““I am sending you out like sheep surrounded by wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of people, because they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues. And you will be brought before governors and kings because of me, as a witness to them and the Gentiles.”
— Matthew 10:16-18
Pss. Sol. 8:23, 30 also has imagery of wolves.
2nd Discourse in Matthew (Missions Discourse). Jesus sending disciples out throughout Israel to announce kingdom and even perform miracles. Many instructions throughout passage, and not time here to discuss all of them.
They would face danger obviously. They would face opposition. Not all would accept the message. Not all these words would be fulfilled in this journey but throughout their ministry. Perhaps Matthew has collected things that Jesus said throughout His ministry, even toward the end and gathered them into this one discourse before the missionary journey of the disciples. Would not be uncommon for gospel writers.
Wise as serpents: Something along the lines of don’t go looking for trouble…it will find you. Don’t be brash, rude, foolish. Modern debate is on the word “winsome” or “clever” and people argue over whether we need to package truth how people are more willing to receive it.
Innocent as doves: Again, trouble will find you, so don’t do anything that makes accusations stick. Of course, we’re not perfect, we have enough problems without creating our own by stupidity or sinful woes.
These ideas (not just these but throughout entire chapter) need to be teased out more for modern application. Especially defining who “people” are, those who we should “beware.” We may be highly misunderstanding who the enemy is. How should we be engaging/interacting with culture/those people? What does it mean to be “attacked”? Go ask Christians around the world first to gain broader perspective.
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