<p>10:18&nbsp;<em>Yes and before governors and kings you shall be brought for my sake, for a testimony</em>- The Lord wanted to give even kings and rulers the chance of repentance. The legal language suggests that a court case was going on- in the court of Heaven, situations on earth are tried, and the witness of the apostles at their earthly court cases against&nbsp;<em>them</em>&nbsp;was used in the court case&nbsp;<em>against the rulers</em>&nbsp;which was going on in Heaven.</p>
<p><em>To them</em>- Or, &quot;against them&quot;. The &ldquo;men&rdquo; of :17, the Jews; for there is a contrast made between &ldquo;them&rdquo; and &ldquo;the Gentiles&rdquo;. In :14 the Lord has taught to shake off the dust of their feet as a &ldquo;witness against&rdquo; the unbelieving Jews (this is added in the parallel records in Mk. 6:11 and Lk. 9:5).&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>And to the Gentiles</em>- Yet the commission told the apostles to&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;go to the Gentiles. The Lord speaks in this wider sense because He wanted them to realize that what He was asking them to do on their brief preaching tour was to be understood by them, even then, as programmatic and prophetic of their (and our) later witness to the entire world, as required by the great commission. The implication is that the &ldquo;men&rdquo; of :17 are the ones who will lead to the disciples being persecuted by Gentiles; and this indeed is how it worked out, due to a program of Jewish orchestrated opposition to the Gospel&rsquo;s spreading. The idea of a testimony to or against the Gentiles is to be found in Mt. 24:14, where we find the same two Greek words used in speaking of the preaching of the Gospel as a&nbsp;<em>testimony</em>&nbsp;to &ldquo;the nations&rdquo; (s.w. &ldquo;Gentiles&rdquo;) in the very last days. The spreading of the Gospel to the whole world will likely be facilitated by high profile, well publicized legal cases against the Gospel&rsquo;s preachers- something perhaps we have yet to see in the last days.&nbsp;</p>