MATTHEW CHAPTER 10 Here in Matthew 10, we read the command of Jesus: “Freely you received, freely give”. I don’t this means that we didn’t pay money to get the Gospel, so, we shouldn’t sell the Gospel for money. That is of course true. But I don’t think that’s what Jesus means. Remember that the New Testament is written in Greek. The idea is that we received the Gospel “freely”, and the Greek word literally means 'without a cause', ‘without a reason’. We heard the Gospel, we were called to know Jesus, “without a reason”. Not as a reward for our being good. But by grace. Billions of people have lived on this earth, and yet we were amongst the few chosen to hear the Gospel of Jesus. We were given it “freely”, without reason. And we are to therefore give out that invitation “freely”, without judging others, and we are to be generous in distributing that invitation.
We often read of the idea of the free gift of God's grace to us. In Revelation 21 we read of the free gift of the water of eternal life being given to whoever really wants it. And we are to freely, generously, give that gift to others too. The freeness of God’s gift to us should be reflected in a free spirited giving out of the Gospel to others.
In the letter to the Romans, Paul makes the same point. He talks much about grace. And Paul argues that our having been called to the Gospel is a great example of grace. We didn’t ask to be called to it, to receive the Gospel. God took the initiative. We might have been born in a Chinese village 3000 years ago, and never heard the name of Jesus. But we were born in a time and place where we could hear the Gospel. We were called. This was of God’s free grace. We need to appreciate it more. Because this will motivate us to be as generous as possible in giving that free grace to as many people as we can. Statistically, it was amazing that out of the billions who lived never being called… we were called. Indeed, we received the Gospel “freely”, not because we deserved it. And we are to “freely” give it out to others. We love, because He first loved us. He took the initiative. We seek to take the Gospel into the lives of others, because God brought the Gospel into our lives.
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