep and their cattle, but the Christian is so precious in Gods esteem that he takes care of the meatiest parts of his frame, and numbers even the hairs of his head.
Mat 10:31-32. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
What a glorious promise is this! I will confess him to have been bought with my blood, I will confess him to have been my faithful follower and friend I will confess him to be my brother, and in so doing I will favor him with a share of my glory. Have you confessed Christ before men? If you have trusted him as your Saviour, but have not publicly professed your faith in him, however sincere you may be, you are living in the neglect of a known duty, and you cannot expect to have this promise fulfilled to you if you do not keep the condition that is appended to it. Christs promise is to confess those who confess him. Be ye then, avowedly on the Lords side.
Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. Without the camp the Saviour suffered, and without the camp must his disciples follow him, bearing his reproach.
Mat 10:33. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
Not to confess Christ is practically to deny him, not to follow him is to go away from him; not to be with him is to be against him. Looking at this matter of confessing Christ in that light, there is cause for solemn self-examination by all who regard themselves as his disciples.
Mat 10:34. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Do not misunderstand the Saviours words. Christs usually spoke in a very plain manner, and plainness is not always compatible with guardedness. Christ did come to make peace, this is the ultimate end of his mission; text for the present, Christ did not come to make peace. Wherever Christianity comes, it causes a quarrel, because the light must always quarrel with the darkness, and sin can never be friendly with righteousness. It is not possible that honesty should live in peace with theft; it cannot be that there should be harmony between Gods servants and the servants of the devil. In this sense, then, understand our Saviours words.
Mat 10:35-36. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a mans foes shall be they of his own household.
This is always the case, and I suppose will be to the end of the chapter. Whenever true religion comes into a mans heart and life, those who are without the grace of God, however near and dear they may be to him, will be sure to oppose him.
Mat 10:37-39. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.
In the days of the martyrs, one man was brought before the judges, and through fear of the flames he recanted, and denied the faith. He went home, and before the year was ended his own house caught fire, and he was miserably consumed in it, having had to suffer quite as much pain as he would have had to endure for Christs sake but having no consolation in it. He found his life, yet he lost it. Now, in a higher degree, all who, to save themselves, shun the cross of Christ, only run into the fire to escape from the sparks. They shall suffer more than they would otherwise have done; but whosoever is willing to give up everything for Christ shall learn that no man is ever really a loser by Christ in the long run. Sooner or later, if not in this life, certainly in the next, the Lord will abundantly make up to every man all that he has ever suffered for his sake. Now comes a very delightful passage:
Mat 10:40. He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
When, therefore, you are kind to the poor, when you help the people of God in their difficulties and necessities, you are really helping Christ in the person of his poor but faithful followers.
Mat 10:41. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet
That is, not as a gentleman, nor merely as a man, nor as a talented individual, but as a prophet of God,
Mat 10:41. Shall receive a prophets reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous mans reward.
Just the same reward which God gives to prophets and righteous men, he will give to those who receive them in the name of a prophet or of a righteous man. A prophets reward must be something great, and such shall be the reward of those who generously receive the servants of God.
Mat 10:42. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.
There have been times, even in our own country when to give a cup of cold water has been to run the risk of suffering death. In the dark days of persecution, some who were called heretics were driven out into the fields in the depth of winter to perish by the cold, the kings subjects being forbidden, upon pain of death, to give them anything either to eat or to drink. Now, in such a case as that, giving a cup of cold water would mean far more than if you or I simply gave a cup of water to someone who happened to be thirsty, but our Lord Jesus Christ here promises to reward any who, for his servants sake, will dare to risk any consequences that may fall upon themselves.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Fearless Confessors of Christ
Mat 10:24-33
The more Christlike we are, the more certainly shall we incur the dislike and hatred of men. Only let us take care that they hate us, not on account of our personal peculiarities and pretensions, but solely for the truths sake. See 1Ki 22:8; Dan 6:5.
