Freely Ye Have Received

Matthew tells his own call in one line: Jesus saw him “sitting at the receipt of custom” and said, “Follow me. And he arose, and followed him” (9:9). Tax collectors worked for Rome and were widely despised, yet Jesus ate with them. When Pharisees objected, He quoted Hosea: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” (9:13). Asked why His disciples didn’t fast, He said they would fast when the bridegroom was taken from them (9:15). Healings follow in quick succession: a ruler’s daughter, a woman who touched His hem, two blind men (“According to your faith be it unto you,” 9:29) and a man who could not speak. The chapter ends with Jesus seeing the multitudes “as sheep having no shepherd” (9:36).

🔗 Cross-references

• Hosea 6:6 ↗The verse Jesus quotes: the Lord desires mercy and the knowledge of God more than offerings.
• Ezekiel 34:11–12 ↗The Lord promises to search for His scattered sheep and seek them out Himself.
• Isaiah 58:6–11 ↗The Lord describes the fast He has chosen and the light and healing that follow it.

Jesus gives the Twelve “power against unclean spirits” and power to heal (10:1), then sends them to do exactly what they have watched Him do. They go first to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6); after His Resurrection He would send them to all nations (Matthew 28:19). They are to travel light, stay with those who receive them, and give without charging: “freely ye have received, freely give” (10:8). He is honest about the cost. They will be sheep among wolves, brought before councils and governors. Yet He promises that when they must answer, “it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak” (10:19), because the Spirit of their Father will speak in them (10:20).

🔗 Cross-references

• Matthew 28:19 ↗After His Resurrection, the Lord sends the apostles to teach all nations.
• Doctrine and Covenants 84:85 ↗Treasure up the words of life, and what to say will be given in the very hour.
• Doctrine and Covenants 107:23 ↗The Twelve in our day are special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world.

Jesus tells the Twelve not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot touch the soul (10:28). Then He grounds their courage in the Father’s attention. Two sparrows sold for a farthing, and not one falls “without your Father” (10:29). Even the hairs of their heads are numbered. “Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows” (10:31). The chapter names the cost of discipleship plainly: loving Him more than family, taking up the cross, losing life to find it (10:37–39). It ends with a promise for the smallest act of discipleship: a cup of cold water given in His name will not lose its reward (10:42).

🔗 Cross-references

• Luke 12:6–7 ↗Luke’s version: five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one is forgotten before God.
• Doctrine and Covenants 18:10 ↗The worth of souls is great in the sight of God.
• Mosiah 2:17 ↗When we serve others, we are in the service of our God.

Mark 5 holds three people no one else could help. A man possessed by Legion lived among the tombs, and no chains could hold him (5:3–4). After Jesus frees him, he is found “sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind” (5:15), and Jesus sends him home to tell what the Lord has done (5:19). Then Jairus, a synagogue ruler, begs Jesus to come to his dying daughter. On the way, a woman who has suffered twelve years touches His clothes and is healed. Jesus stops to find her and calls her “Daughter” (5:34). Meanwhile the girl dies. Jesus tells Jairus, “Be not afraid, only believe” (5:36); the footnote says the Greek means to exercise faith. He takes her hand, and she rises.

🔗 Cross-references

• Luke 8:43–48 ↗Luke adds that no one had been able to heal the woman, and records Jesus saying that virtue had gone out of Him.
• Leviticus 15:25–27 ↗The law that made the woman ritually unclean, and so isolated, for twelve years.
• Moroni 7:33 ↗Christ promises that those who have faith in Him will have power to do whatever is expedient in Him.

Luke 9 moves fast. The Twelve are sent out and return (9:1–10). Five thousand men are fed from five loaves and two fishes, with twelve baskets left over (9:13–17). Then, after praying alone, Jesus asks His disciples, “But whom say ye that I am?” and Peter answers, “The Christ of God” (9:20). Right away Jesus speaks of His coming suffering and invites everyone to “take up his cross daily” (9:23); of the Gospel writers, only Luke includes the word daily. About eight days later, on a mountain, Jesus is transfigured. Moses and Elias speak with Him of “his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem” (9:31), and the Father’s voice says, “This is my beloved Son: hear him” (9:35).

🔗 Cross-references

• Matthew 16:13–19 ↗Matthew’s account of Peter’s witness adds that the Father revealed it, and speaks of the keys of the kingdom.
• Doctrine and Covenants 63:21 ↗The Lord refers to the pattern shown to His apostles upon the mount.
• Joseph Smith—History 1:17 ↗The Father introduces His Son to Joseph Smith with the same charge: hear Him.

Coming down from the mount, Jesus meets a father whose only son is tormented by a spirit the disciples couldn’t cast out (9:38–40). Jesus heals the boy. Then He tells the Twelve plainly that He will be delivered into the hands of men, and they argue about which of them is greatest (9:44–46). He sets a child beside Him. Soon “he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (9:51), knowing what waited there. When a Samaritan village refuses Him, James and John offer to call down fire. He rebukes them: “the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (9:56). Finally, He tells would-be followers that no one who looks back from the plough is fit for the kingdom (9:62).

🔗 Cross-references

• Isaiah 50:7 ↗The Lord’s servant sets his face like a flint, trusting that he will not be ashamed.
• Mosiah 3:19 ↗King Benjamin describes becoming as a child: submissive, meek, humble, patient and full of love.
• Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 ↗Be not weary in well-doing; out of small things proceeds that which is great.

Today is fast Sunday. Return to Luke 9:18–26. Notice that Peter’s witness came while Jesus had been “alone praying” (9:18), and that His first lesson after that witness was about the cross. Luke’s word “daily” (9:23) turns discipleship from a single decision into a daily habit. A fast is one way to practice it: we set aside something we want for a little while and give its cost to people in need, just as Jesus told the Twelve, “freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). He also said His disciples would fast once the bridegroom was taken from them (Matthew 9:15). As you fast and take the sacrament today, let both be ways of drawing near to Him.

🔗 Cross-references

• Isaiah 58:6–11 ↗The Lord describes the fast He has chosen and promises light, healing and guidance to those who keep it.
• Alma 17:3 ↗The sons of Mosiah gave themselves to much prayer and fasting and received the spirit of revelation.
• Omni 1:26 ↗Amaleki invites all to come unto Christ, offer their whole souls to Him, and continue in fasting and praying.