You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations. But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour, because you are not speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you. (Matthew 10:18-20)
In these verses, Jesus continues to explain to his twelve disciples that they will face persecution as they attempt to carry out their mission.
This can’t have been easy for them to hear or understand. It was likely counter to their expectations, and it was definitely counter to their natural human instincts for self-preservation.
The kingdom has come, Jesus was telling them, yet there will be an interim period of spiritual warfare as the “god of this world” fights back with all the tools at his disposal — including the pride and blindness of human beings.
The kingdom will win. But in the meantime it’s not going to be easy.
The Promise of Persecution
Last week we noted that Jesus promised to send his disciples out as “sheep among wolves” — not as militant conquerors or violent zealots.
As people whose job was to announce that God’s kingdom had arrived on earth, they were empowered by God to cast out demons, heal the sick, and proclaim the good news of the kingdom — NOT to directly overthrow earthly rulers, gather an army, or make visible progress in establishing a this-world throne.
For people whose expectations had been shaped by the Old Testament promises of a restored Davidic kingdom, this must have come as something of a shock.
Rather than going out as lions, they were to go out as sheep.
Rather than victory on every side, they were promised persecution.
This seems like a strange way to herald the arrival of God. And yet …
This Is the Way the Kingdom Advances
Jesus promised that the work of the kingdom would move forward not just in spite of but through the persecution and opposition that came against it.
In a grand example of the New Testament promise later articulated by Paul (“all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose,” Romans 8:28), the evil done by the persecutors of the church would ultimately give the church a platform to advance the kingdom in the only way the kingdom has ever advanced: through the word of proclamation and the demonstration of God’s power.
Jesus assured his disciples that although they would be hauled up in front of judges and juries, governors and kings — in a context, we need to remember, of persecution and not usually of favor or influence — God would have a purpose in it.
Those who did the hauling and persecuting would intend their actions to stop the spread of the gospel, but instead, the disciples would be able to use these opportunities to “bear witness to them and to the nations.”
A Widened Horizon
In this last statement, there’s an important shift of expectation. Recall that Jesus ordered this small group not to stray outside of the Jewish towns and villages in this first mission. They weren’t to go to the Gentile or Samaritan settlements as they preached.
But here, Jesus makes it clear that the first mission would not be the last, and Judea was not the final horizon. Ultimately, his followers were intended to proclaim the kingdom of God to the governments and nations of the world.
The Greek word translated “bear witness” is marturion, the same word that gave rise to the English martyr. It means a witness, testimony, evidence, or proof of something.
The disciples carried a message of a kingdom come. They had seen the Word made flesh and declared his kingship to the world. And in themselves, they were proof — evidence — that what they said was true.
A Quiet But Startling Promise
Exactly how the disciples would function as proof of the kingdom is a mystery explained in Jesus’s next statement — one that is quietly given but incredibly profound.
“Don’t worry about what to say,” he told them. “Because in the moment, the Spirit of your Father will speak through you.”
In the gospel of John, several famous passages promise the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell the followers of Jesus — John speaks of the Helper, the Comforter, who will come and be with us forever.
This verse, tucked away in chapter 10, is Matthew’s equivalent of John’s Holy Spirit passages. It’s the first time the gospel of Matthew ever really explains that God’s Spirit will actually come and indwell Jesus’s people, speaking in them and through them.
Prior to this, the disciples were promised power to cast out demons and heal the sick — but to have the Spirit of the Father speaking through us, the same Spirit, the same “speaking,” that created the world, that’s a promise of a very different order.
Just as Jesus spoke the words of God, so would his disciples. The words would be there when they were needed, in order to bear witness to Jesus and his kingdom in the tightest, most extreme circumstances.
The Spirit’s purpose would be to proclaim his kingdom, and through that proclamation, to bring grace, freedom, and life abundant to all who will accept it.
The disciples weren’t given an easy mission — just a glorious one.
Still on Mission
Today, that small, proto-mission of the church has become a worldwide enterprise involving millions of Christians in every nation of the world.
Whether or not we realize it, we still have the same mission:
- To proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God — that Jesus is king.
- To heal the sick and set the oppressed free.
- To bear witness — and be a witness, be living proof that what we say is true — to all the nations of the earth.
Depending on our circumstance and geographic location, our mission brings persecution to varying degrees. Sometimes the suffering required is extreme. Other times, it’s subtle and overshadowed by other difficulties of a more distracting and deceptive nature.
Always, we have the promise that the Spirit of our Father is with us, willing to speak with and through us, present at exactly the moment we need him.
Jesus’s final instruction here — “don’t worry about how or what you should speak” — would sound naïve, except he had plenty of practice relying on the prophetic word of the Father and knew that it would work.
As a dear friend of mine recently prayed, “Lord, help me make audacious promises on your behalf, knowing that you can be trusted to keep them.”
The mission of the church is to stand in solidarity with God as he stands in solidarity with us. It’s a revolutionary thought. And it’s just as certain now as it was two thousand years ago.
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This is Part 145 in a series on the Gospel of Matthew, which you can access here. Unless otherwise marked, quotes are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.
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