Christ is often speaking. In the secret chamber of the heart, in the darkness of the night, in the shadowed room of pain and sorrow, in the room which holds all that is mortal of our beloved, hear His voice. It may be in dark sayings, but they are the dark sayings on a harp, of which the psalmist sings. There are music, tenderness, love-notes in these dark sayings. And our hearts can receive lasting impressions in the dark.
Remember that in all your anxiety and pain, the Father is near. His presence encloses you in its gentle, holy embrace. You are of value to Him, of more value than you can count, because you were purchased with the precious blood of Christ.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
2Sa 11:11, Luk 6:40, Joh 13:16, Joh 15:20, Heb 12:2-4
Reciprocal: 1Sa 8:7 – they have not Joh 17:14 – the world Heb 12:3 – contradiction Heb 13:13 – General Jam 3:1 – be
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
The Disciple and His Lord
Mat 10:24-42
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
We thought it well to present seven names by which the children of God are known in the New Testament.
1. The first name we shall mention is “disciple.” That is the word used in the first verse of our Scripture lesson. The word really means “learner.” We are familiar with Mary and her sister Martha. Mary had this distinction that she sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His Word. Martha, to the contrary, was cumbered about many things.
The Lord Jesus said of Mary, She “hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away.” Can we truly call ourselves disciples-“learners”? Do we sit at Jesus’ feet as He opens up unto us the deep things of God?
2. The second name is “apostle.” This word means “a sent one.” Christ called unto Him His disciples, and from them He chose out twelve, whom He named “sent ones.”
The name “apostle” has practically dropped out of use among the churches of today. We suppose that no one cares to assume so great a title as that accorded the Twelve. Yet Paul spoke of himself as Paul the Apostle. We also read of others who were Apostles of the Lord. We too, if we hold a special commission of God, and are ordained of God are apostles, whether we bear the name or not.
3. The third name is “servant.” A servant is not only one who serves, but one who serves menially, under orders. This name also occurs in this study. The word servant, in the old use of the terra, means a slave, a bondslave. Should any of us hesitate to bear this name? Cannot we say what Christ said-“Mine ears hast Thou digged.” If the Lord could say, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me,-I delight to do Thy will, O My God,” should we not gladly say the same?
4. Another name is “workman.” We read, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.” As a workman, we should know our tools, and the Book is the chief tool with which we serve.
A workman should shun every tool not approved, such as profane and vain babblings. That kind of word doth eat as a canker. When, however, we are wise workmen, wielding the Word of truth with efficiency, we shall prosper,
5. “A soldier,” is another word which describes the children of God. A soldier is one given not to dress parade and regimentals, but to enduring hardness. Paul delighted to say, “So fight I, not as one that beateth the air.” He also could say, “I have fought a good fight.” As soldiers, let us wage a warfare of honor. As soldiers, let us gladly go and undergo in the most difficult and trying of circumstances.
If we would please God as a soldier, we must not entangle ourselves with the affairs of this life. We must stand ready to go at any moment to the front of the battle.
6. A sixth name is “vessel.” This name carries with it the thought of being clean and made ready for use. In a great house there are not only vessels of wood, of iron, and of stone, but also of silver and of gold. Now, if a man is purged and clean, he will be a vessel of honor, sanctified and made fit for his Master’s use. A vessel is not supposed to have a mind of its own, it is only to lie pliant in the master’s hand.
7. A husbandman. Here is our seventh name. The husbandman is the gatherer of the fruit. This name bespeaks not alone our sowing of the seed, but our harvesting of the ripened grain. It tells us of the day when we shall enter into the blessings of our labors. Paul, in Spirit, wrote, “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His Coming?”
I. A HAPPY RELATIONSHIP (Mat 10:24)
1. The union of Christ with His people is one of closest intimacy. His all He gives to us, and our all we give to Him. We walk together along life’s pathway. We sit together, we talk together. He sups with us, and we with Him. He tells us that we are His joy; and He is our Joy. “So shall we ever be with the Lord,” is our promised destiny. He says, “The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them.” We are called into comradeship with Him. We shall one day be like Him, when we see Him as He is. We are His Body, His Bride, His co-heir. Could any relationship be closer than ours to Him?
