Observation: As Jesus sends the disciples out in his name for the very first time, he gives them instructions about how they are to proceed, where to stay, how to interact, and what to do. It is this section where we get phrases like "shrewd as snakes" and "shake the dirt from your feet", along will all kinds of specific warnings about how aggressively people will reject the good news. However, the first instruction is this ... keep it simple; don't go off to far-off lands and try to make some heroic conversion of a famous person, but instead just go talk to local people and tell them the kingdom of God is near.
This is all that Jesus wants from the 12 disciples, to simply pronounce the good news, in an easy manner, to people who share their own ways and customs and language and traditions. Again, yes this will bring rejection and insult and anger and attempted public shame on the disciples, but that almost highlights the fact that such actions are abnormal and supernaturally evil. If a disciple can simply and kindly tell someone similar to them in manner and culture about Jesus and the love of God, and that person reacts with vitriol and anger, it cannot be due to a personal rejection of the human. It must be an evil-inspired rejection of Jesus.
Application: I still get frustrated with certain Christians I know who think that evangelism involves two things. One is telling people about how terrible their sins are, and how they need to repent of their terrible lives and immediately fall to the ground, pray to Jesus, and dive into a changed life. The second is that this message is part-and-parcel with fighting the great cultural wars of the world, and needs to be at the very heart of every debate about global violence, U.S. politics, gender confusion issues, generational misunderstandings, third-world poverty, etc.
Yes, the love of Jesus can - and someday will - heal every issue. If everyone carried that love in their hearts, while being so faithful to the Lord that they properly obeyed his every command, all other issues would fall away. However, that just is not the starting point of the gospel, and Jesus knew it. Likewise, when people accept Jesus, they will then see - by the power of the Holy Spirit - that their past lives were dark, and they'll bow down to the Lord, pray strongly, and worship in the light of their new lives. However, again, telling people how terrible they are and insisting they reverse everything they do is not the starting point of evangelism, and Jesus knew it.
We all need to do evangelism how Jesus taught us to. Simply going to our neighbors and telling them that the kingdom of God is near and available to them, through faith in Jesus, will bring enough hardship and angst upon our heads.
Prayer: Lord, may I get a little more angst brought upon my head, by taking more of your instructions seriously and simply telling those in my community about the good news of Jesus. May I take the simple actions more often, and let the big problems of this world be resolved by you. Amen.
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