Matthew 10:16

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Summary

Matthew 10:16

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

As sheep

Luke 10:3

Acts 20:29

Wise

Colossians 4:5

Harmless

1 Thessalonians 5:22

Bible References

As sheep

Now go. Here I send you out like lambs among wolves.

I know that after I am gone savage wolves will get in among you and will not spare the flock,

Wise

for I will give you such wisdom of utterance as none of your opponents will be able to resist or dispute.

Everyone has heard of your obedience, and I am very happy about you, but I want you to be wise about what is good and guileless about what is bad.

Brothers, you must not be children mentally. In evil be babies, but mentally be mature.

But I am afraid that just as the serpent by his cunning deceived Eve, your thoughts will be led astray from their single-hearted fidelity to Christ.

Be very careful, then, about the way you live. Do not act thoughtlessly, but like sensible men,

That is why, from the day I first heard of it, I have never given up praying for you and asking God to fill you, through full spiritual wisdom and insight, with a clear knowledge of what his will is,

Use wisdom in dealing with outsiders, making the most of your opportunities.

Harmless

Such men are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own base passions, and with their plausible and flattering talk they deceive simple-minded people.

For my boast is what my conscience tells me, that my relations to the world and still more to you have been marked by pure motives and godly sincerity, not by worldly shrewdness but by the favor of God.

I mean to have no one able to find any fault with the way I handle this munificence.

But I am afraid that just as the serpent by his cunning deceived Eve, your thoughts will be led astray from their single-hearted fidelity to Christ.

so that you will be blameless and honest, faultless children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverted age, in which you appear like stars in a dark world,

You will testify, and God will, how pure and upright and irreproachable our relations were with you who believed.

and avoiding every kind of evil.