What Jesus and Doves Taught Me About Real Success (Matthew 9-10, Mark 6, and Luke 9)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Do you struggle to find the balance between being shrewd and vulnerable?

How we were raised shapes the way we lean. If we were raised in a trusting environment, we tend to be very trusting of others. If we were raised in a harsh environment with many broken relationships and promises, we would tend to err on the side of viewing others with suspicion. But in Matthew 10, Jesus asks his followers to hold these two lifestyles in check.

Jesus starts by summoning his twelve disciples, giving them authority over unclean spirits, and commissioning them to spread the good news of the kingdom. “He didn’t draft them, force them, or ask them to volunteer; he chose them to serve him in a special way.”^[1] That’s all positive, but then he says these words in verse 16: “Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves.”

The contrast between these two animals couldn’t be starker. Genesis 3:1 says, “Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made.” Hosea 7:11 says that to be like a dove is to be “silly” and “senseless.” Neither is an entirely viable option. Be like a serpent, and you’ll keep yourself from a lot of hurt, but you also struggle to have loving relationships that require vulnerability. Be like a dove, and you’ll open yourself up to love but also to being mistreated.

As Michael Wilkins writes, “This is a difficult but necessary balance to maintain. Without innocence the keenness of the snake is crafty, a devious menace; without keenness the innocence of the dove is naive, helpless gullibility.”^[2] N.T. Wright says, “Christians often find it easy to be one or the other, but seldom both. Without innocence, shrewdness becomes manipulative; without shrewdness, innocence becomes naivety.”^[3]

This is why being a disciple of Christ is critical. Those who aren’t his disciple will always err to their genetic preferences and personalities. However, disciples of Christ who seek to respond as Christ would respond if he were faced with their choices can be shrewd and self-sacrificial. Like Jesus, they can know when to speak up, shake the dust off their sandals, and move on. They act on behalf of the vulnerable but also place themselves in the way of great harm.  

Donald Hagner notes, “The disciples, like the Church of every age, had to learn about the present as a kind of interim period, one of fulfillment, yet short of consummation, one in which suffering was being conquered, but still clearly experienced.”^[4]