Matthew 10:21-25 Betrayals
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: March 9, 2019, Matthew 10:21-25
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.
(Understanding the Text) I don’t understand the verse that says “you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” They did go through all the towns of Israel, and Jesus did not come. Is this looking symbolically farther into the future? If so, what in the text tells me that this is symbolic?
Possible Answers: This is Matthew who tends to summarize in ways that can cause misconceptions when I do not consider other sources of the same information to get specific details, so I guess that I need to compare this to other verses that are similar. Guzik’s commentary says “This is one of the hardest to understand statements of Jesus in Matthew. Could Jesus really mean that He would return to this earth before the disciples would make it through all the cities of Israel? If so, this would make Jesus plainly wrong. Instead, it is better to see His ‘coming’ in this passage as His coming in judgment upon Judea in 70 a.d. which did happen before the gospel came to every city in Israel. i. This is the fulfillment of the day of judgment warned of in Mat_10:15. In many ways, the judgment poured out by God upon Judea through the Roman armies in 70 a.d. was worse than the judgment that came upon Sodom and Gommorrah.” Verse 10:15 says “And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town” (Matthew 10:14-15). This passage parallels Luke 21 where Jesus goes back and forth between the more immediate future of the disciples with the destruction of the temple and the far away prophecies that precede His second coming. This was in response to questions about the destruction of the temple and Jesus’ second coming. This parallel is the justification for looking at Matthew’s summary as being about the judgment on Israel happening before Jesus came. It may also be justification for taking this symbolically, i.e. the towns of Israel meaning the earth? I don’t know. The symbolism seems strained. I think it’s better to look at it meaning as judgment on Israel. I need to study this more. In the EGW SDA Commentary, her comments on Luke 21 say that the events of Jerusalem will be repeated in the last days in a more terrible way, so there may be reason to apply this to end times also based on Luke 21’s parallelism and on Matthew’s tendency to compress items leaving out details so that if you do not know the wider context, you can be confused or even misled.
One possible answer comes from the regular SDA Commentary: This does not refer to a geographical area, but to the Jews as a people. I’m not sure what the significance of that is. Anyway, the commentary says more specifically “Possibly Jesus is here speaking in general terms to all Christians, indicating that there will be places in which to labor and people ready to receive the message until the ‘gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world.'” In other words, they are applying the verse to the time before His second coming and applying the cities of Israel to the world. I would think that that was pushing it if I had only read this one example of Matthew summarizing in a way that leaves out important details for full understanding in order to make a more specific point, but I have seen Matthew do this again and again in chapters 1-10. Matthew’s point here was not when Jesus would come. It was that the followers of Jesus would face lies and persecution, just as their Master did and that they should simply leave the area of harm and go on to a new area to preach the gospel. It is okay to abandon work in one area, as long as you continue working.
I dread the idea of family turning on people. I know it will happen in the last days, but it is so ugly to think about. Jesus said that we are not above Him, and since He was persecuted, we can expect to be persecuted also rather than to live a charmed life. On the other hand, while the disciples were with Jesus, they did live charmed lives. He kept them safe while He was with them. He promises peace in times of trouble and that He will be with us even in the persecutions and betrayals. That is beautiful to think of.
(Revelation of God) Sometimes, I wonder why any of the disciples would follow Jesus at all since mostly He promised them pain, emotional hurt, persecution, and destroyed reputations in this world. On the other hand, if I consider what this world is really like now and what it was like in the disciples’ day, I can understand their longing for something better and their feeling that they were already oppressed by the Romans and the leaders of their own people. After all, the Romans were crucifying people all the time rather than keeping it for a rare punishment. Jesus had compassion on the people because they were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” I guess the disciples never felt harassed and helpless with Jesus. They might be killed, but they knew that they were dying for a reason rather than senselessly without cause. They knew that their lives had meaning, and they knew that there would be a time beyond this world where they would receive blessings and eternal life. I guess in a time where life was cheap and death was always waiting, the hardship of dying for a worthy cause and living a life of service to God was attractive, or even more likely, they had known Jesus intimately and felt that He was worth any sacrifice.
(Application) Nowadays, life is valued and extended as much as we can, yet the quality of our own personal life is cheap. We are willing to play our life out in meaningless entertainment and secondhand violence rather than using our time on earth meaningfully. We have plenty of leisure time which we don’t know what to do with, and we see the emptiness and ugliness and simple pettiness of the world we live in, so we try to escape into books, movies, games, and other entertainment that give meaning to the ugliness and value to the pettiness and fill the emptiness with a veneer of importance. In the end, we rob ourselves of life while we are still alive. Following Jesus even if it means hurt and rejection is better than spending my life hiding from the world in a meaningless story. The irony is that the stories that used to enthrall me kept getting darker and more violent and more full of rejection and hurt. Life should be lived rather than drifted through in a fog of imaginary stories, but only if I have a shepherd who goes with me protecting me from the emotional pain and healing me from the horrors of this world.
It is okay to leave when others are trying to hurt us rather than to keep coming back for more. Jesus said to leave a town where they were persecuting the disciples rather than to stay and keep trying. Christians tend to think that “turn the other cheek” and “give him your cloak also” means that we have to keep coming back to be hurt, so they feel guilty when they give up on someone or when they leave a situation that hurts them, either mentally or physically, but Jesus told the disciples to flee from persecution. In persecution, Jesus includes being maligned, i.e. lied about, both here and in the Beatitudes. I guess the advice here means that when we are in the situation, we react with humility, kindness, and generosity, even when the other is out to hurt, selfishly use, and manipulate; however, there is no command to stay in a situation where we will be used again. It’s okay to leave so that we will not be hurt. It’s okay to go on to a new place. There are other people to help and leaving the old situation is not failure. It is the way of life that Jesus commanded us to live in this passage.
(Prayer) Thank You for wanting to protect us. Thank You for teaching us to treat others with kindness and love even when it hurts. Teach me to know You so well that I confidently follow wherever You lead me. Guide me so that I know what to do when I am rejected and when to leave a negative situation and when to stay in order to help someone. I have no wisdom in this area, so I am depending on You.