Romans 5:1-8

 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die.  But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Matthew 9:35-10:4

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John;  Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him

Naming Names

Christ’s Empire is not Rome’s Empire

The apostle Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome while he was in Corinth in the spring of 57AD. The letter is a clear description of Christ’s message: “salvation by grace through faith.” We see in Paul’s writing God’s values as opposed to the values of the Roman Empire. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (5:5) Throughout the New Testament, we see these alternative values presented; alternative to the brutal, ego-centric, power-driven values of the Roman Empire. Christ’s Empire is the opposite of the Roman Empire.

In this passage from Romans, 5:1-8, we hear a remarkable insight, similar to that of James 1:2-4, which I often quote to you. Here in Romans, Paul writes, “we are justified by faith,….And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

 Testing produces endurance

Compare this to James 1:2-4, “Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

 How many times have I relied on this verse? Even today, I am dealing with various trials that test my faith. And I’m sure that you are, too. Aren’t you? Don’t we all have problems? There’s always something. You get everything fixed, and then something else breaks. And so we’re all dealing with these things. And these words help me to change my attitude, to see the problems I face in a different light. “That I may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

The first stories

The first stories about Jesus were spoken. The stories were not written down for the first forty years of the church. People talked about Jesus. They told the stories. Later, these stories were collected in writing. They were written in Greek on papyrus scrolls. The writings about the life of Jesus became known as “Gospels,” meaning “Good News.” Although scholars do not know for certain, the best guess is that Mark was written first, sometime between 65 and 73AD, and Matthew was written second, sometime between 75 and 100AD.[1] The author of Matthew is anonymous. We started talking about this last week. But the name “Matthew” is linked to this Gospel beginning with an early church historian named Papias. So this is “Part Two” of what I started last week.

Who was Papias?

We can trace the origin of this name, “Matthew” to Papias. Papias lived from 60 AD to about 130 AD. He was a bishop of the church in Hierapolis, an ancient city in (what is now) southwest Turkey. Today, the ruin of ancient Hierapolis is a major archaeological site. (It’s not very far away from ancient Ephesus, which Shari and I were able to visit last year. (May 2025)) While the apostle Paul was in Ephesus and started the church in Ephesus, through his influence, a church was also founded in Hierapolis. Today, the nearest modern town to ancient Hierapolis is Pamukkale, (Pa MOO kuh le) Turkey.

So, Papias of Hierapolis was a Greek Apostolic Father. The Greek Apostolic Fathers are our primary source for the very first early Christian writings outside of the New Testament. They wrote in Greek and are called “Apostolic” because it’s thought that they had some contact with the original Apostles. Best known of these writers, the Greek Apostolic Fathers, are Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, and Papias of Hierapolis.

Papias gathered stories about Jesus and the disciples and wrote these down in a five-volumed work called Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord. Unfortunately, this work was lost sometime in the Middle Ages. We only know about it from later writers who quoted fragments of it. Irenaeus mentions Papias’s work in about 180AD, and Eusebius mentions it in about 320AD.[2][3] So these are two other early church historians, and the more you get into church history, the more these names become familiar.

In his writings, Papias described how he gathered information. He liked to interview people who traveled through Hierapolis, especially people who knew or had contact with “disciples of the Lord.” So, he was able to interview “surviving disciples of Jesus who had personally known the Twelve Apostles.”[4]

In his history, Papias wrote a sentence that Eusebius picked up in which he said, “Matthew the tax collector, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples, “collected the sayings in the Hebrew language and each one interpreted or translated them as he was able.””[5] So this sentence is where we get the connection to Matthew. Now, there are a lot of problems and a lot of speculation connected to this sentence, but scholars point to it as the first mention of Matthew being the writer of the Gospel. However, one obvious problem with this is that the Gospel was written in Greek, not Hebrew. But this sentence by Papias, as quoted by Eusebius, even though it’s most likely incorrect, gained some traction. And the name “Matthew” stuck. In any case, you can see from this very brief description how murky the water gets right away when we try to get any specific details on dates and authorship.

The Mission Discourse

In our reading from Matthew today, we get a sense of Jesus’ compassion for suffering. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matt 10:36) And here we read the outline of Jesus’ mission. Jesus prays for more workers. There’s so much to do. There is so much suffering. And Jesus is bringing this point up. There is so much that needs to be done to help people. Even then. And then, his prayer is answered because at the beginning of Chapter Ten, all twelve disciples are named. Chapter Ten is called the Mission Discourse, the second of the Five Major Discourses in Matthew’s Gospel. In Chapter Ten, Jesus gives the disciples their mission. And the mission is this: The Roman Empire is not God’s Empire. And so, the disciples are supposed to challenge the status quo, challenge the values of the Roman Empire, and so, to transform the world to align with God’s values. This alternative Empire is an Empire where justice and mercy prevail. And so that’s what the disciples did. They went out and they started working. And we know what happened to most of them. Right?

So, we will be reading from the Mission Discourse for the next two weeks. And of course, this is a difficult mission. And as Christians, we are still following in these footsteps. This is still our mission today. It is a difficult mission, one which will require character and endurance. Jesus wants his disciples to be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. May it be so for us.

Amen? Amen.

[1] Warren Carter, “Introduction to Matthew” in Walter Harrelson, New Interpreter’s Study Bible (Nashville: Abington Press, 2003), 1745

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papias_of_Hierapolis

[3] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Apostolic-Father

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papias_of_Hierapolis “Sources and Methods”

 [5] Mark Allen Powell, quoting from Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.39, Introducing the New Testament, A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey (Baker Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2009), 107