Comment on a Lectionary Reading: Matthew 10.40–42 Rewards

Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. 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. And 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. Matthew 10:40-42

                                              *****

Today, I am going to comment on just one word that Jesus said in this short passage. It’s the word ‘reward’. I thought it would be good to do this because it seems to me that this notion of reward is not well understood by so many Christians.

Let’s start with this. What is Jesus talking about when He refers to rewards? Here’s one of the definitions from the standard Greek-English lexicon for the word translated as ‘reward’:

recognition (mostly by God) for the moral quality of an action, recompense.

So, it’s Jesus saying, ‘You did a good job’, and including with those words a gift, something you would really enjoy.

Next, I think that it’s important for you to know that this word is not some minor little something hidden away in some corner. It shows up in lots of places in the Scriptures. Here are just a few examples.

Jesus says this to those who will suffer for the Gospel.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:12

Paul writes this to Christian slaves.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23,24

This is about a choice that Moses made.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. Hebrews 11:26

The word shows up a bunch of times in the Bible and the concept without the word adds to that list. And the items on that list are all about some favor, benefit, perk given for the faithful efforts of Jesus’ disciples. The idea of reward is actually a big deal.

Now, why would Jesus want to promise rewards to His disciples? The answer to that is easy. He wants to encourage you. Being one of His disciples is hard. It will include things like persecution, a really difficult life situation and some choices that will cost a great deal. (See the verses I just quoted.) Jesus knows this. So, wanting to see you flourish, He encourages you with the promise of a reward. So, again, the idea of reward is actually a big deal.

Now, let’s get practical. What are you to do with this? You would do well to become familiar with this biblical concept. What I’m talking about here is spending time reading the verses that speak about this and then thinking about them. (The old-fashioned word is ‘meditation’.) You can start with the verses I quoted earlier. You’ll want to do this now so that when you need encouragement, when being faithful seems to be just too much, you can remind yourself that there is a reward for you, something that will more than make up for the hardships. And you’ll have some specific places in Scripture to latch on to. Don’t wait until life gets hard to do any of this. It’s difficult to learn new things when life is in turmoil.

I’ll conclude with something that I recently wrote about an earlier part of Matthew 10.

So, there is, on the one hand, the tender care and sure reward of the Father. Then there is, on the other hand, the threat of His punishment. These are reasons that encourage faithfulness that continue to this day.

Jesus motivates us to faithfulness by both reward and fear.