Missions training

Continuing in Matt’s chock-full-of-missions Chapter 10, Jesus tells the twelve that they will be going out strictly to Jewish towns and villages.

"Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

“Lost sheep of the house of Israel,” is an interesting phrase. Jesus is repeating a concept He previously stated in Jeremiah 50.6. And although we find the 99 none-lost sheep story in Luke’s account, only Matthew, in the New Testament, includes this specific label for the people of God.

And that makes all the sense in the world since what Matthew is clicking out on his keyboard is very intentionally directed to those folks who used to pay taxes to him—the descendants of Abe, Isaac, and Jake. He wants to bless the very people of whom he used to take advantage.

We know that, before closing up shop on the Earth, Jesus tells us quite specifically to go to the Samaritans, as well as to all the non-Jewish places we can find. Therefore, we grasp that this chapter is Pre-Great-C instructions.

It is training. First, the men are getting some classroom teaching, and then they will be sent out—hands-on and feet-moving—to make it real for them.

It’s their short-term mission trip. A bit like we do today.