Luke 10:10 Commentary and Bible Study

As a preacher, as a witnessing Christian, you will be rejected; there is no question of that. There are people there who are so self-righteous; there are people there who are so happy – in the case of the Jews – with dead religion that they will not hear you. ‘We go to the temple; we go to the synagogue; we perform the ritual. We're all right: leave us alone.’ They didn't want a personal relationship with God. They didn't want God coming into their lives and directing them. They wanted a dead religion, because then they could keep doing whatever they wanted to do, and they are sure to reject the gospel.But Christ had a special instruction in the light of that rejection. Don't be affected by them. Say to them, ‘Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you.’ Now this has two meanings because the Jews used to do this whenever they visited a Gentile town. Scandalously and outrageously they were so superior, and they were so disgusted with Gentiles that instead of seeking to win them for God, they rejected them as beyond the pale and hopeless. If they went to trade in a Gentile town, when they got to the outskirts of the town, they would ceremonially shake their garments and their feet. ‘We've got to get rid of every taint of this wretched place’, they would say to themselves. And now Christ says to his seventy disciples, ‘If people reject your message, you are to do that to them.’ They will be astonished. ‘But we are Jewish people, and you are saying we are nowhere at all?’ ‘Yes.’ You are to make it plain to them that if they reject this message and reject Christ, though they may boast that they are Jews and children of Abraham, they are rejected all the same. On the Day of Judgment you will be called to testify against them, but even now they must be made to see the seriousness of what they have done in rejecting the mercy of the Lord.But then there is a second meaning to this. Don't let the dust of that place cling to you. And the principle for us is this: we are witnessing to the world; we are going among where we live in the world; we work in the world and we are witnessing to this world, but don't let the godlessness or the worldliness of the world cling to you. Make sure you don't adopt its ways and weaken yourself as a believer, and disobey God.