Matt 10:40–42 — The Apostolicity of the Church

Matthew 10:40–42 concludes Jesus’ discourse commissioning the Twelve for the mission to Israel. This brief paragraph reveals the apostolicity of the church—its character as a church governed by Christ through the doctrine of his apostles.

The passage is often given headings such as “Rewards” or “The Reward of Service.” Those headings are editorial rather than inspired, and they can direct attention away from the passage’s central concern. The sermon therefore proceeds in three movements: what the passage is not about, what it is about, and how its teaching applies to the church.

What This Passage Is Not About

The word “reward” appears three times, which can make the paragraph sound as though it teaches varying heavenly rewards for different levels of Christian service. Yet Jesus’ broader use of the term points in another direction.

One Reward for All Believers

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus consistently uses “reward” in the singular. Matthew 5:11–12 says:

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus does not mean that greater persecution earns a larger reward. He comforts persecuted believers with the promise that they belong to heaven. The preceding Beatitudes express the same promise in several forms: “theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” “they shall inherit the earth,” “they shall receive mercy,” “they shall see God,” and “they shall be called sons of God.” These are different descriptions of the one eschatological inheritance shared by all Christians—the kingdom and new creation at Christ’s return.

The reward is singular and the same for all because Christ has earned it. It is not an additional benefit acquired through exceptional service, nor does it consist of larger mansions or more jewels in a heavenly crown.

Matthew 10:41–42 likewise leaves no room for degrees of reward based upon the quantity of one’s works. Jesus says:

The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.

The one who receives God’s messenger shares the messenger’s reward. Listening faithfully to Paul’s preaching is, in this respect, as blessed as being Paul. The messenger and the receptive hearer receive the same promised inheritance.

The Old Testament prophets were often harassed and rejected because they announced unwelcome judgment. Those who agreed with them risked standing with a despised minority. Yet that believing remnant was on the right side: they received God’s Word and were destined for glory rather than judgment. Receiving a prophet or righteous person is not an extraordinary work that gains an extra reward. It is an expression of saving faith.

The Cup of Cold Water

Verse 42 says, “Whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” The “little one” is not an apostle, prophet, or ordained minister. He is an ordinary disciple who confesses Christ.

The context is persecution. In the early church, openly professing Christ carried tremendous social cost. Giving cold water to a hunted disciple identified the giver with the persecuted minority that received apostolic teaching.

The cup of water is therefore not a general example of almsgiving, diaconal assistance, or an ordinary deed of kindness. Jesus specifies the reason: it is given “because he is a disciple.” The act displays solidarity with Christ’s people and their gospel. It is another expression of faith—believing Christ and standing with those who confess him even when doing so is costly.

What This Passage Is About

Rather than focusing upon “reward,” notice how often Jesus uses the word “receive”: “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.” Verse 41 repeats the word several more times. The passage concerns receiving God’s message by receiving his authorized messengers.

Receiving the Apostles Means Receiving Christ

This teaching reaches back to Matthew 10:9–15. Jesus sent the Twelve without money, luggage, extra clothing, sandals, or a staff so that they would depend upon Israel’s hospitality. Their vulnerability required every town and household to respond. Receptive families opened their homes, supported the apostles, and demonstrated faith in their message. Hostile households closed their doors and sent them away.

Rejecting the apostles was not a minor failure to perform an extra act of service. Jesus warned that judgment would be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for a town that rejected them. Salvation was at stake because rejecting Christ’s authorized messengers meant rejecting Christ and his gospel.

Receiving therefore means recognizing, agreeing with, and submitting to apostolic doctrine. The church is defined as the people who receive the apostles’ teaching and thereby receive Christ.

The Chain of Sending and Receiving

The chain of receiving rests upon a chain of sending. The Father sent the Son as his authorized representative. The Gospel of John repeatedly calls Jesus the one sent by the Father, and Hebrews 3:1 even calls him the “apostle” of our confession. Christ then sent the apostles as his authorized representatives.

Thus, whoever receives the apostles receives Christ, and whoever receives Christ receives the Father who sent him. The Greek word apostle means one who is sent and is related to the verb Jesus uses here.

Verse 41 also mentions prophets and righteous people. Jesus does not explicitly say that the apostles sent them, but they are fellow ministers who continue in apostolic doctrine. Paul describes this continuing ministry in 2 Timothy 2:1–2:

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

The teaching is entrusted from the apostle to faithful ministers who teach others. This is not apostolic succession in the Roman Catholic sense of living apostles or an ongoing apostolic office. It is doctrinal continuity under apostolic authority.