2. The union of Christ and His people never speaks of the superiority of His people to Himself. We who by grace are lifted to so high and holy a position as union with Deity, must never seek to be more than we are.
(1) We should take the position of learners. Our place is not teaching Him, nor telling Him what to be or to do. We are not to give the Word to Him, but to hear it from Him. We are not to teach Him, but to be taught by Him. As the wife is subject to her husband, so should we be to Him in everything. If the woman is not to teach nor to exert authority over the man, neither are the men to exert authority over Him. We are one, and yet we are to learn submission and subservience to Him.
(2) We should take the position of servants. Have you not heard Him say, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me”? He never thought being God a thing to be grasped at, for He was God. Yet He learned obedience to the Father’s will; He gladly humbled Himself and took upon Himself the form of a servant, even the form of man. If He, our Lord one with the Father, could truly say, “I am meek and lowly in heart,” should we not also be meek and lowly? Yes, we will ever delight to serve Him, both now and in Heaven, for His servants shall see His face, and they shall serve Him.
3. The union of Christ with us does not mean that we are ABOVE our Lord. This could not be. We are what we are by grace, and we must not presume on His grace to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.
II. A UNION WITH CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERINGS (Mat 10:25)
1. We who are to be one with Him in His glory, should gladly be one with Him in His suffering. We are not above our Lord and Master. It is given unto us not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.
Our place is outside the camp with Him, bearing His reproach. If you say, How can One so altogether lovely be despised and rejected of men? this we cannot explain; however, we know that He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. We know that He came to Israel, came to His own; came with His hands and heart filled with love and blessing, yet His own received Him not.
What then? Shall we seek to be loved by them who loved Him not? Shall we, who are His, and who bear His image in our faces, seek to shun the shame and the spittle that befell Him? God forbid. We are not above our Lord and Master in His sufferings.
2. We who are His may expect to be a partaker of all that befell Him. Should we think it strange that we are called Beelzebub, if He was so called? Shall we wonder why we are hated, when He was hated? Nay, we should the rather be surprised if the world hated Him, and loved us; if the world despised Him, and accepted us.
God says, “Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you.” Is that some strange thing? Nay, it would be strange if we were not partakers with Him in His ignominy. Our verse says, “How much more shall they call them of His household?” So all this is to be expected by us.
3. The Lord Jesus never sought to hide away the fact that His saints would suffer. He never covered up the tragedy of our trials by the way. He never promised a smooth pathway, strewn with flowers, where soft zephyrs even blow.
To a “would-be follower” who had said, “I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest” Christ responded, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.”
To another, the rich young ruler, Christ said: “Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and * * come and follow Me.” To another, Christ said, “No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.”
If we would be followers of the Lord, we must take up our cross and follow Him.
III. A CALL TO FEARLESSNESS (Mat 10:26; Mat 10:28)
1. True bravery is God’s call to saints. What if the foes are strong, and the trials are many-let us hold up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees. Let us not run from the foe. Nay, we are to stand, and having done all, to stand. We have no armor for our backs; however, God has panoplied us with abundant protection for facing the enemy.
The words of God to Joshua still ring out: “Only be thou strong and very courageous.” And again, “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage.” Then Joshua answered, “All that Thou commandest us we will do, and whithersoever Thou sendest us, we will go.” Then once again, the Lord said, “Only be strong and of a good courage.”
If you were in Korea today, what would you do? The government has passed orders that all children in the Mission School shall daily be taken down to heathen shrines and forced to worship their idols. What would you do? What would I do? What should they do?
2. Consummate bravery even unto death is the call. Hearken to the words of our Lord, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul”; that is, we are to be faithful even unto death, even unto martyrdom, if that is necessary. And how many have been faithful? It would do all our people good to read again Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It would strengthen our shaking knees if we were to go to some parts of this present world, at this present hour, and see men and women, even boys and girls, standing unwaveringly in the presence of threatened death.
