Matthew 10 Commentary
Please choose a passage:
Matthew 10:1-4
Jesus empowers His group of twelve disciples to perform miracles before He sends them throughout the land. Matthew lists the twelve apostles by name.
Matthew 10:5-10
Jesus instructs His disciples in what they are supposed to do when they go throughout the land proclaiming the kingdom, healing, and casting out demons. He tells them places to avoid and what resources they should and should not take with them.
Matthew 10:11-15
Jesus continues to instruct His disciples on their mission throughout Israel. He tells them how to respond when a town receives them favorably and how to respond when a town receives them unfavorably.
Matthew 10:16
Jesus gives two powerful metaphors to help His disciples understand their mission. The first is a warning. The second is an admonition.
Matthew 10:17-20
As Jesus prepares His disciples for the mission they are about to undertake, He prophesies about what will happen to them for His sake and promises that God’s Spirit will be in them and speak through them when they face these persecutions.
Matthew 10:21-22
Jesus puts the disciples on notice that there is a high cost to following Him but there is great reward for those who endure it to the end.
Matthew 10:23
Jesus tells the disciples to quickly move on to the next town if they face hostility, because even as it is there is not enough time to get the message that the Messiah is coming before He appears. Therefore they are not to waste time on those who do not wish to receive this message.
Matthew 10:24-25
Jesus informs His disciples that they will not be greater than Him, but they can be like Him. This likeness (and their greatness) will come through sharing with Him in the suffering. Jesus forecasts that they will be mistreated for following Him, even as He has been mistreated.
Matthew 10:26-27
Jesus tells His disciples that they should not be afraid of what people say against them for following Him. Their words don’t matter. God will reveal the truth. The disciples are to boldly proclaim Jesus’s teachings.
Matthew 10:28
Jesus continues explaining fear to His disciples. He tells them not to fear men who can only harm the body but not the “psuche” (life/soul).
Matthew 10:29-31
Having asked His disciples to willingly die for Him, Jesus assures them that God holds their lives in great value.
Matthew 10:32-33
Jesus puts His disciples on notice of two contrary truths. The first is that the cost of faithfulness is the scorn and persecution of men, but the reward for confessing Jesus before men is His approval and future celebration of them before His Father in heaven.
Matthew 10:34-37
Jesus warns of the deep division that His kingdom message sows among men. It divides even families. He tells His disciples that anyone who does not love Him more than the dearest relationships within their households is not worthy of Him.
Matthew 10:38-39
Jesus bids His disciples to take up their cross and follow after Him. He warns them that everyone will lose their soul/life, but only those who lose their soul/life for His sake will find it.
Matthew 10:40-42
Jesus shares that when someone receives one of His disciples, they are really receiving the Messiah and God who sent the Messiah. And He talks about the rewards one can expect for receiving prophets, righteous men, and giving cups of cold water to little ones in the name of a disciple.
Additional Resources
The Gospel of Matthew was written to demonstrate to the Jews of Jesus, the Messiah’s generation that He was indeed the Christ. Matthew thematically substantiates the Messianic identity of Jesus beginning with the genealogy of Jesus, which ran from Abraham, the father of Israel’s people through King David who was promised to have a son who would be on Israel’s throne forever. Throughout his Gospel account Matthew makes use of numerous prophecies both explicitly stated and by way of subtle allusion to support his thesis. Matthew further makes use of parallel events in Jesus’s life to those of Messianic figures from the Old Testament (Moses, Joseph, David, etc.) to bolster his argument.
Jesus came to offer the Jews the chance to participate in the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom. To do this, they would have to receive and follow Him as their Messiah. Jesus’s message was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Ultimately, they rejected Him as their Messiah and condemned Jesus to death by crucifixion. The Jews’ rejection of the Messiah opened the door for Gentiles to enter the kingdom (Matthew 8:11-12, 22:1-10). Matthew’s Gospel is therefore a call for the Jews repent of their murder of Jesus and to embrace Him for the divine Messiah He is.
Matthew shows how their rejection of Him and His brutal death was predicted not only by Jesus Himself, but also was foretold in the Jewish scriptures of the Messiah.
The main proof that Jesus was the Messiah was “the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 12:39, 16:4). This was Jesus’s death and resurrection from the dead. “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40).
Because Matthew’s Gospel was written to people who were already members of God’s eternal family by virtue of their faith in God’s promise to send the Messiah, Matthew emphasizes the “reward of eternal life” (aka “The Prize of Eternal Life”) rather than “the Gift of Eternal Life”. In other words, Matthew’s Gospel focuses on how to “enter the kingdom” rather than how to “be born again”.
Matthew’s Gospel demonstrates how Jesus came to fulfill the law and open a way for God’s people to participate in the Messianic kingdom if they would follow His example of worshiping God from the heart by forgiving and serving others.
For “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). If we have faith to follow the example set forth by the resurrected Messiah, whom all authority on heaven and earth has been granted (Matthew 28:18) and take up our cross for His sake (Matthew 16:24-25), then we will become great in His kingdom (Matthew 20:26).
Finally, Matthew provides extensive samples of Jesus’s teachings including “the Sermon on the Mount”, “the Little Commission”, and “the Olivet Discourse” and many parables, alongside accounts of numerous miracles and wonders, personal moments with His twelve disciples, interactions with seekers, and increasingly as his Gospel account progresses: challenges and confrontations with His adversaries – the Pharisees, Scribes, and Priests.
Jesus summons His twelve disciples and sends them throughout Judea to proclaim His kingdom. Before they begin their mission, Jesus gives them instructions for what they are to do and expect. Matthew records Christ’s message in Jesus’s own words. This is the second discourse recorded by Matthew.
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