““Such gratuity necessarily revolutionizes the ordinary human way of looking at talent, effort, and achievement. Henceforth I do strain, I do intend, and I do utilize my potential, but solely by virtue of Another. What can my effort to cultivate the land avail me if I have neither seed nor soil? The ground, the possibility, the impulse, the sense—all of these are given to me absolutely free and undeserved. Jesus does not specify what the “free gift” precisely is which the apostles have received, and the word δωϱεὰν may also be read adverbially to mean “gratis”, “free of charge”, so that the alternate translation would be: “You received without cost; give without charge.” The very indetermination of the object, however, here makes the formulation even more absolute. Although in context the specific “gift” meant is probably the divine authority to heal and generally to act in Jesus’ stead, surely it also refers to the first call to discipleship by Jesus, to the invitation to and privilege of following him and sharing his life, and to this present call to special apostleship as well. In other words, the “gift” given by God free of charge is the Christian’s whole life; Christ Jesus himself. The gratuitousness with which God gives his Son to mankind, furthermore, imposes an inviolable pattern of transitiveness. The one who receives must give the gift further as freely as he has received it. As a result of receiving from God, one must give like God. God, then, imparts not only the gift itself but the very manner of the giving. This gift communicates its qualities to its recipient: having such a gift, I myself must become gift. The gift of God’s life—Jesus—does not pass through me like water through a pipe, leaving me unaffected. It descends upon me like fire on a sacrifice, roasting the meat and making it edible for God’s hungry.””