3. We are to carry on for the Lord no matter what happens. He is still saying, “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.” This is the call to a faithful ministry of the Word. Of some it is written, “And they loved not their lives unto the death.” Shall we lie low with our testimony and hide from our foes, or shall we speak His Word at all cost?
IV. THE ALL-SEEING EYE OF OUR LORD (Mat 10:29-30)
1. The message of the sparrow. Christ, seeking to strengthen His saints to their call to suffer, said: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”
Yes, the song is true, “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me.” The sparrow may be the most insignificant of birds, and the most despised by man; yet God says that not one of the little things falls without His seeing, and knowing, and caring.
What, then, about saints? They are most precious unto Him. For them He sold all He had, and bought them. We are His jewels, His pearls of great price. We are His own workmanship, created in His own image, and recreated in new birth into His likeness. Thus, if He cares for the sparrow, are we not of much more value than they?
2. The message of assurance. “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” God, it seems to us, could not make His watching care more considerate and faithful than is expressed by these words. If no sparrow can fall without my Father, and if not a hair of my head can miss His watchful eye, surely I can trust in Him.
God is indeed teaching us to trust in His love and care. “He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”
V. THE BLESSED CONFESSION OF OUR NAME (Mat 10:32-33)
1. Those who confess Him now, He will confess by and by. These words are indissolubly linked with our present sufferings for His sake, and with the Father’s watchful eye. He had been saying something like this:
(1) If they called Me Beelzebub, they will so call you.
(2) Pear them not, for I know it all, and I am watching from above.
(3) I observe you, for the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Now He says, in the light of His call to us to suffer for His sake, “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, Him will I confess also before My Father which is in Heaven.” In other words, God is saying, “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid that shall not be known.” He is telling us that He is keeping tab on our service and preachments. He is watching our confession of His Name.
What does all this mean to us? It means this: if we confess Him, He will confess us. It means if we confess Him before men, He will confess us before the Father; if we confess Him here, on earth, He will confess us there, in Heaven.
In other words, it means, “Behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me.” God is not and cannot be unforgetful of our work and labor of love, which we have showed in His Name. If He could be unmindful, He would be unrighteous toward us. Nay, He is watching sympathetically and appreciatively, and He will, with great joy, confess us before the Father and the holy angels.
2. Those who deny Him now, He will deny them before the Father. If one side is true, the other side is necessarily true. This thirty-third verse tells us that God not only knows the witnessing of the faithful, but He knows the denials of the unfaithful, and of those who fear. Talking of sorrow in Heaven: what could be a greater sorrow than to hear Christ’s denial of our service up there in the Glory?
It is only those who suffer for Him who will reign with Him; those who deny Him, He will deny. He will take the one group into His reign, the other group will be left out of the reign. Saved, so as by fire, they will enter into eternal life, yet they will not have places of honor and recognition in the Kingdom reign.
VI. THE INSIDE OF A TRUE CONFESSION (Mat 10:34-37)
1. This is not the time of the Prince of peace. Christ said, in Mat 10:34, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
Here is a word that may adjust some false teaching. Some speak as though this was the hour of peace on earth, and of good will among men. Not so. There is a peace to those who know and obey the Lord. “Peace I give unto you.” There is a peace of men of good will. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace.” However, this is, generally speaking, an age of war and rumors of war. It is an age of conflict between the true and the untrue, between Christ and Belial, between the right and the wrong.
Instead of peace among men, Christ brings separation into the homes of the saved.
2. This is an age of contrasts and variances, one against another. That variance enters into the very home itself. Here are the statements of the Lord: “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”
What is the depth of all this? It suggests that there is an unavoidable chasm between the life of the saved and the unsaved. This chasm cannot be spanned even by family ties. In many homes the one is living for this life, and the other for the life to come; the one has Satan for his master, and the other has Christ; the one sets his affection on the things beneath, and the other on the things above.
3. A man’s foes shall be they of his own household. The greatest obstacle to spiritual life often lies in the home. The strongest foes to Christian service are often in the home. The unregenerate will put every possible obstacle in the way and walk of the redeemed.
