Sheep Among Wolves
16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. 17 But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you. 18 Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations. 19 But when they deliver you up, don’t be anxious how or what you will say, for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. 21 “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. 22 You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved. 23 But when they persecute you in this city, flee into the next, for most certainly I tell you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man has come. 24 “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his lord. 25 It is enough for the disciple that he be like his teacher, and the servant like his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household!
The mission briefing turns to what it will cost — councils, floggings, governors, families — and promises words when they are needed.
“Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
The image is not encouraging and is not meant to be. He is the one doing the sending, and what he sends them into is described accurately.
The pairing that follows is one of the most useful sentences in the New Testament for anyone in a hostile setting. Shrewdness without innocence is manipulation; innocence without shrewdness is a liability that gets other people hurt. The two are held together as a single instruction, and this Gospel will show him practicing it — answering a trap about taxes with a coin Matthew 22:19–21, and refusing to answer at all when answering would serve nothing Matthew 27:14.
17 But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you. 18 Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations.
The horizon widens past the immediate mission. Local courts, synagogue discipline, then Roman governors and client kings — which is precisely the sequence the book of Acts records, and none of it happened on the trip described in verse five. The discourse is being given to the Twelve and preserved for a church that would need it.
19 But when they deliver you up, don’t be anxious how or what you will say, for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.
The promise is specific to the courtroom rather than a general excuse for not preparing. What it addresses is the fear of a hearing where a wrong word is fatal, and the assurance is that the Spirit supplies what is needed in that hour — not before it, which is why the anxiety cannot be resolved in advance.
“Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.
The cost named is the loss of the one shelter a person in that world could count on. The family is not merely unsupportive but is the mechanism of the betrayal, which the closing paragraph of the chapter will state again in the plainest terms.
You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.
The promise attached to being hated is endurance rather than escape, and the end here is the end of the trouble — of a life or of the age — rather than a deadline to survive. This Gospel says it again in the last discourse Matthew 24:13.
It is enough for the disciple that he be like his teacher, and the servant like his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household!
The logic of the section closes here: a disciple is not above his teacher, so the treatment the teacher receives sets the expectation. The insult named is the one the Pharisees have just used Matthew 9:34, and it is quoted here so that the household knows in advance what will be said about them — and that being called it is not evidence of having gone wrong.
settled What this mark means