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I am reading in Mathew right now in my year long reading plan, focusing this year on the New Testament. I have read the whole sweep of the Bible, from the Old Testament through the New Testament, each year for a number of years. I am not sure how many, because I have not kept track.

The words, “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves”, came up in conversation with my son a few days ago, so these words caught my attention in my daily reading this morning. I had not paid much attention to the context in which Jesus spoke these words before:

“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.” ‬

Matthew‬ ‭10:16‭-‬17‬ ‭NET

These are the instructions Jesus gave the disciples when he sent them to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. Jesus was very specific in his instructions, telling them what to do and what not to do, what to wear, how to conduct themselves, and Jesus pointedly included the following instructions:

“Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Matthew 10:5-6

I realized this morning for the first time the significance of the warning that Jesus was giving to his disciples when he sent them “out like sheep surrounded by wolves”. (Matt. 10:16) That instruction takes on a different color for me, now, considering that the “wolves” surrounding the disciples would be the religious people in their world – their fellow Jews.

Jesus was not sending the disciples among the Romans, or the Greeks, or even the Samaritans. Jesus was sending his disciples to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Jesus told the disciples to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and Jesus warned them they would be surrounded by wolves. This means Jesus was sending the disciples to the sheep in the house of Israel, and the disciples would be surrounded by wolves in the house of Israel.

The conclusion seems clear that the sheep in the house of Israel to whom Jesus was sending his disciples were going to be among wolves, who were also in the house of Israel.

These words of Jesus provide us the time worn adages about wolves among the sheep and wolves in sheep’s clothing. Jesus repeats this theme of the lostness of religious people and the wolfishness of religious leaders over and over again throughout the Gospels. So much, that this theme has stuck out like a sore thumb to me in recent years. (I have written about it in articles like, Why Did Jesus Pick on the Pharisees so Much?)

I have been recently pondering about the many criticisms Jesus leveled against the religious leaders of his day. Do these criticisms have any warrant today? How should we view what Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day? Is the significance historical, only? Or does it have application today in our Christian world?

I do not believe that 1st Century Jewish leaders and modern Christian leaders, and 1st Century Jews and modern Christians are exactly equivalent. We believe in Jesus, and we have the Holy Spirit today, which they did not have in the time of Jesus. This should make a significant difference, right?

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(It’s a modern myth, I believe, that we have progressed away from these basic human tendencies. The modern world continues to produce evils like school shootings, human trafficking, man-made drugs sold for huge profits that turn people into zombies, etc.)

Further, Paul wrote often to believers in his day who had the Holy Spirit who were at risk of being lured away lured away from the Gospel. (See. Gal. 1:6-9; Phil. 3:2-9; Col. 2:6-23; etc.) If people within a generation after Jesus were being “attacked” by religious “wolves”, then we are not immune in our day.

In fact, Jesus warned his followers about the future:

• “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” (Matt. 7:15)
• “Watch out that no one deceives you…. (Matt. 24:4);
• “many false prophets will appear and deceive many people” (Matt. 24:9); and
• “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time.” (Matt. 24:24-25)

Who is a false prophet other than a religious person who is not truly or authentically speaking and demonstrating the way, the truth, and the life of God? False prophets are deceivers. They are people who appear to be one thing, but they are another. They are wolves in sheep clothing.

I believe the false prophets are religious people, because they are people who have the capacity to fool “even the elect”. (Matt. 24:24) They are “Christian”. They are in the Church. They are among us, and we need to be “wise as serpents” about them.

Jesus also warned his followers in a parable about workers sowing wheat in a field during the day. The in which weeds were planted at night. (Matt. 13:24-30) When the workers discovered the weeds growing in and among the wheat, they suggested to the farmer that they could pull out the weeds.

The farmer cautioned, however, that pulling out the weeds would uproot the wheat. Therefore , the farmer instructed them to leave the weeds until the harvest, and they would be sorted out at that time.

The wheat and the weeds are people. They are in the same field – the same community: the Church. The wheat are the true and authentic people of God. The weeds are not true and authentic people of God.

The temptation right now is to try to describe who is authentic and who is inauthentic, to develop the categories of wheat and weeds, the true believers and the heretics, the true prophets and the false prophets. That isn’t my point here.

I am actually hesitant to do that. I think we should all be hesitant to do that, because we (humans) judge by appearances, but God judges by the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7) I am afraid we would make a mess of it. (And, we do!) Jesus told his disciples that the sorting would have to wait for the end of the age because doing it now will destroy some of the wheat.

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Thus, we need to be careful. We need to be wise as serpents, as Jesus said to his disciples when he sent them out to their own people, the house of Israel, in his day. We need to guard our own hearts, lest we be deceived. We need to maintain our own focus on Jesus our Savior – and our Lord – lest we be led astray.

I have often thought that the need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves is instruction for Christians who go out into the world and share the Gospel. I have never thought about it as instruction for Christians in the Church community, but I am rethinking that now.

These words were spoken in the context of the religious community in which the disciples lived. Why wouldn’t they apply also to people in the religious community in which we live today? Perhaps, we are being naïve and unwise to think otherwise.

I have to admit that these thoughts make me uncomfortable. We value highly our church communities and take solace in them, as we should! The writer of Hebrews exhorts us, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:25)

We are the “body of Christ”. Christian community is essential and necessary. Even if weeds grow among the wheat!

As I think about these things, I realize that the house of Israel to which Jesus sent his followers did not (yet) believe in him. He was sending them to religious people who were not yet believers. Many of them (actually most of them) never did believe. (God became man and came to His own people, and they did not recognize or receive Him. (John 1:10-11))

I imagine the early church was a beautiful place to live out faith. The lines between authentic and inauthentic followers of Jesus were probably pretty clear, at the beginning anyway. Who would join those early believers who were viewed by all people on all sides as misfits and oddballs other than people who were willing to leave their families and their lives behind to follow Jesus?

It wasn’t popular to be a Christ follower at first. Over time, however, those lines became less clear. Just read through the epistles, and you will find continual warnings about various people and groups of people gravitating toward the early churches. “Be wise as serpents” echoes in these warnings.

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How much more should we be concerned 20 centuries later? 

Dangerous people were already in and among the early church community within less than a generation of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves is every bit as much applicable to us today as it was to the first disciples, and it doesn’t just apply to the world “out there” among the non-churched people.

In fact, it may be more true in the Church than outside the Church! Perhaps, this is why Paul tells the Corinthians to forget about judging those outside the church, and says, “Are you not to judge those inside?” (1 Corinthians 5:12-13 (“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”))