Matthew has introduced the twelve apostles by name. Now he shows them in motion: “These twelve Jesus sent forth.” Their calling wasn’t merely an honor to enjoy, a title to display, or a place near Jesus to treasure privately. Christ called them to send them.

This builds directly upon Matthew 10:1–4. Jesus had given the twelve authority over unclean spirits and disease, but that authority was never theirs to use according to personal preference. It belonged to Christ, and it was given for Christ’s work. The One who supplied their power also selected their field.

That point appears in the word “commanded.” Jesus didn’t hand the apostles an empty itinerary and invite them to choose whichever destination looked promising. He established clear boundaries. They were to go, but they weren’t free to go anywhere they pleased.

Submission is built into Christian service. A servant of Christ can’t separate zeal from obedience and assume that sincere activity automatically pleases the Lord. It’s possible to move energetically in the wrong direction. The apostles needed more than willingness; they needed to follow the route Christ had chosen.

Roads Temporarily Closed

Jesus gave two negative instructions: “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not.”

The Gentiles were the nations outside Israel. The Samaritans occupied a position marked by longstanding religious and cultural conflict with the Jews. For this mission, the twelve weren’t to make Gentile districts or Samaritan cities their field of labor.

Some readers have treated this command as evidence that Jesus was indifferent or hostile toward other peoples. That interpretation doesn’t fit Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus had already healed the servant of a Gentile centurion and praised the man’s faith. He had also declared that “many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). Matthew’s readers therefore know before reaching chapter 10 that Gentiles won’t remain outside the blessings of the kingdom.

The restriction was real, but it was temporary. It concerned the timing and direction of this particular mission, not the worth of Gentiles or Samaritans before God. Later, the risen Christ would command His followers: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

There’s no contradiction between these commands. They were given at different stages of Christ’s work. Before the cross and resurrection, this mission concentrated the announcement of the kingdom within Israel. After Christ had accomplished redemption and risen from the dead, the messengers were sent to all nations.

A change in the scope of a command doesn’t make either command false. A wise commander may send his servants to one place first and then send them farther. Sequence isn’t prejudice, and priority isn’t contempt.

Why Mercy Came to Israel First

Jesus continued: “But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

The word “rather” establishes the positive priority. Instead of entering Gentile and Samaritan regions, the apostles were to concentrate upon Israel.

This order reflects God’s faithfulness to His promises. Israel had received the covenants, the law, the prophets, and the promises concerning the Messiah. Abraham had been told, “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). The blessing would eventually reach all families, but it would come through the history and promises God had entrusted to Israel.

Jesus was Israel’s promised Messiah. His coming fulfilled promises given through Israel’s Scriptures. It was therefore fitting that the announcement of His kingdom should be presented first to the covenant nation. This same order later appears in Paul’s description of the gospel as “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

“To the Jew first” doesn’t mean “to the Jew only.” Neither does it suggest that Jewish people could be saved through ancestry while Gentiles needed Christ. The very description “lost sheep” rules that out. Israel’s religious heritage didn’t remove its need for redemption.

Israel’s priority brought serious responsibility. Those who had received the clearest promises were given the earliest opportunity to recognize their fulfillment. Greater light is a privilege, but rejecting greater light also brings greater accountability.

Sheep Surrounded by Religion and Still Lost

Jesus didn’t send the twelve to people who lacked all knowledge of God. He sent them to “the house of Israel.” These people possessed the Scriptures, worshiped in synagogues, observed religious customs, and traced their history through Abraham, Moses, and the prophets.

Yet Jesus called them lost.

That’s one of the passage’s sharpest truths. A person can live near sacred things without belonging to God. Religious vocabulary, family heritage, outward morality, baptism, church attendance, and familiarity with Scripture can’t replace repentance and faith. Israel needed more than renewed enthusiasm for its traditions. The people needed their Messiah.

The word “lost” describes their spiritual condition, not their geographical location. Jesus wasn’t referring to hidden tribes whose whereabouts had vanished from history. He told the apostles exactly where to find these sheep: among the house of Israel in the towns and villages around them. Attempts to identify the “lost sheep” with some secret modern race or to limit God’s salvation to a favored ethnic group have no support in the passage. These sheep were lost because they were separated from the Shepherd, not because their addresses were unknown.

The description also reaches back to Matthew 9:36. When Jesus saw the multitudes, “he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” The sending of the twelve is Christ’s compassion taking practical form. He sees wandering sheep, and He sends servants to them.

This imagery also recalls God’s rebuke of Israel’s unfaithful shepherds in Ezekiel 34. God promised, “Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out” (Ezekiel 34:11). He also promised, “I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David” (Ezekiel 34:23). Jesus’ concern for Israel’s scattered sheep reveals Him as the promised Shepherd-King who seeks those neglected by failed spiritual leaders.

The First Field Wasn’t the Final Horizon

Matthew 10:5–6 records a genuine historical commission with boundaries appropriate to that moment. It shouldn’t be converted into a permanent command forbidding Christian mission among non-Jewish peoples. The rest of Scripture won’t allow it.

After His resurrection, Christ widened the mission to “all nations.” In Acts 1:8, He described its outward movement: “in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Notice the order. The mission began among Israel, crossed into Samaria, and then extended throughout the world.

The Bible doesn’t hide the earlier restriction or awkwardly erase it after Gentiles enter the Church. It preserves both the limited mission and the later universal commission because both belong to the truthful unfolding of Christ’s work. Redemption was promised through Israel, accomplished by Israel’s Messiah, and proclaimed to the nations.

