Lessons from the “Limited Commission”

by Samuel Matthews

“And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease… These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 10:1-7 KJV).

Loved ones, at one point in His public ministry, the Christ charged His twelve apostles with the words of our text. We also read about this commission in Mark 6:7-13.

The Bible does not use the language, “The Limited Commission.” That is the lingo which humans have assigned to the above-quoted words of the Master. Why would anyone think that our Lord’s instructions in this instance are “limited?”

In contrast to what Jesus told the apostles after His resurrection, which was to go into all the world and preach to every person (Mark 16:15), in the case of Matthew 10, He told them to preach only to certain people: the Jews, whom He called “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” So, this commission was “limited” in its audience.

It was also “limited” in its duration. The charge of “The Great Commission” is in effect until the end of the world or age (Matthew 28:20), but “The Limited Commission” was temporary.

In addition, while the latter command was to go into all the world and teach/make disciples of those of all ethnicities (Matthew 28:19), the Matthew 10 charge was “limited” in its geographic scope. Jesus was sending out the twelve to proclaim God’s word to people in “the cities of Israel” (Matthew 10:23). Thus, “The Limited Commission” involved preaching only in the area known as the land of Palestine.

In terms of their preparation and personal conduct, when the apostles went out to preach under “The Limited Commission,” the Christ told them not to take along gold or silver, a bag, two tunics, sandals, or staffs (Matthew 10:9-10). Why should they not take such “normal” things? Jesus explained, “for a worker is worthy of his food” (Matthew 10:10). The Lord, through the hospitality of the Jews who would open their homes to the apostles, would provide for their needs (Matthew 10:11-13). The apostles needed to trust in their heavenly Father to take care of them.

Why preach only to the Jews? Per God’s wisdom, when the Word was in the flesh, He was a Jewish man (John 4:9). Jesus said this about His mission: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). During His time on earth, the Christ’s activities basically were spent in reaching out to the Jewish community, the same thing He called on the twelve to do under “The Limited Commission.” Later, God would bring the gospel to the Gentiles through Jewish converts to Jesus.

Jesus called the Jews of His day “the lost sheep” of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:6). Why would the word “lost” be a fitting description for some of God’s people? They were the descendants of Abraham, but the hypocrites, harlots, and tradition-keepers of the day had disregarded God’s truth. By doing so, they had turned their back on God and needed salvation.

Under “The Limited Commission,” Jesus sent the apostles out “two by two” (Mark 6:7), just as He later did with seventy other disciples (Luke 10:1). We can understand the practicality of this concept: “Two are better than one…” (Ecclesiastes 4:9).

When the twelve preached only to the Jews under the Matthew 10 and Mark 6 commission, what was their message? “And they went out, and preached that men should repent” (Mark 6:12). Jesus and John had been preaching the same thing (Matthew 3:2; 4:17). Let this be clear to all: the path to God involves repentance.

What else did the preaching under “The Limited Commission” include? The apostles declared that the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matthew 10:7). Again, John and Jesus had been preaching that, too. The declaration that the kingdom was “at hand” was for that generation only. We should not preach that message today. Why not?

If you want to look toward the timing of the kingdom’s establishment, do not look to the future, but rather to the past. The kingdom already came in the first century. The saints of God in Colosse were in it (Colossians 1:13). The promised kingdom was the Lord’s church (Matthew 16:18-19; Acts 2:47).

What about those who rejected the apostles’ message under the Matthew 10 commission? Jesus did not mince words: “And whoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words . . . It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city” (Matthew 10:14-15).

What kind of miraculous powers were granted to the apostles under “The Limited Commission?” Our Lord told them, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). That means that before Jesus’ death and the beginning of the church (Acts 2), His followers were already doing miracles.

Was “The Limited Commission” a good plan? Knowing that the Lord was its Source, without hesitation, we affirm that, of course, it was a good plan!
Jesus said, “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32-33).

