Shrewd like the Serpent (10:16–25)
Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (Matt 10:16)
Jesus does not promise the Twelve safety. He sends them out as sheep among wolves and tells them, in the same breath, what kind of people they need to be as they head out on their mission.
The word translated “wise” is φρόνιμοι (phronimoi). The Greek translation of Genesis uses the same root for the one creature in Eden singled out for its cunning: “the serpent was more crafty [φρονιμώτατος, phronimōtatos] than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made” (Gen 3:1). Jesus tells his disciples to take up the very quality that undid Adam and Eve.
The serpent’s shrewdness in Eden served deception. It tried to twist what God had said (Gen 3:1), and it succeeded in breaking trust. Conversely, Jesus qualifies the shrewdness he asks for immediately: the Twelve are also to be ἀκέραιοι (akeraioi), “innocent,” a word that means unmixed, with nothing foreign added in. Shrewdness without innocence becomes manipulation; innocence without shrewdness becomes an easy target. Jesus wants the serpent’s sharpness of mind joined to innocence and purposes oriented towards the kingdom of God.
What that combination looks like in practice follows immediately. The Twelve will be handed over to courts and flogged in synagogues, dragged before governors and kings for Jesus’ sake (10:17-18). Family will betray family (10:21). When they are seized, Jesus tells them not to plan a defense in advance, because the Spirit of their Father will speak through them (10:19-20). The one who endures to the end will be saved (10:22), and when persecution comes in one town, they are to flee to the next rather than manufacture an unasked-for martyrdom (10:23). Fleeing to the next town is itself an exercise of the shrewdness Jesus just named.
The section ends with a potential accusation full of irony.
“If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household” (10:25).
That charge, being in league with the prince of demons, is the same one leveled at Jesus himself later in this Gospel (12:24). The disciples who take up the serpent’s cunning to serve the truth are accused of serving the serpent’s master instead.
We tend to resolve this paradox by favoring one half of it. Some of us grow so suspicious of other people’s motives that we read manipulation into every disagreement and call it discernment. Others confuse niceness with innocence and refuse to name what is plainly happening in a room because naming it feels unkind. Jesus asks neither of us to choose. He asks for people who can see clearly what is in front of them and refuse to turn that clarity into a weapon.
The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel (10:5–8)
At the end of ch. 9, just before the commissioning of the Twelve, Matthew provides a transitional summary. He notes that Jesus saw the crowds “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36).
This language is an intentional allusion to Ezekiel 34. In that chapter, Yahweh levels a sustained indictment against the shepherds of Israel for abandoning the flock.
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts (Ezek 34:2–5).
Because Israel’s leaders failed, Yahweh makes a remarkable promise: he himself will do what they would not.
Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.... I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured and I will strengthen the weak (34:11, 16).
Yahweh then says that he will accomplish this through a Davidic shepherd:
“I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David” (34:23).
In ch. 10, when Jesus gives the Twelve their instructions, the language of Ezekiel 34 surfaces again.
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” (10:5–6).
The Greek word for “lost” (ἀπολωλότα) is the same word the Greek translation of Ezekiel uses for the sheep the shepherds had abandoned (34:4, 16). The lost sheep Yahweh swore to seek are the ones Jesus is now sending his disciples to find. The Davidic shepherd of Ezekiel’s promise has arrived.
The commission the Twelve receive makes the identification unmistakable. Jesus commanded them:
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons (10:8).
These are the restorative acts Ezekiel associated with the divine shepherd: binding up the injured, healing the sick, and strengthening the weak. They are also the signs Isaiah promised would accompany God’s arrival in salvation (Isa 35:5–6). The mission the Twelve are sent on is the fulfillment of what the prophets saw from a distance.
The limitation to Israel (“go nowhere among the Gentiles,” 10:5) should not be interpreted as ethnic parochialism. Yahweh’s promise in Ezekiel 34 was made to the scattered flock of the covenant. Jesus is fulfilling that promise in sequence. The mission will eventually extend to the nations (28:19), but for now, the shepherd first goes to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Not Peace, But A Sword (10:34–39)
When Jesus tells his disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34, ESV), he’s echoing the prophet Micah. In Micah 7, the prophet laments the current state of Israel. The opening verses describe a society in total moral collapse:
Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires. The godly has perished from the land, and there is no one upright among mankind (Mic 7:1–2).
Micah describes a world where trust has vanished, and even the most basic bonds have broken apart.
For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house (Mic 7:6)
In response to this chaos, Micah declares:
But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me (Mic 7:7).
When Jesus echoes this language—“I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother” (Matt. 10:35)—he’s making a powerful statement about his own generation. By referencing Micah’s lament, Jesus implies that the same situation exists in his time: there are no truly faithful people in the land.
In the ancient Near East, family was everything. It defined identity, shaped careers, and provided security. So when Jesus demands that his disciples put him above family, he’s asking for something radical.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Matt 10:37)
We live in a different world, but many things still vie for our ultimate loyalty. Institutions, ideologies, political movements, and yes, even family—all seek to define us.
It’s good to love your family and find joy in God’s gifts. The problem arises when that love exceeds your love for Christ. Loving anything more than him is to seek life in created things instead of in the Creator.
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (10:39)
Like Micah, we live in a world where trust is hard to find, and loyalties are unclear. Our first love must always be for Christ and his Kingdom.
Great words in today’s politically charged environment about being “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” It’s hard not to cudgel those who seem incapable of seeing the truth of what is happening under the current administration: immigrants who are perhaps only guilty of a misdemeanor are being dragged into what are essentially concentration camps while many applaud! I could go on but for brevity will only bring up that one issue of many that are tearing the fabric of our society apart.
I needed these words because I think I often respond on social media more like a serpent and less like a dove because it seem so clear and obvious how we should act to follow the teachings of Jesus — love God and love others.
Today’s reading reminded me of the great quote by Jim Elliott, missionary to a tribal people in So America: “He is no fool who gives what he can never keep to gain what he can never lose.”