Jesus Comforting and Warning.
Consider:
I. What the disciples were not to fear. They were not to fear them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Man's power in God is very great, but out of Him very little. He is not able to kill the soul; he can, however, kill the body, and the power to kill the body is, after all, a terrible power. It was not in disdain of the body, with its functions and sensibilities, that Christ said, "Fear not them which kill the body." But if the body must be wasted in the path of duty, it must go; if the hands and feet must be pierced, the Master taught that the decease must be accomplished, "for the servant is not above his Lord."
II. He warns them of something that should be feared. "Rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The fear which they were not to have of men was that vague dread which would unman them for the service of their life. The word "fear" has a very different complexion in this connection from the word "fear" in such an injunction as "Fear the Lord." The text says to us, Fear him, the arch-enemy, unto whose power you may commit yourselves, the enemy of your souls. The destroyer of body and of soul comes to us all, and finds much in us much in our lower passions, and much in our noblest faculties. Sin, whatever form and by whatever means appealed to, fear ye him.
III. What they were to do. They were to speak in light what they heard in darkness. There are dark and secret places in every life. It depends much on ourselves whether or not these dark and secret places are a gain or a loss to us. A loss if we cannot be still in the dark, and fearless and calm enough to hear what the darkness tells; a gain if we are still enough to hear and understand what is told us. If you could be quiet through the night, you would have something to say on the morrow.
J. O. Davies, Sunrise on the Soul,p. 153.
References: Matthew 10:26; Matthew 10:27. S. Cox, Expositor,2nd series, vol. i. p. 372.Matthew 10:27. Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Actsp. 27; Phillips Brooks, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 56. Matthew 10:27; Matthew 10:28. J. Berry, Ibid.,vol. xxxi., p. 283.Matthew 10:29. G. T. Coster, Ibid.,vol. xi., p. 406. Matthew 10:29; Matthew 10:30. C. Kingsley, The Water of Life,p. 243.Matthew 10:29-31. H. E. Bennett, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 43.