Matthew 10.1, 5-8: 'Go not among the Gentiles...'

[Annalise Kockott]

Please can someone help me with the following reading and tell me how it relates to Paul's statement that there is "no Gentile nor Jew; male nor female etc." Why did Jesus tell the disciples only to go to the Jews?

At that time, Jesus called to him his twelve disciples and gave them
authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease
and every infirmity. These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, "Go
nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go
rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

[Dimitris]

Hallo!

I don't know, why Jesus in that moment told the disciples to go only to the Jews. But we have to keep in mind, that this was only the first commandement. The second and for-ever valid commandement was given after the Resurrection: (Matthew 28, 19)

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

[Michael Stickles]

Please can someone help me with the following reading and tell me how it relates to Paul's statement that there is "no Gentile nor Jew; male nor female etc." Why did Jesus tell the disciples only to go to the Jews?

Here is St. John Chrysostom's explanation (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200132.htm):



And what says He to them? He presently charges 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." (Matthew 10:5-6)

"For think not at all," says He, "because they insult me, and call me demoniac, that I hate them and turn away from them. Nay, as I sought earnestly to amend them in the first place, so keeping you away from all the rest, to them do I send you as teachers and physicians. And I not only forbid you to preach to others before these, but I do not suffer you so much as to touch upon the road that leads thither, nor to enter into such a city." Because the Samaritans too are in a state of enmity with the Jews. And yet it was an easier thing to deal with them, for they were much more favorably disposed to the faith; but the case of these was more difficult. But for all this, He sends them on the harder task, indicating his guardian care of them, and stopping the mouths of the Jews, and preparing the way for the teaching of the apostles, that people might not hereafter blame them for "entering in to men uncircumcised," (Acts 11:3) and think they had a just cause for shunning and abhorring them. And he calls them lost, not stray, sheep, in every way contriving how to excuse them, and winning their mind to himself.


In Christ,
Mike