Matthew 10:1-15
And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 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.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation. Hey, everyone, we're finishing up our sermon series on raising children in the faith this week, and I've chosen Matthew chapter 10, verses one through 15 as the Gospel reading for Sunday, October 15, it goes like this. And he called to him his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the 12 apostles are these first Simon, who is called Peter and Andrew, his brother, James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector, James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. These 12 Jesus sent out instructing them, go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and proclaim as you go saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons, received without paying, give without pay, acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or to tunics, or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it, and stay there until you depart. As you entered, the house greeted, and if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace returned to you. And if anyone will not receive you, or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet, when you leave the house, 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. Here is the reading. So our reading begins with Jesus calling the 12 disciples and it lists out who they are. Simon, Andrew, James, John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James, Thaddeus, Simon, Judas. And Jesus takes them all out. And he sends them out to the the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now, as an interesting note, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, to the disciples to only go to the house of Israel, and he changes that, finally, at the very end, when he says, go make disciples of all nations, not just the house of Israel, but all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son in the Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus sends them out, and he gives them a task, proclaim, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and cast out demons. So what he's doing is he's telling the disciples at that time, to do the same things that Jesus has been doing. Jesus has been proclaiming the kingdom of God, and healing, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, casting out demons. The idea is Jesus here is training them for the ministry, by having them do the things that he's doing. So the disciples have been with him for a while. And then he says, Now, you go, you've seen me work, you go do it. It's an interesting way of teaching people, right. You teach them they follow along, they hear the master doing it, and then they're supposed to mimic him, go out and do the thing. Now for the disciples, at that moment, he sends them out without any any preparations, without any any extra supplies, no bags, no belts, no extra coppers or silver or gold or anything like that. When they go out, they're supposed to rely on the hospitality of strangers. They get to a town they proclaim the kingdom of heaven is at hand and someone is supposed to take them in, as he says, For the laborer deserves his food. If they find no one who in the town who was willing to take them in, is supposed to take the dust and shake it off their feet as judgment against them. Now the reason I chose this one when we're talking about raising children in the faith is it shows a good example of the way Jesus brought up his disciples in this pattern that he was trying to teach them that he walked with them. He taught them He gave them knowledge, they watched him work, and then at some point They had, he decided to give them some practice. And later on, we'll see them come back and they debrief over it and they talk about it. This is a thing that that we need to do as congregations and as families trying to raise Christians in the faith is that there becomes a time when it's less about Bible study and about gaining knowledge. But we also need to help them practice it, especially as they as they transition from being children into almost adults, there's a time where they have to start taking more and more responsibility and do more and more things for themselves. And one of the things that I think the church has really struggled with, is thinking about how do we transition children into being adults in an appropriate way? Sometimes I think it's almost like they hit a teen and they're like, Fine, you've graduated now go out and be adults, you're ready for it, right? And they go, wait, wait, Yesterday, you were still emailing my dad to ask permission for me to go on events. It's an interesting thing that we have to think about is this transition. It's like, do we just sort of drop them into adulthood? Or is there a better way? And I think churches need to think through that. Just like Jesus thought through this, this growth in this practice, before they actually were sent out into all nations. That's all I have for today. We'll see you on Sunday. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai