Coming Persecutions - 10:18 The Apostles' Mission To The Gentile Rulers

10:18 The Apostles' Mission To The Gentile Rulers

and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles.

This verse moves the Twelve Apostles' mission from being restricted to the Jews, and points toward their mission to the Gentiles. Until this point in Matthew’s gospel Jesus’ ministry had been in Galilee. But at the time, Galilee had no Roman governor or king. (France distinguishes between kings and tetrarchs, which was the title of the region’s Herod Antipas.) On this basis, commentators see v. 18 as a great leap from the following verse. However, something that France notes but does not seem interested in, is that four chapters later, Matthew refers to Herod as ‘king’. This suggests that we should say that at the time Galilee did in fact have a king; and if Galilee had a king at the time Jesus said this, this verse is not so revolutionary as some make it out to be. Davies and Allison read the verse so that it does not need to envision action of the twelve outside Palestine, because there were plenty of Roman officials in the land to whom they could witness.

Having said that, it does stand in marked contrast to the beginning of Jesus’ commission, telling the twelve not to approach the Samaritans, much less the nations. The plurality of governors and kings suggests the situation of the Church after Peter’s vision in Acts. Morris believes that this shows a shift in Jesus’ meaning, from talking earlier about the immediate mission he was sending His twelve out for in Galilee, to now and following talking about their later missions to the Gentiles. This is because their restricted mission to the people of Israel would not have brought them into contact with the governors and kings of whom he spoke.

‘To bear testimony before them’ is problematic because it is unclear from the Greek syntax to whom ‘them’ refers. It could refer to the kings and governors, to the councils and synagogues, or to both. This passage is ‘taken primarily from Mk 13.9-13’, and in that version, ‘and the Gentiles’ does not follow, ‘before them’. However, it is also unclear to whom ‘them’ refers in that passage. This fact, coupled with the fact that bearing witness to governors and kings would have been simultaneously bearing witness to the Gentiles over whom they ruled, suggests that ‘them’ refers to the councils and synagogues. It would have been redundant for Matthew the Evangelist to add on ‘and the Gentiles’ to his source-text, if he felt that ‘them’ referred in any way to the kings and governors.

The fact that the twelve will be ‘dragged’ before the nations’ rulers reminds the reader of how the twelve will be as sheep among wolves.