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MATTHEW 10:40 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 10:39Matt 10:41
“He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.”
Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. The identification of the disciples with Jesus and Jesus with the Father creates a chain of reception: receiving a disciple is receiving Jesus; receiving Jesus is receiving the Father who sent him. John 13:20 records the same chain: whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. The implication for the communities that receive or reject the disciples is enormous: their response to a wandering apostle is their response to the Son of God and the God of Israel. The disciples' vulnerability and apparent insignificance mask the weight of who they represent.

Church Fathers on Matthew 10:40

The Lord when He sends forth His disciples to preach, teaches them that dangers are not to be feared, that natural affection is to be postponed to religion - gold He had above taken from them, brass He had shaken out of their purses - hard then surely the condition of the preachers! Whence their living? Whence their food and necessaries? Therefore He tempers the rigour of His precepts by the following promises, that in entertaining the Apostles each believer may consider that…

Jerome · 4th century

Enough had been said above to persuade those who should have to entertain the Apostles. For who would not with all willingness take in to his house men who were so courageous, that they despised all dangers that others might be saved?

Chrysostom · 4th century

These words shew that He has a Mediator’s office, and since He came from God, when He is received by us, through Him God is transfused into us; and by this disposition of grace to have received the Apostles is no other than to have received God; for Christ dwells in them, and God in Christ.

Hilary of Poitiers · 4th century
Read all 14 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Matthew 10:40 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy