<p>9:39 <em>But Jesus said: Do not forbid him. For there is no one who shall do a mighty work in my name and then be able straight afterwards to immediately speak evil of me</em>- The preceding section has sternly warned against forbidding the little ones, and now we have a worked example. The little ones in view were John's disciples (:38); although seeing &quot;John did no miracle&quot; we wonder whether the miracle claimed was legitimate. But the Lord is not only gentle, He seeks to accept even such misunderstanding and misguided ones. For He alludes without doubt to Num. 11:28,29: &quot;Joshua&hellip; answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid them. And Moses said unto him, Are you envious for my sake? Would God that all the Lord&rsquo;s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them&quot;. He considered this misguided miracle worker in John's group as all the same one of God's new Israel. As noted on :38, the disciples tended to &quot;forbid&quot; those whom the Lord wished to accept. And that same tension is seen time and again with the way closed, denominational mindsets seek to exclude and &quot;forbid&quot; others who differ and are immature. But the allusion to Numbers 11 seems to be saying that all in whom the Spirit is working should be accepted; and the litmus test is whether they shall &quot;speak evil of me&quot;. If they do not, then they are not against Him but for, despite their misunderstanding. An alternative reading however is &quot;Shall not lightly speak evil of me&quot; (as AV). In this case, the Lord is comforting His sceptical disciples that if such a person does is in fact against Him, then this is no light matter and will be dealt with by the Lord's judgment; but not by theirs. This incident is surely alluded to by Paul when he warns against some who claimed to possess the Spirit who 'call Jesus accursed' (1 Cor. 12:3). There were such, and it was their attitude to the Lord Jesus personally which proclaimed them against Him. What people think of Christ is the critical issue when it comes to deciding whether a person is for or against Him; and that is obvious really, but the natural tendency to &quot;forbid&quot; those who interpret differently to ourselves is strong.&nbsp;</p>