What Does It Mean to Be Wise as Serpents and Innocent As Doves?

Hey everyone, welcome to Thinking Christian. This is Dr. James Spencer and it is time for our weekly devotional together. We're going to be looking at Matthew 10. Matthew 10 is actually a really interesting chapter and it actually contains the namesake for my new book, Serpents and Doves, Christians, Politics, and the Art of Bearing Witness. And in this chapter, Jesus is going to send his disciples out. Now before sending his disciples out, he clarifies where he's sending them out to and he's going to send them to the lost sheep of Israel. And he gives them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every disease and every affliction. As the disciples go out into ministry, they're not to charge for their services. The disciples are not to profit from their mission. The authority Jesus has provided is not a means for them to become rich. Instead, Jesus wants them to demonstrate that he is bringing the kingdom of God along with them. That they're dependent on what they have with them and that they're dependent on and trust in the power that Jesus has instilled in them. So Jesus also instructs them to go out without various provisions. And these provisions would have been, he sends them out with provisions sufficient for their journey, but not excess provisions. So those who recognize that the laborer deserves his food would ultimately provide for the disciples. And so Jesus is trying to teach the disciples to survive, not on meager, sort of a vow of poverty kind of idea, but he is trying to get them to understand that they are to depend on him. I sort of liken it back to when the Israelites are coming through the wilderness and they're just eating manna. And in Deuteronomy chapter 8, we hear Moses say that God is trying to teach the Israelites that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. I think this is a similar lesson that Jesus is trying to teach his disciples here. That instead of sending them out with all of this surplus of goods, he wants them to depend on those who are open to the gospel, who receive the message and are willing to give them hospitality. So they depend on the hospitality of those who receive them and accept their message rather than taking provisions with them. And despite the authority that Jesus has given them, the disciples really go out in a fairly vulnerable state. They go out as, as Jesus says in 10.16, sheep in the midst of wolves. And as such, the disciples are not to rely on power or provision. The authority Jesus has given them won't actually save them. Proclamation, even when demonstrated through impressive acts and signs, can result in persecution. And so without these excess provisions, the disciples only have two weapons at their disposal, the wisdom of the serpent and the innocence of the dove. And we see this in 10.16. Now the two were to be used together so that the disciples could survive amongst the wolves. So what did it mean to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves? Well, I think serpents were frequently viewed as resources of life and witness in the ancient Near East. In Genesis 3.1, the serpent is described as the wisest or shrewdest of all the animals. While the serpent's wisdom is portrayed as trickery and deception in Genesis, Jesus' encouragement to the disciples doesn't necessarily draw on that specific context of Genesis 3, though a general conception of serpents as shrewd seems pretty likely. And this shrewdness may draw on the idea that the serpent survives despite opposition. In Genesis 3.15, we see that the man was to be in opposition to the serpent. So given the context of being wise as a serpent seems to involve the ability to navigate a hostile world. In any case, being wise as serpents is buffered by being innocent as doves. Because shrewdness can at times result in Christians adopting a sort of ruthless brutality that looks less like God's kingdom and more like the world, the wisdom of serpents needs to be counterbalanced by the dove's innocence. Similarly, the innocence of doves alone could make one naive to the world's deceptive ways. Jesus' followers could not afford to be so shrewd that they became cutthroat. They had to avoid being so innocent that they could not survive the anticipated persecution. So they have to have this sort of check and balance with the wisdom and innocence. So being wise and innocent is intended to allow the sheep to survive the wolves and keep the sheep from acting as if they are wolves. And this mixture of innocence and wisdom is possible because the dependence learned as they go out in a vulnerable state. The training the disciples receive by being sent out with relatively few provisions actually prepares them to bear witness before governors and kings and the Gentiles. And we find that in 10.18. To be wise like serpents means that the disciples navigate the world's systems without depending on those systems. In the face of persecution, their shrewd tactics are not drawn from the world's politics, but from their training as disciples. And that training prepares the disciples to allow God to speak through them. That's in 10.19-20. Learning dependence on those who are worthy, cultivating wisdom and remaining innocent are necessary because the disciples cannot trust the world. As Jesus tells them, they are to beware of men in 10.17. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. The men or wolves are not to be trusted. They are not counted among the worthy, but among those who reject the disciples. As such, depending on them would be the opposite of wise innocence. You know, these men will inevitably betray and persecute the disciples. There's no sense in which Jesus is calling his disciples to avoid interacting with them after sending them out. You know, he's obviously sending them out as sheep amongst the wolves. But instead, Jesus is encouraging them not to depend on them or on the resources they can provide. He wants to challenge the worldly powers with the weapons of the spirit. And just as they were to acquire no gold or silver or copper as they went, they are to avoid trusting men in their ways. They are to learn dependence on God and trust his provision as they have the opportunity to bear witness before them. Now, my tendency is to think that there are a number of different lessons that we could learn from this passage. Number one, all of us could use a little bit more sense of what it means to depend on God. We are to be dependent on God. We are to look to him for everything that we need. We're to acknowledge him as the source of everything that we have. And so we really do need