Biblion Bible Commentary
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A Cup of Cold Water
Matthew 10:40-42
40 “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me. · WEB
The discourse of wolves and swords ends on the smallest possible kindness, and on who is standing behind the messenger.
"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me" Matthew 10:40.
The chain runs backward from the doorstep to the Father, and it is the reason the mission carries the weight it does. A householder deciding whether to take in a dusty traveler is, on this accounting, deciding about the one who sent him — which explains the severity of the warning about the town that refuses Matthew 10:14–15 and the size of the promise about the one that does not.
The principle returns at the end of the book in its most searching form, where the deciding is done unawares and the King identifies himself with the hungry and imprisoned Matthew 25:40.
"He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward" Matthew 10:41.
The phrase in the name of means on account of what the person is — receiving a prophet because he is a prophet rather than because he is useful or entertaining. And the promise is that the host receives the same reward as the guest. Someone who never preaches, who simply opens a door to someone who does, is credited with the work.
That is worth stating plainly: the reward for the mission is not restricted to the people sent. A widow who feeds a prophet through a famine is on the same footing as the prophet 1 Kings 17:15–16.
"Whoever gives one of these little ones just a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, most certainly I tell you, he will in no way lose his reward" Matthew 10:42.
The discourse that began with authority over demons ends with a cup of water, and the descent is deliberate. Water is free, cold water requires only that someone bother to draw it fresh, and the recipient is one of these little ones — the phrase that reappears in the community discourse for the people easiest to overlook Matthew 18:6 Matthew 18:10.
So the second discourse closes where the fifth will close, with the smallest thing done for the least person turning out to be the thing that counted. The sending has been described in terms of wolves, floggings, governors and a cross, and its last word is a cup of cold water — which is the only part of the assignment available to everyone.
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