The great number of objects present in no wise forbids a just estimate of their relative worth. The pain of the tiniest sparrow God does not despise, but what can measure the tenderness of sympathy with which he enters into our frailties and griefs and trials?

How much comfort and encouragement should the disciples of Jesus gather from these statements! Based on his tender care for his disciples, Jesus encourages "whosoever shall confess me before men.” The promise is that Jesus will also confess them before the Father who is in heaven.

To confess Jesus is to make him the object of our faith and life; it is to own him as the Savior; it is to honor him in this life; it is to espouse his cause and to face opposition and reproach for his sake. Those who do this, he will honor as his friends before the Father.

Jesus has just described the persecution and suffering that one must endure to be his disciple; hence, to confess him means to be willing to suffer for him and to rejoice in that suffering.

Those who understand the sufferings and refuse to confess Jesus because of persecution and hardships, he will disown them to the Father. It costs something to uphold Jesus' life in our lives.

To deny Jesus is to disown him as a Master for fear of man; he will disown them as his disciples in the judgment, unless, like Peter, one repents of the denial.

Jesus represents himself here as the great judge of life and death. All who sincerely profess Christ unto the end he will own before the Father; all who deny him for any cause and continue in this attitude toward him to the end he will deny before the Father.

There is a confession of Christ taught in the New Testament (Matt. 10:32-33; Luke 12:8). The confession of Jesus, which is made at the beginning of the Christian life, is not directly alluded to here, but may be included in what is said here.

This referred to the apostles and those who were already Christians confessing Christ. The apostles and disciples confessed him unto salvation. Those who refused to confess him did so to their condemnation.

Some rulers "did not confess him… lest they should be put out of the synagogue" (John 12:42). Thus, confession meant an obedience to him in life. All, in the church and out of it, desiring to be saved, must confess him by a life of obedience to him. These did not do it because "they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (John 12:43).

Jesus Christ had witnessed this confession before Pontius Pilate (I Timothy 6:13). This was for faith in Jesus Christ, not a formal question to become a disciple.

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).

Matthew 10:34-42 continues Jesus' instruction to his apostles on their limited commission. He here expands more fully the point made in Matthew 10:21-22.

Angels announced, “and on earth peace, good will toward men” at his birth (Luke 2:14). He is the "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6), yet there is a sense in which his mission brought disturbance.

From the meekness of his character and the blessings of his teachings, one would think that nothing but peace would result, but not so.

His mission to earth was to separate the righteous from the wicked. Jesus' goodness is to attract to itself all the good who have affinity with it; and this affinity of the good for the good, and of evil for the evil, will produce a division, a ferment, a strife, "a sword."

When the right goes forth into a world of wrong, there must be war. Each principle will rally its own adherents and its own armor under its own banner, and terrible will be the struggle until right or wrong, heaven or hell, attain the victory.

The disciples of Jesus believe in the ultimate victory of good, righteousness, peace, and God. Jesus gave spiritual peace, which "passeth all understanding" (Philippians 4:7), in the joys of forgiveness of sin, the hope of holiness, and the satisfaction of a true, faithful obedience; but this peace was not given to the world.

The Jews expected uninterrupted outward peace in the days of the Messiah, so Jesus corrects that misapprehension. He knew that his mission and truth would provoke persecution. The sword is the symbol of war, the very essence of the vision (Luke 12:51), civil commotion, and domestic discord, the opposite of peace and concord.

“For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Matthew 10:35-36).

Though the gospel of Jesus proclaims peace and comes freighted with blessings for man, both individually and socially, its incidental results will be violent animosities of its foes against its friends.

When God called Abraham, he was to separate himself from his idolatrous people (Genesis 12). The right, the pure, the good are at variance with the wrong, the defiled, the bad. Light is as much opposed to darkness as darkness is to light; truth would destroy error, and holiness hates sin.
The truly converted mother will turn with horror from the impurity of her daughter; the ties of marriage are often dearer than the ties of consanguinity, yet even these must yield to higher claims, and the ties of God and truth are higher than any ties of man to man.

