{"id":11815,"date":"2019-05-07T11:44:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T02:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/?p=11815"},"modified":"2019-06-19T15:51:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T06:51:23","slug":"prophetsreward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/2019\/05\/07\/prophetsreward\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you sure you want a prophet’s reward?"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIn Matthew 10:41<\/a> Jesus says, \u201cHe who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet receives a prophet\u2019s reward.\u201d A prophet\u2019s reward. <\/em>Our eyes and mind go right past that phrase without thinking too much about it. We hear \u201cprophet\u2019s reward\u201d and think, \u201cbig reward\u201d\u2014something really good. So in our mind the passage becomes something like this: \u201cAny time you\u2019re asked to host an important Christian leader, you should definitely do that because you will get a big reward out of it.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut such a reading ignores two of the key things we should keep in mind every time we open the Bible.\r\n\r\nThe first thing is that the Bible is first and foremost a revelation of the character of God. <\/em>The purpose of each scripture in the Bible is to reveal something about God. Secondarily\u2014and sometimes quite importantly\u2014a scripture may also reveal something about us, or command us to do something. But as important as those things are, we should always \u201cseek first the character of God\u201d every time we open the Bible and read any scripture. So when we focus our attention in any scripture on what we\u2019re supposed to do, or what\u2019s in it for us, it\u2019s a guarantee that we\u2019re missing the most important thing that the scripture is seeking to give us, namely, a revelation of the character of God.\r\n\r\nThe second thing that is wrong with reading today\u2019s scripture in the way I indicated is that it totally ignores the context! The scripture today comes at the tail end of a passage that begins with Jesus having his guts turned when he saw the people of Israel wandering into great danger because they were like sheep without a shepherd<\/em>: the religious leaders had failed them. They had even claimed that Jesus did what he did in partnership with the devil. Jesus, in great concern, gathered his twelve best students to send them out to extend his shepherding to the lost sheep. He ordered them heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons.<\/em>\r\n\r\nBut here\u2019s the part of the context that is absolutely crucial for understanding today\u2019s scripture: He warned them that when they went out to shepherd those sheep, they would face persecution and martyrdom. <\/em>\u201cBehold I send you out like sheep surrounded by wolves,\u201d he says. Beginning in Matthew 10:17 he says,\r\n\r\n\r\n
Beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues.<\/blockquote>\r\nAnd in verse 21 he says,\r\n\r\n\r\n
Now brother will deliver up brother to death, <\/em>and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name\u2019s sake.<\/blockquote>\r\nKeep in mind, when Jesus sends them out, he requires that they go out with nothing. He says in verse 9, \u201cneither gold nor silver nor copper\u2026nor bag\u2026nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs.\u201d So they are to be completely dependent on those that they meet\u2014most of whom, he tells them, will try to kill them!\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s <\/em>the context for today\u2019s scripture. Those <\/em>are the verses we should have in mind when we hear Jesus say, \u201cHe who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet receives a prophet\u2019s reward.\u201d\r\n\r\nSo the first thought that should come to mind is: Life is not so easy for prophets.<\/em> Prophets are people who are completely identified with God\u2019s message. They\u2019re not people who have a message from God. They are <\/em>the message from God. Prophets have no message of their own. They can only say, \u201cThus saith the Lord!\u201d Prophets are like the human versions of angels: the messengers of God. Unlike angels, scripture sometimes shows them putting up a little resistance against the message God gives them to share (or in the case of Jonah, a lot of resistance). But as Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 20:9,\r\n\r\n\r\n
But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.<\/blockquote>\r\nSo the prophet has to deliver the message. If they don\u2019t, the fire that is shut up inside their bones burns them up.\r\n\r\nBut here\u2019s the problem: once they deliver their message, the people who hear the message light a fire from the outside that burns up their bones anyway!\r\n\r\nThat\u2019s the nature of being a prophet: Either get burned up from the inside by God or burned up from the outside by those who don\u2019t like what God has to say. In the Bible, false prophets get stoned for telling a lie. True prophets get stoned for telling the truth.\r\n\r\nSo from the standpoint of this world, if we ask, \u201cWhat is the prophet\u2019s reward?\u201d, the answer is clear: Death. Persecution followed by suffering followed by death. Really painful death, in most cases. In Hebrews 11, we read about the great pioneers of faith. Many of these were prophets. And in Hebrews 11:36-38 we get a list of how many of the prophets suffered and died:\r\n\r\n\r\n
Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated\u2014the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.<\/blockquote>\r\nOne of the reasons why they were wandering in deserts and mountains and living in caves and in holes in the ground is that not many people wanted to host prophets. Hosting prophets was dangerous. Consider the case of Obadiah. During the time of Elijah, we read in 1 Kings 18:4,\r\n\r\n\r\n
While Jezebel was killing off the Lord\u2019s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.<\/blockquote>\r\nIn other words, Obadiah had received prophets in the name of prophets.\r\n\r\nJezebel and Ahab were trying to kill all the prophets, but most particularly Elijah. So we read in 1 Kings 18:7-14:\r\n\r\n\r\n
