What Does Matthew 10:8 Mean?

(8) **Raise the dead.**—The words are omitted by the best MSS., and their absence is more in accordance with the facts of the Gospel history, which records no instance of that highest form of miracle as wrought by the disciples during our Lord’s ministry. That was reserved for His own immediate act. The insertion of the words was probably due to a wish to make the command cover such instances of power as that shown in the instances of Dorcas (Acts 9:40) and Eutychus (Acts 20:9-12). **Freely ye have received.**—The English hardly suggests more than giving liberally. The Greek is much stronger, “Give as a free gift—give *gratis”* They had paid Him nothing. They were not in this their first mission to require payment from others. When the kingdom had been established, the necessities of the case might require the application of the principle that “the labourer is worthy of his hire” in an organised system of stipend and the like (1Timothy 5:18); but the principle of “giving freely” in this sense is always applicable in proportion as the work of the ministers of Christ has the character of a mission. They must proclaim the kingdom till the sense of the blessing it has brought shows itself in the thank-offerings of gratitude. The like principle of gratuitous teaching had been asserted before by some of the nobler of the Jewish Rabbis.