So often the dividing principle cuts like a straight sword through the center of the family and divides it; upon either side of that line, born of the same blood, are the opposing adherents of heaven and hell. It was not the express mission of Jesus to so disturb human society, but his teachings have these results.

Jesus is the "Prince of Peace." His advent was heralded by the angels crying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men."

The end of his mission was to spread peace among men and to rule over a kingdom whose principle and rule is peace. This seems to contradict Matthew 10:34-36, yet they are both true. Jesus means that the end of his mission and work is peace, but the immediate and preparatory influence of his mission will bring division and strife, war and destruction.

No one person has ever excited the division, the strife, and destruction among men that the coming of Christ has done. His mission, his teaching, has been a continued cause of division and strife among men from the day of his advent until now, and the promise is yet for division and strife for years to come.

Jesus requires his disciples to separate from all sin and evil and to make increasing war on all wrong and all wickedness. This conflict between good and evil begins in the heart of every person; the good and the evil that dwell in each heart are at enmity; they make war upon each other.

The enmity is uncompromising, and the conflict can end only with the destruction of one or the other. This enmity and war rage not only in the heart of every man, but they rage between the good and the evil in the family, in the neighborhood, in the country, and among the whole race of mankind.

This war can never end between good and evil, virtue and vice, between right and wrong, until one or the other triumphs and the other is brought to destruction.

Behind these two principles are God and the devil. God is the author of all good and the guide and director of all the forces working for good in the universe (James 1:17).

The devil is the author and guide of all sin and wickedness in the universe, and the guide and promoter of all the influences that work for evil.

“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37).

The closest fleshly ties, when they come into competition with our duties to God, must be disregarded, but only when there is a conflict. Father and mother are here supposed to stand against Christ, and to throw their parental influence against the child's espousing his name.

Jesus and his name can be second to none other; we must love him above all others, or not have his love. Truth is more authoritative than a parent.
Jesus has done more for us than the nearest relative can possibly do; where the affections for parents would seduce us to sin, their power must be rejected. Jesus must have full control of the heart and life. If one lets any earthly tie have precedence over our love for Jesus, we are "not worthy" of him.

The condition of the heart that lets anything shut out Jesus renders itself unfit for Jesus; he will not dwell in the heart without being supreme.

“And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:38).

Jesus thus intimates his death by crucifixion early in his ministry. The cross is the symbol of death by crucifixion. When a criminal was condemned to crucifixion, a part of his sentence was that he should carry his cross to the place of execution.

To "take his cross" means to submit to the fate of trouble and persecution which was to come upon them; it means a willingness to suffer for Christ.
He desires that his disciples have courage and faith to trust him in all trials that he may put upon them. This does not mean that one must carry the cross of Jesus, but it means that he must take up his own cross and bear it. Christ bore his own cross to his crucifixion, so his disciples should bear each his own cross to his own crucifixion.

So the great crucified leader is to be followed by an endless train of crucified followers; they are crucified symbolically, in all their sufferings of mind or body, in behalf of Christ and truth. Each disciple who has the spirit of the Lord is crucified in fact or in readiness of mind; the spirit of Christ is the spirit of martyrdom.

Paul expressed this to the Galatians in chapter two: “For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:18-21).

To "follow after me" literally means to attend him (Matthew 4:25), to follow or imitate, to tread in his steps, imitate his example: “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

It is not likely that his disciples understood the first prophetic hint of his crucifixion, but it is clear that he did: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die” (John 12:32-33).

Jesus mentions two things that render one unworthy to be his disciple: to love father and mother more than him and to fail to bear the cross after him.

“He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39).