No people are an afterthought in God’s plan. Yet neither does God forget the promises through which that plan unfolded. His purposes move in an ordered way, and every stage displays His faithfulness.

Following Christ’s Direction in Our Own Field

We must first distinguish between the apostles’ specific command and the abiding truths revealed through it. Christians today aren’t commanded to avoid Gentile regions or Samaritan cities. The risen Christ’s Great Commission governs the Church’s worldwide mission. No congregation may use Matthew 10:5–6 to justify racial separation, ethnic superiority, antisemitism, or indifference toward foreign peoples.

The lasting principle is that Christ determines the mission of His servants. We don’t have the authority to narrow His worldwide commission according to our prejudices. Nor should we ignore the people directly around us while dreaming about more dramatic opportunities somewhere else.

There’s a difference between having a priority and believing that only the priority matters. A Christian may feel a particular responsibility toward family members, neighbors, coworkers, or a local community. A congregation may devote special attention to an underserved neighborhood or a particular group of people. Such focus can be wise and faithful. Human beings have limited time and resources, so some order is unavoidable. But a present focus must not harden into permanent exclusion.

The first mission of the twelve also reminds us not to overlook those who appear religious. We may instinctively think of the “lost” as people who openly reject God, know nothing of Scripture, or live in obvious rebellion. Jesus saw lost sheep within the house of Israel. Some of the people most in need of the gospel may sit in church, speak respectfully about God, and assume that family heritage or decent behavior has settled their relationship with Him.

That recognition shouldn’t make us suspicious of everyone around us. It should make us careful, compassionate, and clear. We should never presume that people understand the gospel simply because they know Christian language. The Church must faithfully proclaim sin, grace, repentance, faith, the cross, and the resurrection rather than offering vague encouragement with a few Bible words attached.

Christ’s description of Israel should also lead us to examine ourselves. It’s easy to read about lost sheep while quietly assuming that we could never be among them. Religious privilege can produce gratitude, but it can also produce false confidence. The question isn’t merely whether we’ve been near Christian truth. Have we personally trusted the Christ revealed by that truth? Are we following His voice, or have we learned to wander through religious surroundings without noticing how far our hearts have drifted?

The apostles were sent because Christ was moved with compassion. That should shape the spirit of our witness. Lost people aren’t annoyances to defeat in an argument, statistics to add to a report, or projects that make us feel useful. They’re human beings made in God’s image who need the Shepherd. We must speak truthfully, but truth spoken in the service of Christ should carry His concern for the wandering.

This passage also gives Gentile believers a reason for humble worship. Most of us would have stood outside the boundary of this first mission. Yet the boundary didn’t remain closed. The gospel crossed the old divisions and came to the nations, just as God had promised. We haven’t been included because our culture was wiser, our people were better, or we were naturally closer to God. We simply received mercy.

At the same time, the Church must never turn gratitude for Gentile inclusion into contempt for Jewish people. Jesus deliberately sent His apostles to Israel first. Christian antisemitism is a denial of the biblical story from which the gospel comes. The Church should pray for Jewish people, lovingly proclaim Christ to them, and honor the faithfulness of God without inventing a separate way of salvation apart from Jesus.

We may not always understand why Christ assigns one field before another or opens one opportunity while closing another. The twelve weren’t asked to redesign the mission. They were asked to obey. Faithfulness sometimes means going, and sometimes it means refusing to run beyond the boundaries God has established. In either case, the Shepherd knows where His sheep are.

The Shepherd Is Calling the Lost Home

Perhaps the most personal word in this passage is not “Israel,” “Gentiles,” or “Samaritans.” It’s “lost.”

To be lost doesn’t mean that you’re worthless or beyond the reach of mercy. It means that sin has separated you from God and that you can’t find your way back through your own goodness. Scripture says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). That condition belongs not merely to one nation or one kind of person, but to all of us.

We’ve sinned against the God who made us. Our guilt is real, and its penalty is death and judgment. Religious activity can’t erase that guilt. Good intentions can’t undo it. A sheep doesn’t return to the fold by insisting that it was never lost.

God, however, didn’t leave sinners without hope. Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, came to seek and save the lost. He declared, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). On the cross, He willingly bore the judgment sinners deserve. He died for our sins, was buried, and rose bodily from the grave on the third day. His resurrection proves His victory over sin and death.

Christ now calls people from every nation to repent and believe the gospel. Repentance means turning from sin and abandoning the claim that you can rule your life without God. Faith means placing your trust in Jesus Christ, relying upon His death and resurrection rather than your character, religion, or achievements.

If you come to Christ in repentance and faith, He promises forgiveness, reconciliation with God, new spiritual life, and eternal salvation. You don’t need to make yourself worthy before approaching Him. Lost sheep are rescued because the Shepherd is gracious, not because they’ve mastered the return journey.

Hear His call personally. Admit your sin, turn to Christ, and trust Him as your Lord and Savior. Then follow the Shepherd who gave His life for you, living not for your own praise but for His glory.

Questions for the Road

• Do I treat Christ’s direction as authoritative, or do I assume that sincere intentions excuse disobedience?
• Have I mistaken religious familiarity, family heritage, or church involvement for a personal relationship with Christ?
• Who in my immediate field of responsibility may need a clear and compassionate presentation of the gospel?
• Do any personal, cultural, or political prejudices cause me to neglect people whom Christ has commanded His Church to reach?
• How should God’s orderly expansion of the gospel from Israel to all nations deepen my humility, gratitude, worship, and willingness to go where Christ sends me?