to learn dependence. Oftentimes, I think that I know in my life, all of the different resources and the gifts that God has given me sometimes make it hard for me to acknowledge that God is actually the giver. In other words, I tend to focus on the gifts as opposed to the giver. And so it's a constant battle to sort of shift my focus to make sure that I don't lose sight of God, who is the giver of all the good gifts, and instead focus on the good gifts themselves. There's nothing wrong with having things, having resources, having all of these different things that we can use to help us in our lives. But we have to have those in the right perspective. And I really do love what Deuteronomy 8 speaks about in these terms. You know, God has told the Israelites that if they will just follow him, he will take them into the promised land. And it's not as if this is a quid pro quo relationship where Israel is bartering obedience and asking God for blessing. That's not exactly it. Although we almost always think of it like that. Really what we should be thinking about in terms of it should be when we obey, the result of that obedience is going to be blessing. In other words, it's sort of a consequence of living according to God's order. We can be sure that when we live according to God's order, that God will ultimately reward us. Now that may not come in the near term. It's not a health and wealth prosperity gospel sort of thing, but it is a moment where we ask ourselves, what logic makes most sense for us to live by in this world? And if we think about it in those terms, will we live according to the logic of our own minds, the logic of the economy, the logic of the political system, the logic of, you know, whatever academic discipline we may be an expert in? Will we live by those logics or will we live by the logic of obedience? Will we say to ourselves that obedience always makes more sense than any other alternative? And so this is what Deuteronomy 8 is sort of emphasizing. And we see that as later on in the passage, God calls Israel to remember him when they go in and they have all of this wealth. And he tells them that they should remember that he is the God who gives them the power to get that wealth. And so

The idea here is not that, you know, Israel is just supposed to say, well, I work as hard as I can, and I need to acknowledge that God gives me the energy to do this. That's not the sense. The sense is that having chosen the logic of obedience, Israel needs to remember that it is the obedience that got them where they are, not the work. Now, the work contributes. You know, their work is not trivial, but that work needs to be nested within, encompassed by the obedience. It can't be separated from it. It's not as if they could look back and say, well, if we'd have just done the work, we wouldn't have had to be faithful, darn it. So there has to be this sort of interchange. Now, what I love about that passage and what I think it, how I think it connects to Matthew 10, is that this sort of dependence is what Jesus is trying to teach the disciples. By sending them out with more meager provisions, what Jesus is going to show them is ultimately that God is capable and willing to provide for those who are faithful to him. That this may not be the cushiest life they've ever had, that they could ever imagine, but it's going to be a life that is fruitful for the kingdom. So that's number one. We can all use a little bit more dependence in our life. We could all use a little bit more, you know, focus on the Lord in our lives. I think the second thing that we can learn from this passage is just what it means to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. I think this is a fairly ambiguous statement, and I'll be honest, my interpretation of it, I wouldn't think that every interpreter would necessarily agree with it. But what I would say is that we navigate a lot of different systems of the world. And just like I talked about with Deuteronomy eight, where we see the Israelites, you know, sort of continuing to work and to produce economically and agriculturally, but they're not servants to the economics of the agriculture. They're servants of the Lord. And so faithfulness always comes first. Obedience always comes first. Every effort that we make in this world is to be enveloped by and conditioned on or shaped by our obedience. We can't sit back and say, I'm going to do this, and I'll leave faithfulness aside. In other words, I think I could accomplish this if I could be unfaithful. That's not something that Christians should be saying. And so we have to begin to understand how it is that we navigate the world's systems. How do we survive the political realm? How do we thrive within the economic realm? How do we go about navigating the cultures and societies of which we are a part? How do we do that without becoming servants of those societies, without becoming too dependent on them so that we adopt the delusion that these systems, these politics, these economics, these processes are really what are allowing us to have lives that are worth living? How do we avoid that so that we can always be gesturing back to the Lord, who is really the source of all blessing? How do we attribute everything that we are and have to our obedience and our service of the Lord as opposed to the economic, political, and various other systems that seem to make our lives easier? That, to me, is what the wisdom of the serpent is. It's the ability to live in the world, but to navigate that world in such a way that it continues to be the serpent, that it is shrewd in the way that it navigates these different systems, but is not really dependent on any of them. And so that is the wisdom of the serpent in my mind. It's about understanding how to maintain this understanding of the systems deeply, to work within them, but not necessarily to serve them. And this is where the innocence of the dove comes in. The innocence of the dove, in my estimation, is a sense in which we do not have an experiential knowledge of the evils of the world. So if the serpent's perspective, the wisdom of the serpent, gives us an understanding of how the world works, a way of maneuvering the different systems and processes and cultures that we exist in, the innocence of the dove says, yes, and as you're navigating, as you're being shrewd, let's make sure that you don't fall into unfaithfulness. Let's make sure that you don't have an experiential knowledge of evil, that you're not participating in it. So you are now wise as serpents, you're navigating, but you're innocent as doves, you're not participating. And there's a difference between