Satan has no greater delight than in dividing households. He will seek to keep the citadel of the home as the fulcrum of his strongest hindrances to prayer, and spiritual life.
What then? There can be but one conclusion, and Christ makes that plain: The Christian is called to forsake all, even his dearest loved ones, to follow Christ.
VII. WHERE TRUE VALUES ARE TO BE FOUND (Mat 10:37-39)
1. True obedience, true worth, is dependent on leaving father, mother, son, or daughter. Here it is as the Lord Jesus said it: “He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.”
When one said, “Suffer me first to go and bury my father,” Christ said, “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God.” In following Christ fully, He must take the pre-eminence over any and all loved ones at home. In all things He must be first. His call supersedes all other calls, His love all other loves.
2. True worth is dependent on the taking of the cross. “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me.” The cross is not a precious gold bar which we are to wear; it is the thing that runs directly over and against the will of the flesh, and the will of men. The cross is a rough and goading thing which men despise, and which bears us. The cross means our going with Him outside the camp, and bearing His reproach.
3. True worth is found in losing our life for His sake. “He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.” Again, “He that findeth his life shall lose it.” This suggests that when one sees his cross and spurns it, it will prove his loss; but when he sees his cross and bears it, he shall have gain. He that is willing to put his life; that is, his hours of being, his days, his years, into a full consecration unto God, shall find those hours, and days, and years, on the other shore, abundantly multiplied.
Once more we have the question of Heavenly rewards or loss in the light of full obedience to Christ down here.
4. True worth is in receiving Christ’s own into one’s heart and affection. “He that receiveth you receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me.” When your life is being spent as a living sacrifice for Christ, when your all is on His altar, and someone receives you, such a one also receives your Lord; and, in receiving your Lord, he also receives the Father.
AN ILLUSTRATION
The question that all of us should ask ourselves, is this: Do we serve for love or pay?
A lad named Sydney, who had reached the age of ten, overheard a conversation about certain bills which had to be paid, and conceived the idea of making out a bill for what he himself had done. The next morning he quietly laid on his mother’s plate at breakfast the following statement: ‘Mother owes Sydney: For getting coal six times, 6d. For fetching wood lots of times, 6d. For going errands twice, 4d. For being a good boy, 2d. Total, Isa 6:1-13.’ His mother read the bill, but said nothing. That evening Sydney found it lying on his own plate, with the is. 6d. as payment; but accompanying it was another bill, which read as follows: ‘Sydney owes mother: For his happy home for ten years, nothing. For his food, nothing. For nursing him through illness, nothing. For being good to him. nothing. Total, nothing.’ When the lad had looked at this, his eyes were dim and his lips quivering. Presently he took the Isa 6:1-13. out of his pocket, and rushed to his mother, flung his arms around her neck, and exclaimed: ‘Mother, dear! I was a mean wretch! Please forgive me, and let me do lots of things for you still.’ Jesus gave His all for us (Php 2:6-8). How do we answer His question.-“Lovest thou Me?” (Joh 21:15).”
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
0:24
The word above means the disciple and servant are not any better than their master and lord, or any more entitled to escape persecu- tion than they.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
TO do good to souls in this world is very hard. All who try it find out this by experience. It needs a large stock of courage, faith, patience, and perseverance. Satan will fight vigorously to maintain his kingdom. Human nature is desperately wicked. To do harm is easy. To do good is hard.
The Lord Jesus knew this well, when He sent forth His disciples to preach the Gospel for the first time. He knew what was before them, if they did not. He took care to supply them with a list of encouragements, in order to cheer them when they felt cast down. Weary missionaries abroad, or fainting ministers at home,-disheartened teachers of schools, and desponding visitors of districts, would do well to study often the nine verses we have just read. Let us mark what they contain.
Those who try to do good to souls must not expect to fare better than their great Master. “The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.” The Lord Jesus was slandered and rejected by those whom he came to benefit. There was no error in His teaching. There was no defect in His method of imparting instruction. Yet many hated Him, and “called Him Beelzebub.” Few believed Him, and cared for what He said. Surely we have no right to be surprised if we, whose best efforts are mingled with much imperfection, are treated in the same way as Christ. If we let the world alone, it will probably let us alone. But if we try to do it spiritual good, it will hate us as it did our Master.
