MATTHEW 10:20 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
“For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.”
For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. The Spirit of your Father — the Holy Spirit — is the divine provision for the trial moment. The disciples will speak, but the speech is from the Spirit; they are instruments of a voice greater than their own. This is not a counsel for unprepared public speaking in general but for the specific situation of trial before hostile authorities. The same Spirit who descended on Jesus at the baptism (3:16) will speak through the disciples in their moments of trial. 1 Peter 4:14 says the Spirit of glory and of God rests on those who suffer for the name of Christ.
Church Fathers on Matthew 10:20
To the foregoing topics of consolation, He adds another not a little one; that they should not say, How shall we be able to persuade such men as these, when they shall persecute us? He bids them be of good courage respecting their answer, saying, 'When they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak.'
'How or what,' one refers to the substance, the other to the expression in words. And because both of these would be supplied by Him, there was no need for the holy preachers to be anxious about either.
When then we are brought before judges for Christ’s sake, we ought to offer only our will for Christ. But Christ who dwelleth in us speaks for Himself, and the grace of the Holy Spirit will minister in our answer.
Read all 6 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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