As Obadiah was walking along, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, bowed down to the ground, and said, \u201cIs it really you, my lord Elijah?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes,\u201d he replied. \u201cGo tell your master, \u2018Elijah is here.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat have I done wrong,\u201d asked Obadiah, \u201cthat you are handing your servant over to Ahab to be put to death? As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look for you. And whenever a nation or kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear they could not find you. But now you tell me to go to my master and say, \u2018Elijah is here.\u2019 I don\u2019t know where the Spirit of the Lord may carry you when I leave you. If I go and tell Ahab and he doesn\u2019t find you, he will kill me. Yet I your servant have worshiped the Lord since my youth. Haven\u2019t you heard, my lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred of the Lord\u2019s prophets in two caves, fifty in each, and supplied them with food and water. And now you tell me to go to my master and say, \u2018Elijah is here.\u2019 He will kill me!\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\nThe message here is clear: If you receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, you will receive the same punishment as the prophet.<\/em>\r\n\r\nAnd that was true not only in Old Testament times. Jesus says it would be true for his followers as well. In fact, in Matthew 5:10-12, he prophesies that this will happen to his followers\u2014to prophets as well as the righteous. Remember that the righteous also get mentioned in today\u2019s scripture, in Matthew 10:41, when Jesus says, \u201cHe who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man\u2019s reward.\u201d As Jesus is about to tell us in Matthew 5:10-12, hosting a righteous man will get you killed these days, too:\r\n\r\n\r\n
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.\r\nBlessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.<\/blockquote>\r\nIn that scripture, Jesus mentions the great reward of the prophets and the righteous. He says simply that it is a \u201cgreat reward in heaven.\u201d He does not specify what it is. The one thing that\u2019s specific is that the reward is not here on earth. What\u2019s here on earth for prophets and the righteous is a whole lot of suffering for righteousness\u2019 sake, all for the name of Christ. The Book of Revelation shares that same thing when it speaks about the reward of the prophets at the end of time. In Revelation 11:18, the twenty-four elders in heaven cry out to the Lord,\r\n\r\n\r\n
The time has come for judging the dead,\r\nand for rewarding your servants the prophets\r\nand your people who revere your name,\r\nboth great and small\u2014\r\nand for destroying those who destroy the earth.<\/blockquote>\r\nNotice the mention of the \u201csmall people\u201d who revere the name of the Lord. They receive their reward, too, just as Jesus says they would in today\u2019s scripture in Matthew 10:42, when he says,\r\n\r\n\r\n
And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.<\/blockquote>\r\nSo we could end our look at this scripture at this point with this very important conclusion: Hosting prophets, righteous men, and even small Christians is dangerous work. You will likely suffer in this lifetime if you do so, and you may even die. But if you do, you will receive a great reward in heaven\u2014the same as the prophets, the righteous men, and the small Christians themselves.\r\n\r\nThat would be a very important conclusion, but it would not get us to the main point of today\u2019s scripture, or the main point of scripture overall. The main point of scripture is to reveal to us something of the character of God. What is it that today\u2019s scripture reveals?\r\n\r\nAnd here is where we find the truly amazing part of the message.\r\n\r\nIt is true that Christ will give a prophet\u2019s reward to the one who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet. But what is truly remarkable about the character of God is that Christ does not just give a prophet\u2019s reward. He himself receives it, too.<\/em>\r\n\r\nThat is, the character of God is not that he lives in heaven, handing out great rewards to those who are willing to suffer for his name on earth. As the Nicene Creed says, \u201cHe came down from heaven\u2026<\/em>\u201d God did not just send prophets to die for him. Instead, he died for them. <\/em>\r\n\r\nIn Matthew 21:33-39, Jesus tells a story about a landowner who planted a vineyard.\r\n\r\n\r\n
Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. \u2018They will respect my son,\u2019 he said.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, \u2018This is the heir. Come, let\u2019s kill him and take his inheritance.\u2019 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.<\/blockquote>\r\nAnd that\u2019s exactly what they did.\r\n\r\nAs the day of his sacrifice grew near, Jesus looked out over the city and cried out, in Matthew 23:37,\r\n\r\n\r\n
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings\u2026<\/blockquote>\r\nHe spoke specifically about the prophets and righteous men and small Christians in Matthew 23:34-36:\r\n\r\n\r\n
Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.<\/blockquote>\r\nAnd that\u2019s exactly what happened. All of the righteous blood that had been shed on earth came upon that generation\u2026and he carried all of that sin, on the cross. \u201cFor our sakes he was crucified\u2026\u201d, <\/em>says the Nicene Creed.\r\n\r\nThat is what this scripture reveals about the character of God. It is not only that \u201cHe who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me,\u201d as he says in the scripture today. It is also that he who sent the prophets sent himself, to die the death that all prophets die due to their identification with him.\r\n\r\nWhen the writer of Hebrews lists the suffering of all the pioneers of faith, he writes in Hebrews 11:16, \u201cTherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.\u201d But it is because God himself suffered the very same things that we do that we are not ashamed to call him our God: Immanuel, God with us.<\/em>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[773,774,775,776,777,778,772,454,779,780,781],"class_list":["post-11815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-column","tag-character-of-god","tag-cup-of-cold-water","tag-elijah","tag-hosting","tag-nicene-creed","tag-obadiah","tag-opening-your-home","tag-persecution","tag-prophets-reward","tag-sheep-among-wolves","tag-sheep-without-a-shepherd"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["ko","en","zh","ru"],"languages":{"ko":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"zh":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"ru":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}