NOTES for Mat 10:23-31
In these days, during the fast dedicated to the memory of the holy apostles, it is entirely natural to read in small portions chapter 10 of the Gospel of Matthew, where the Lord sends the disciples out to preach and gives them instructions. But both this fast itself and the words Christ speaks to the disciples are important for all Christians, because what was said to the apostles in one degree or another necessarily applies to all members of the Church.
In the passage we read today, the Lord calls His disciples to become like the Teacher, saying that this is enough, sufficient for them. But this also applies to all of us, the disciples of His disciples. And Christ tells the disciples that the hostility of the fallen world is a kind of touchstone: if the disciples follow the Teacher, then they too will meet this resistance. But as one contemporary saint said, if you feel resistance, it means you are moving forward.
But a human being was created to be together with other people. Therefore our heart finds it burdensome to experience this resistance, and therefore we so easily join crowds, even for some act of meanness, just to feel like fish in a school, moving together with everyone else. And the world's resistance awakens in us doubts about the correctness of the path we have chosen. Therefore Christ tells the disciples that the Truth revealed to them will in the end become manifest, and that they should fear only betraying it. It is important for us to hear this, because the world's resistance to Christ's disciples does not become weaker, though it changes forms.