Chapter Ten - Quick Notes and Facts

• ‘Peter' is a nickname. In Greek, it would be Petros, but in Aramaic, the language which they spoke, it was Cephas. This is what Paul calls him in his letters. The word means ‘rock.'


• Samaritans were Semites and had a common ancestry with the Jews. However, they only accepted the five books of Moses as Scripture, and they worshipped in their own country and not in Jerusalem. Jews and Samaritans seem to have despised each other.


• The emphasis on Jesus as the Jewish messiah, sent to the Jews, comes through strongly in this chapter.


• Sodom and Gomorrah were ancient cities destroyed with ‘fire and brimstone.' They may have been the victims of a volcanic eruption. (See Genesis 19)


• The advice about what kind of persecution they might expect and how to deal with it is probably a reflection of the church at the time that Matthew wrote, and not necessarily when Jesus was alive.