Those who try to do good must look forward with patience to the day of judgment. “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid that shall not be known.” They must be content in this present world to be misunderstood, misrepresented, vilified, slandered, and abused. They must not cease to work because their motives are mistaken, and their characters fiercely assailed. They must remember continually that all will be set right at the last day. The secrets of all hearts shall then be revealed. “He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.” (Psa 37:6.) The purity of their intentions, the wisdom of their labors, and the rightfulness of their cause, shall at length be made manifest to all the world. Let us work on steadily and quietly. Men may not understand us, and may vehemently oppose us. But the day of judgment draws nigh. We shall be righted at last. The Lord, when He comes again, “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God.” (1Co 4:5.)
Those who try to do good must fear God more than man. Man can hurt the body, but there his enmity must stop. He can go no further. God “is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” We may be threatened with the loss of character, property, and all that makes life enjoyable, if we go on in the path of religious duty. We must not heed such threats, when our course is plain. Like Daniel and the three children, we must submit to anything rather than displease God, and wound our consciences. The anger of man may be hard to bear, but the anger of God is much harder. The fear of man does indeed bring a snare, but we must make it give way to the expulsive power of a stronger principle, even the fear of God. It was a fine saying of good Colonel Gardiner’s, “I fear God, and therefore there is none else that I need fear.”
Those who try to do good must keep before their minds the providential care of God over them. Nothing can happen in this world without His permission. There is no such thing in reality as chance, accident, or luck. “The very hairs of their heads are all numbered.” The path of duty may sometimes lead them into great danger. Health and life may seem to be periled, if they go forward. Let them take comfort in the thought that all around them is in God’s hand. Their bodies, their souls, their characters are all in His safe keeping. No disease can seize them,-no hand can hurt them, unless He allows. They may say boldly to every fearful thing they meet with, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above.”
In the last place, those who try to do good should continually remember the day when they will meet their Lord to receive their final portion. If they would have Him own them, and confess them before His Father’s throne, they must not be ashamed to own and “confess Him” before the men of this world. To do it may cost us much. It may bring on us laughter, mockery, persecution, and scorn. But let us not be laughed out of heaven. Let us recollect the great and dreadful day of account, and not be afraid to show men that we love Christ, and want them to know and love Him also.
Let these encouragements be treasured up in the hearts of all who labor in Christ’s cause, whatever their position may be. The Lord knows their trials, and has spoken these things for their comfort. He cares for all His believing people, but for none so much as those who work for His cause, and try to do good. May we seek to be of that number. Every believer may do something if he tries. There is always something for every one to do. May we each have an eye to see it, and a will to do it.
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Mat 10:24. The same general statement, with a different application, is found in Luk 6:40; Joh 13:16. Here it means they cannot expect better treatment than He received, thus implying His sympathy. Notice the relation of Christ and
His followers: teacher and disciple; Lord and servant; master of the house and members of the household.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Our Saviour here teaches all Christians but especially ministers, how unreasonable and absurd it is for them to expect kinder usage from an unkind world than he himself met with. Are we greater, holier, or wiser then he? Why then should we expect better usage than he? Was he hated, persecuted, reviled, murdered, for the holiness of his doctrine and the usefulness of his life? Why then should any of us think strange of the fiery trial, as if some strange thing had befallen them? 1Pe 4:12
Is it not enough that the disciple be as his master and the servant as his Lord, but must he hope to be above him?