The one who attempts to find or save his life by avoiding the cross mentioned in the last verse shall lose his life. The word "findeth" is here used in the sense of "saveth" to form an antithesis with the word "loseth." If one apostatizes and denies Jesus, and so finds his life, he shall lose his soul, his hope, and the spirit of God, which is his true life.

But he who bravely adheres to Christ and dies for his faith shall find by a short transit a life such as eye hath not seen, or mind conceived. By denying Christ before persecutors to escape persecution, one loses his soul; but when one remains faithful to Christ and suffers persecution even unto death, that one finds eternal life (Revelation 2:10).

Jesus means to say that he who, at the expense of duty and faithfulness, preserves his temporal life shall lose his eternal life; and he who, for the sake of Christ, sacrifices his temporal life shall inherit eternal life. The Greek word "psyche" signifies either "life" or "soul;" it is the same word translated "soul" in verse twenty-eight.

“He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward” (Matthew 10:39).

Here, Jesus concludes his instruction to his apostles for their limited commission. His apostles, being his servants and going forth among the people, represent him. Those who receive the apostles and protect them because they are disciples and apostles of Christ, and shall receive, if they have faith, Jesus also.

Rahab received the spies as servants of God, lodged them, served them in danger at her own risk, and sent them away, and was saved and all her house (Josh. 2:8-22; Heb. 11:31). So did Obadiah in the wicked reign of Ahab and Jezebel (I Kings 18:3-4).

To receive Christ is to receive his teachings. No one can reject the teachings of Christ and receive Christ; no one can reject the apostles and receive Christ. Those who reject the apostles and their teaching reject Christ and incur Christ's condemnation, while those who accept them receive Christ's reward.

Jesus expands this truth so that it applies not only to the apostles, but to a prophet or any disciple of Jesus. Jesus is the Apostle and High Priest of our profession (Hebrews 3:1). The apostles represented Christ as Christ represented the Father: “Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21).

With this difference, his representation was perfect. Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9. Jesus is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). The apostle's representation of Christ was imperfect (Galatians 2:11-14 - Peter).
One who receives "a prophet" in the name of a prophet, that is, with a full recognition of his character and mission, despite the persecutions, shall receive a prophet's reward; that is, shall share both in the prophet's faith, his dangers, persecutions, and shall share in his reward.

“And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42).

Jesus speaks tenderly of his apostles, calling them "little ones." They were sheep in the midst of wolves, harmless like doves, tender like little ones. "A cup of cold water" represents a very small service. The ones who give this in recognition of their apostleship, and because they were disciples of Jesus, shall receive a reward.

Simply Jesus says you are my disciples, my representatives, and those who receive you receive me. Just as those who receive the prophet received a prophet's reward, so those who receive you shall share in your reward.

Even so small a favor as a cup of cold water, given to a disciple because he is such, evinces love to that disciple, and through him to his Lord. We are encouraged by the fact that the least service done to those who work in the name of Jesus is observed and rewarded by God.

No act of service, no matter how small, escapes the observation of God. He observes who is kind to them, as Lydia was to Paul (Acts 16:15), and those who throw difficulties in their way, as did Diotrephes to John (III John 9).

All our daily experiences are recorded, and God remembers them and gives due reward for them (cf. Malachi 3:16). The chief butler forgot Joseph when he was restored to his place (Genesis 41:9), but the Lord never forgets any of his people who serve in his name.

He will say to many who little expect it, in the resurrection morning, "for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me… And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matt. 25:35-40).

This closes his instructions to his apostles for their mission. Mark and Luke say that the apostles immediately went out and fulfilled their mission (Mark 6:12; Luke 9:6). Through the free gift of God’s grace, made possible by Jesus’ blood (Ephesians 2:8; Revelation 1:5), and your obedient faith (Romans 1:5; 10:17; 16:26), salvation is offered.

If you have questions or wish to comment, please do so. Lord willing, a biblical answer will be provided for every biblical question. The God of Heaven and Earth is so good, and His love reaches all. We love you with the love of the Lord (John 13:34-35).