Matthew 10:16- Be Wise As Serpents And Innocent Like Doves

An article by

Pastor Bobby

In one of our articles recently we discussed the importance of reading and studying the Bible. While also discussing the proper way of interpreting scripture, which is through exegesis. As a reminder exegesis can be described as the critical explanation or interpretation of scripture to understand its original meaning and the author's intent. It involves careful analysis of the text, including its historical, cultural, literary, and Biblical context, to bring out the meaning rather than imposing one's own interpretations. And so, exegesis is a lot of looking at the scripture to get the original meaning. It really is like being a detective. While also not twisting the scripture into your own meaning. To help us all get better at using exegesis. I wanted to start looking at passage from the Bible and start studying them by using exegesis.

For this article I want to take a look at Matthew 10:16 using exegesis to interpret this verse and the verses around it. I chose this verse because when looking at it by first glance you might think that this goes against a lot of what Jesus teaches. You might think this because of some of the imagery that Jesus uses in this verse. A lot of times when you see imagery like snake, you link it with evil. But in this passage, Jesus links it with being smart and being cunning. The other reason I wanted to take a deeper look at this verse, is because this verse gives us a very important warning about being disciples of Jesus and the Christian life. A warning that every Christian should be aware of. So, let's take a look at Matthew 10:16...

"[16] “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." (ESV)

The first thing we should do is take a stab at what I like to call a first glance interpretation. Yes, this could be considered an eisegesis. However, this is just to give us a good place to start in this article. For part of the article, I am going to act like this is the first time I am reading the passage. And that I have limited knowledge on what Jesus is saying here. I believe Jesus is warning His followers, and all of us that we need to be careful while we go out into the world. Jesus warns us, that as Christians we must be innocent. Or come in peace. So that we can love on people and connect them to Jesus. However, we must also be careful and smart. We must be wise and not be taken advantage of while Jesus sends us out. I believe that Jesus is also saying that as we go out there, we must be careful because there are people out there who wants to destroy us. Since we took a quick look at this passage. We can now look at the context of this passage.

Let us take a look at the literary context of Matthew 10:16. This is usually one of the easier contexts to find. Which is why I like to start with literary context first. For our verse, as most people know it is a gospel. So, it is narrative of Jesus's ministry here on earth. It is written from Matthew's point of view, since he was one of Jesus's disciples. Since Matthew was a disciple. Matthew had a personal relationship and experience Jesus firsthand. And saw many of the events and teachings of Jesus Christ. So, to be even more precise this is a teaching of Jesus to his disciples that he is sending out. But we will be talk more about that in the historical context of the scripture. Another thing to notice in the scripture, is that as I said before with Jesus is using a lot of imagery. This is so that the audience could connect it to the everyday lives. And so that they could have a deeper understanding of what Jesus is trying to teach you. Which one doing exegesis on a lot of the Gospels and Jesus's teachings. You will notice that Jesus does use a lot of imagery in His teachings. So that it is easier for more people to understand. This is why Jesus uses a lot of parables in His teachings. So, we now know what genre that Matthew is. And we have more of an understanding of the literary context. We can now move on to the historical and cultural context.

Now that we know the literary context. We are now going to look at the historical and cultural context of Matthew 10:16. For the historical context, the first thing to look at is who wrote the book, who the book was written to, and why. As I discussed before Matthew was the author of the gospel of Matthew. He was originally a tax collector who worked for the Roman Empire. Back in biblical times, tax collector was seen as the worst of sinners. Because they were seen as traitors against the Jewish people. Matthew was then called by Jesus to be one of the 12 disciples. So, Matthew left his old life and followed Jesus. The Gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish Christian audience. It is widely considered to be the most Jewish-centric of the four gospels. Matthew, sought to demonstrate how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies and that he was the Messiah the Old Testament told of. Now that we know who wrote Matthew, to whomever it was written to, and why. We can know start looking at what was going on during this book was written. During this time the Roman empire was expanding, And the Jewish people were looked down at, and were treated like a second-class citizen. So, the Jewish people were waiting for a savor. They were waiting for a messiah that was promised to them from the Old Testament. However, during this time there was a lot of false messiahs popping up. As well as a lot of false teachers. You also had the Jewish leaders like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes. Who were highly legalistic and by a lot of means were pretty corrupt as well. So, there were a lot of false teachings going along as well. Also, during this time Jesus started to send out His followers to spread the good news. But we will talk more about this when we go over biblical context. So, you could properly say that this was at the beginning of Jesus's ministry. The historical and cultural context leads us to the biblical context, which will tell us more about how to interpret this verse. While also telling us more about the history as well.

The biblical context tells us where and how this passage fits in with the rest of the Bible. The first thing we should do is look at the passage in it entirely, with the rest of the verses in this section.

Matthew 10:16-25 ESV says,

"[16] “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. [17] Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, [18] and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. [19] When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. [20] For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. [21] Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, [22] and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. [23] When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. [24] “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. [25] It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household."

This proves that Jesus was indeed warning His followers that persecution is coming to those who follow Him. Jesus is not trying to persuade people from not following him. But wants to give everyone the opportunity to know what it truly means to follow Jesus Christ. He even goes on to say that the world hates him. So, then the world will hate us as well. Because since Jesus is our masted and they hated him, they will then hate us as well. I believe the reason why this warning is here. Is because right before this Jesus is instructing and sending out the 72 followers to spread the gospel of Himself. So, Jesus is just warning His followers that no matter how good much good, how many people they heal, and how many demons they cast out people will still hate them and want to put them to death. This takes us to how this passage fits into the rest of the Bible. Jesus knows that His persecution upon the cross is coming. While also knowing that ultimately all of His followers and disciples will also face certain persecution and trials. So, all in all, Jesus is really trying to prepare His followers for certain upcoming trials that they will face from following Himself. So, Jesus is reminding them all to always be innocent and come in peace but as well as to be smart and cunning.

The last thing we need to look at when we exegesis a passage is how to apply this passage to our life. Now again every passage has one meaning, and that is what God intended to say. But when reading scripture, you should ask yourself how you can apply this scripture to your life. Now you can do this in two ways, a more general way or a more specific way. What I mean by that is this. There is a general way that we should all do. For example, pray more, read your Bible more. Then there is more specific applications that you can apply accordingly to what's going on in their life or where they are at in their relationship with Christ. So, how do we apply Matthew 10:16 and the surrounding versus to our life? The first way we can apply Matthew 10:16 to our life is by knowing that persecution is coming. As I said above following Jesus Christ is never easy. There are people who no matter how much good we do but want to stop us just because we are followers of Christ. So we need to understand this and understand what we are fighting for. And that is for Christ himself, because he fought for us first and laid it all down line for us. So we must do the same. So we need to turn to Jesus for comfort and for the strength to keep going on and doing the will of Jesus. The second way we can apply this is by praying for faith to continue on this path. God will not give us too much that we can't handle. And that's because with God and His strength we can handle everything. So let us pray for strength and faith that when the day does come when we go through trials, struggles, and persecution that God will give us the faith and strength to overcome it for His will and Glory. The third where we can apply this is by knowing the end result. Revelations tells us that Jesus will be victorious. So no matter what happens to us our Lord and savior will be worth fighting and will win the war.

I know that those first seems like a downer and that this article can seem like a downer as well. But let us be encouraged in the fact that Jesus has already won the war that Jesus will be victorious in the future. John 16:33 ESV, "[33] I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." So let us be innocent as doves and shrewd as serpents