Go to Town

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

GO TO TOWN

Matt 10:11-16

11 "Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. 12 As you enter the home, give it your greeting. 13 If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. 15 I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. 16 I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

NIV

Jesus is sending his disciples out into the world, but with explicit instructions.  Although the world is likened to a den of wolves in which he is sending sheep, he tells them exactly how they are to proceed. In every town they enter they should inquire about any good people in town. They certainly cannot inquire as to the best inn, for they have not gold or silver to pay for lodging. They were not to try to find the riches people in town that could offer them good accommodations.  The idea is to find those who are predisposed to hearing the gospel, good people, worthy people. We can certainly see some parallels to our lives today. Although for the most part the worldly people we know do not seem as a den of wolves, but nevertheless those who are opposed to the gospel are in fact those wolves. We see many of them in high profile positions where they can effectively work to decrease any efforts of the sheep, those of us who would witness to the grace of God. But we also come across these types of wolves in our daily life, perhaps even in our own extended family. What Jesus is instructing his disciples to do is somewhat like the game of hide and seek. The good people are out there hiding and we are to seek them out. There are going to be people who when we share the good news about the kingdom of God, they will refuse to listen, oppose what we tell them. They will even refute the message with their theories of science. They will believe the words of men rather than God.  They will say they have proof of evolution and we have no proof of God. Science is provable but we cannot prove God with using only the bible for that is not scientifically proven. These are the people Jesus tells us to shake the dust off our feet and move on. They are not worthy of our staying with them or spending any energy on with the message. They will be judged by God and their destiny of their own making is the lake of burning fire, which is far worse then what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. God simply rained down fire from heaven on them, but the lake of burning sulfur will utterly destroy them, they will perish. But there are people out there, worthy people, but we have to seek them out. This would imply that we have to tell the message to everyone, finding who is worthy and who is not. We have to inquire if they are worthy. This certainly appears to be a hide and seek scenario, yet we need to seek for them. That appears to mean we need to be out there in the towns looking for them. We cannot simply stay secluded within the confines of our Christian community, staying away from those awful sinners, or the places they frequent. It would be possible we could think that those worthy people would not be in those places either, that we would most likely find them in good places, like coming to visit our church. But that is not the case either for they live in the same town as the rest of the sinners. It is just they will be open to hearing the message. However in being as innocent as a dove, we still need to be shrewd as a snake. That is to say, it might not be the best method to approach people and say, “Do you know Jesus?” There are clues to who would be open to the message and who would not. In our dove like lifestyle, staying innocent, but at the same time mingling with sinners, looking, seeking, finding those clues which lead us to those who are open and staying away from those wolves who would devour us, or attempt to destroy us. Yet even with all that we are still supposed to go to town.