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Mat 10:24-26. The disciple is not above his master As if he had said, As for the unkind usage I have warned you to expect, you have no reason to be surprised at it, considering what I have intimated respecting the persecutions awaiting my disciples for righteousness sake. See Mat 5:10-12. And, that you may bear all with a becoming fortitude, consider that they have calumniated, traduced, and persecuted me your Master, for which cause you, my disciples, cannot think it hard if they shall calumniate and persecute you: for if they have called the master, Beelzebub, how much more, &c. This cannot refer to the quantity of reproach and persecution; (for in this the servant cannot be above his Lord;) but only to the certainty of it. Fear them not therefore Be not afraid of their calumnies, however false or malicious, for ye have only the same usage that your Lord has: and neither shall their wickedness nor your innocence be always concealed: both shall be manifested, at least, in the day of judgment. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, &c. The words, says Whitby, are capable of two good senses: 1st, Let not the dread of these persecutors deter you from preaching the gospel, as despairing of the success of it; for, though at present it seems to be hidden from the world, and it is likely to be obscured for a while by the calumnies of the Jews and others, I will cause it to shine through all the world, and dissipate all the clouds they cast over it, and will render it mighty to cast down whatever exalts itself against the knowledge of God, &c. Or, 2dly, thus, Fear not the calumnies with which they shall load you, as they did your Master, for I will make the innocence and the excellence of your doctrine as clear as the light; and your integrity in the dispensing of it, and your patience in suffering for it, to redound to your praise, honour, and glory, throughout all ages, and especially at my revelation from heaven, 1Pe 1:7.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Mat 10:24-39. Further Sayings on Persecution.
Mat 10:24-25 a would hardly be intelligible to the disciples till after Mat 16:21; Mat 10:25 b connects with Mat 12:22-32.Beelzebub: Mar 3:22*.
Mat 10:26-33. From Q (cf. Luk 12:2-9): Mat 10:26 is found in Mar 4:22, though the application is different both there and also in Luk 12:2. Here and in Mat 10:27 the thought is that Jesus influence in His lifetime is small compared with what it will be later. The destroyer in Mat 10:28 b is God (cf. Wis 16:13, Jas 4:12), though some argue from Luk 12:5 mg. that it is the devil. But the usual exhortation is to fight the devil rather than to fear him.soul (psuche) is variously used in the Synoptists; here it is all that makes up the real self. But they that fear the Lord are to trust in the Lord (Psa 115:11); hence Mat 10:29-31. Even if they suffer martyrdom it will be with Gods knowledge and loving care.
Mat 10:32 f. sums up the thought of faithful endurance elaborated in Mat 10:17-31.confess, i.e. acknowledge, range oneself with. Some think Lk., the Son of Man (will confess him), preferable to Mt.s I. Mar 8:38 seems to distinguish between Jesus and the Son of Man; Mt. by his pronoun declares them identical.
Mat 10:33 should be read not as a threat but a statement of inevitable law.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Jesus’ point was that persecution should not surprise His disciples. They had seen the scribes and Pharisees, and even John’s disciples, oppose Jesus. They could expect the same treatment.
Beelzebul was Satan, the head of the household of demons (Mat 12:24-27). The word "Beelzebul" probably came from the Hebrew baal zebul meaning "Prince Baal." Baal was the chief Canaanite deity, and the Jews regarded him as the personification of all that was evil and satanic. The house in view is Israel. Jesus as Messiah was the head of that household. However, His critics charged Him with being Satan (cf. Mat 9:34). Therefore the disciples could expect similar slander from their enemies.
"We believe, that the expression ’Master of the house’ looked back to the claims which Jesus had made on His first purification of the Temple [Joh 2:16]. We almost seem to hear the coarse Rabbinic witticism in its play on the word Beelzebul. For, Zebhul, . . . means in Rabbinic language, not any ordinary dwelling, but specifically the Temple, and Beel-Zebul would be the Master of the Temple.’ On he other hand, Zibbul . . . means sacrificing to idols; and hence Beel-zebul would, in that sense, be equivalent to ’lord’ or ’chief of idolatrous sacrificing’-the worst and chiefest of demons, who presided over, and incited to, idolatry. ’The Lord of the Temple’ . . . was to them ’the chief of idolatrous worship,’ the Representative of God that of the worst of demons: Beelzebul was Beelzibbul!" [Note: Edersheim, The Life . . ., 1:648.]