navigating and participating. Now I'm drawing those concepts into this narrative, but I think that's the right way to understand what's going on here in Matthew 10. This is what Jesus is trying to get his disciples to understand. He's saying that you're going to go out as sheep amidst the wolves. And he wants to make sure that the disciples do not become sheep who just act like wolves. They still have to be sheep. And so the sheep have to learn to be sheep in the midst of wolves, but they can't become the wolves. That's the general idea of being wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. Now, I think there's a third thing that we can learn here. And the third thing we can learn is that as we're going out into the world, as we're looking at these different systems, as we're interacting with them, as we're navigating them, we have to learn simply to beware of them. We have to recognize that those who reject the gospel are not any particular friend to us. It's not that they're all horrible human beings or that they're completely unfriendly or that we couldn't go out and have dinner with them or anything like that. It's not a question of excluding everyone who rejects Christ. That's patently against what the Bible would teach. We are to be in conversation with, in relationship with the lost so that we can proclaim the gospel to them. What this passage is talking about, though, is that we need to be aware of those with whom we partner, be aware of those with whom we work, because there's always the opportunity for them to say, this individual's Christianity, this individual's faith is now no longer of any utility to me. In fact, it's hindering where I would like to go. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. And so I'm going to betray them. This is why Jesus says to beware of the men. Beware of those who are not worthy of the gospel, who have rejected it. And don't depend on them. Don't count on them to do what is right for you as a Christian. You can't depend on it. And so what he says is to beware of these people, but not to be afraid of these people. I think what Jesus, again, is trying to sort of nail down here for his disciples is that in sending them out as sheep amongst wolves, he knows they're going to have to interact with the wolves. And what he wants them to do is to interact with the wolves, to be with the wolves, but not to trust the wolves. Recognize that the wolves, if they lean too heavily on them, are going to bend and break. There's a great passage in the Old Testament that talks about Egypt as a bent reed. And if Israel leans too heavily on it, that reed is going to break and pierce their hand. That's the sort of dynamic that I think Jesus is talking about here when he's talking about us not trusting some of the world. We have to just make sure that the weight we put on it is an appropriate weight that it can actually carry and not think that the world can carry us any further than it actually will. We can't, in other words, be dependent on the world to get done what we are asked to get done. And we should never think that the world is on our side. There's always going to be a limit to the world's loyalty to the church.

And so we've got to be careful and be understanding that there is that limit and make sure that we are not putting too much weight on the world such that when it moves out of the way or when it betrays us, when its lack of trustworthiness is revealed, we aren't going to fall. So as I think about, you know, the idea of being wise as serpents and innocent as doves, when I think about Matthew 10, these are some of the ideas that come to mind. These are some of the things that I think we need to be careful of. And I deal with this a lot more in Serpents and Doves, Christians, Politics, and the Art of Bearing Witness. It's available on Amazon.com if you're interested in a read going into this political season. Obviously, I'd recommend it. There are also a number of other books. I've had several authors on other podcasts, podcast episodes within King Christian that I encourage you to look at. There are some fantastic books out there about Christians and politics that might help you navigate some of these issues. We'll also be putting out a guide on decision making sometime in August or September. So be on the lookout for that. I'll also talk about that on the podcast. But for right now, what I just encourage you with today as we leave here is be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Learn to navigate these systems, but to be innocent of them. Navigate, but don't participate. That, I think, is what Jesus is trying to train his disciples to do. And so as we go out into the world today, let's think about the ways that we can train ourselves to be prepared to navigate but not participate. Let's pray and then we'll end the episode. Lord, thanks again for your word. Thanks for giving us Matthew 10 to read. Thanks for this idea of being wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We're just grateful, Lord, that you're with us, that you prepare us for service. And we ask that you would renew our hearts. Help us understand how to go about navigating the world without participating in it so that we can point to and glorify you with all we are and have. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for being here on this episode of Thinking Christian. Check out some of the links in the show notes today and we'll catch you back on the next episode tomorrow. We've actually got an episode coming up Wednesday as well on the recent national conservatism conference that I would just encourage you to listen to. I'm reflecting on some of the, I don't know, some of the assertions that were made there and some of the things that I think Christians need to hold as convictions as they think about how to, I suppose, navigate the American politics in a way that is wise as serpents and innocent as doves. So hopefully you'll catch those next couple episodes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and then we've got another interview coming up on Thursday. God bless and thanks for listening. See you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Finding uplifting news in today's headlines is often like searching for a needle in a haystack. At the Story Behind podcast, we believe in the power of finding heartwarming tales and are happy to share empowering stories with you every week. Get inspired by the note a waitress received from a patron dining alone and even hear about how one VIP passenger made a hardworking pilot get emotional before his flight. To start listening to The Story Behind podcast, visit lifeaudio.com.