Shaking the Dust Off

By Larry Rosenbaum

Often after we have had difficulties in San Francisco, Christians will ask me, “Why don’t you shake the dust off your feet and go somewhere else?” At times I have felt like doing this. But first I knew I must study the scriptures, to see exactly what they taught on this subject. In Matthew 10, Jesus sent out his apostles to the cities and towns of Israel. And in Luke 10, He sent out seventy of his closest disciples, giving them similar instructions: “Into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you not, go your way out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaves on us, we do wipe off against you.” In Matthew 10, He also gives these instructions: “When they persecute you in this city, flee to another.”

If the disciples ever shook the dust off their feet, we never hear about it. Instead, we are told that the seventy returned with joy, saying “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.” In Luke 10, Jesus associates “shaking the dust off your feet” with the judgment He pronounces on Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum which saw His miracles but refused to believe. Even though Jesus pronounced judgment on Capernaum in Luke 10 and Matthew 11, He and His disciples returned there later (Matt. 17:24). Jesus was not eager to give up on any city.

In the book of Acts, we see several cases in which believers were faced with persecution and fled to another city. In some cases, they returned after the persecution ended. I do not see an example of “shaking the dust off your feet” except perhaps in Acts 18:6. In Corinth, when the Jews “opposed themselves and blasphemed” Paul “shook his clothes and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean: from henceforth I will go to the Gentiles.” But the next thing we hear is that Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed. Paul certainly did not stop ministering to the Jews, and most of the rest of Acts documents his efforts to do so. Paul got frustrated by the opposition of many Jews, but he was not about to give up on them.

What then does it mean to “shake the dust off our feet?” Jesus is saying that we are not to waste our time. If people have heard the gospel and rejected it, go somewhere else. “Don’t cast your pearls before swine.” Yet we all know of people who reject the gospel for many years, but end up getting saved. There are parents who have prayed for their children for over 50 years before they came to Jesus. God is certainly longsuffering with us, not willing that any should perish. Also, there are many people who have had considerable exposure to Christianity but never understood the message.

I believe there are many people in San Francisco who have never heard the gospel and others who have heard it only in a distorted way. Many San Franciscans who do not understand English have never heard the gospel in their own language. And many youth grew up in non-Christian and anti-Christian homes and never heard the gospel. There are also hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents who shop and work in this city. Tens of thousands of students and immigrants (legal and illegal) come here from all over the world every year. Millions of tourists from other parts of the U.S. and around the world visit this city each year. Certainly all these people have not heard and rejected the gospel!

When should we “shake the dust off our feet?” Some of you live in small towns and suburbs. You and the other Christians in town have witnessed to everyone. Nobody seems even remotely interested in the gospel. Perhaps it’s time to move elsewhere. Many of our towns and suburbs have a lot more Christians than are needed to evangelize these places. Meanwhile, our large cities have very few Christians and multitudes of unsaved people who have never clearly heard the gospel.

Maybe you’ve witnessed to everyone at work for several years and there is no response. It might be time to find a job where there are more opportunities to witness. We certainly need to be led by the Lord in this. There are times when God would have us sow into an area for many years with little visible response. At other times, He will lead us to move on. God may some day tell us it is time to leave San Francisco. Until that time, we will seek to be faithful to reach everyone we can for Jesus.

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