The Apostolicity of the Church

Acts 2:42 says that the first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.” First John 4:6 says, “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us.” Christ is the church’s Head, and he governs his church through his apostles.

The apostolic doctrine has been written in the New Testament. Jesus and the apostles also affirm the Old Testament, interpreting it as the promise fulfilled in Christ. The authority of Scripture therefore follows directly from Christ’s government of his church through the prophetic and apostolic Word.

The apostles laid the foundation once for all. Their ministry was an unrepeatable redemptive-historical event, like Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. The church is apostolic today not because it possesses living apostles, as claimed in different ways by Roman Catholicism or Mormonism, but because it continues in the doctrine of the apostles.

Ministers today do not lay a new foundation or deliver new revelation. They build upon the foundation already laid and remain subordinate to the apostolic Word.

The Application for Ordained Officers

Pastors and teachers must faithfully transmit apostolic doctrine. Paul tells Timothy to entrust what he heard from Paul to faithful men who will teach others. Titus 1:9 similarly requires an overseer to “hold fast to the trustworthy word which is in accordance with the teaching,” so that he can give instruction in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it.

Positively, ordained officers must preach the gospel taught by Jesus and the apostles. They belong to a chain of authority running from the Father to the Son, from the Son to the apostles, and from the apostles through Scripture to the church’s ministers.

Negatively, they have no authority to preach extra-biblical opinions, partisan preferences, or cultural criticism to which Scripture does not speak. Some political and moral questions are directly addressed by God’s Word. Abortion, for example, must be addressed because Scripture’s teaching concerning human life shows it to be sinful. Yet ministers must not use the pulpit to pronounce upon matters where God has not spoken.

Like soldiers within a chain of command, pastors may not abandon their orders and pursue private strategies. Paul charges Timothy in 2 Timothy 4: “Preach the word.” He warns that people will refuse sound teaching and gather teachers who satisfy their itching ears.

The temptation is always to give hearers what they want—to conform preaching to cultural preferences, current passions, or novel interests. Faithful officers resist that pressure and preach the Word rather than themselves.

The Application for the Laity

Ordinary disciples must receive and continue in apostolic doctrine. Jesus dignifies “one of these little ones” because every believer belongs to Christ. The task of discerning and receiving apostolic teaching is as necessary as the ordained ministry’s task of handing it on.

Receive the Word in Corporate Worship

Believers should attend church faithfully to receive the preached Word as a primary means of grace. Listening to sermons can sometimes feel difficult or ordinary, but Scripture commands Christians not to forsake the assembly.

The sermon is not an isolated lecture, online video, or religious version of a public talk. It belongs within the church’s worship. The call to worship, God’s greeting, hymns, confession, assurance, prayers, sacraments, and preaching together form covenant communion with the triune God. The people come to the Father through the mediation of the Son in the fellowship and power of the Holy Spirit.

Within that communion, the sermon is a critical means by which the church hears Christ’s voice through his Word. The preacher’s human voice is fallible. Yet insofar as the sermon faithfully communicates Scripture and apostolic doctrine, Christ speaks through it to his people.

Corporate worship also restores the believer’s spiritual vision. Christians spend six days amid the distractions and pressures of the present age. Every Lord’s Day, God gathers them again and uses the means of grace to clear their eyes, renew their sight of invisible realities, and draw them into communion with himself.

Baptism signifies union with Christ in his death and resurrection. The Lord’s Supper signifies and seals communion with the risen Christ. Preaching serves the same Christ-centered purpose. The traditional term “means of grace” is correct, but these ordinances may also be called “means of Christ” because through them God gives Christ himself to his people and strengthens their faith in him.

Matthew 10:40 therefore applies to the reception of faithful preaching: whoever receives apostolic doctrine receives Christ, and whoever receives Christ receives the Father who sent him. Hear the voice of Christ in his Word, receive it by faith, and be nourished in fellowship with him.

Reject Novel and Unapostolic Teaching

Believers must also reject teachers who depart from the apostolic chain of authority. People are often attracted to novelty—the newest theological theory, book, podcast, or supposedly fresh insight. Novelty should provoke caution rather than excitement when it departs from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

The people of God must grow in biblical maturity. They must be rooted and grounded in the faith rather than “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14). Paul continues, “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

The apostolicity of the church is ultimately about Christ. He is the church’s Head. Ministers serve him by preaching the apostles’ doctrine, and the laity serve him by discerning, receiving, and continuing in that doctrine. Through the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures, the whole church grows in the knowledge of Christ and submits joyfully to his gracious rule.