Jesus calls us to learn about our enemies and about ourselves—and to spread the aroma of Christ through the world by the ministry of the word for the salvation of the elect. To this end, he bids us understand that we are like sheep in the midst of wolves, so that we will seek to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

One of the remarkable features of Jesus’ teaching is the way in which he drew simple analogies and metaphors from the world around him in order to instruct his disciples about the most profound truths of the kingdom of God.
Jesus spent much time reading the book of nature. He could point to a simple flower in order to explain to his disciples the mystery of God’s providential care and provision for them (Luke 12:27). Some of Christ’s most impactful illustrations came from the agrarian culture in which he lived and traveled. He expended prolonged periods of mental energy meditating on the birds of the air and the livestock that flooded the Palestinian landscape. At the inauguration of his missionary enterprise, Jesus gathered the twelve to himself and said to them,

Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues,  and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.(Matt. 10:16–20)

Jesus is preparing his disciples for spiritual warfare in Matthew 10:16-20.
In a day when Christians have all but lost the culture war in America—and the prospect of the persecution of true believers is imminent—it is incumbent on us to listen carefully to what the Savior told his disciples upon their first missionary journey. In the ancient wartime manual, The Art of War, Sun Tzu explained,

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

In Matthew 10:16-20, Jesus is essentially giving his disciples his manual of spiritual warfare for the mission of God. The danger of the task that lay before the disciples required a clear illustration from the Savior regarding the way in which they should prepare themselves for the opposition they would encounter.
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You can’t have good policies and a bad worldview. You can’t hate God and still do good to your fellow man. When you tear virtue away from its proper environment (God’s character and revelation), you aren’t left with the same virtue you started with. You have a monster that bears almost no resemblance to its former shape or purpose.

The modern world . . . is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. They have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.
– G.K. Chesterton
We’ve all known friends who one day decided they needed to “start fresh.” So they grew their hair out and started offering didgeridoo workshops in their garage; they bought a farm and started raising Guinea Fowl; they abandoned their Honda at the edge of a wilderness in the hopes of finding their true selves lurking behind a bush somewhere.
Years later and you bump into them at a flea market. In the painful process of catching up you start to realize the awful truth; they desperately want you to believe their existential voyage has returned them to land whole and healthy. They’ve grown. They’ve changed. They’ve seen some things, man — they’ve done some stuff. So sure are they of their rebirth, we don’t have the heart to ask about their green yoga pants, neck beard, or why they’re missing an ear.
Wandering alone isn’t good for anyone. That includes virtues.
Stark Raving Virtues
If you want to know what a virtue gone mad looks like, look no further than one of the million “isms” staggering around with foam dripping from their mouths.
Environmentalism, for example. Ostensibly, NetZero fanciers want us to believe they’re the last line of defence against an imminent carbon apocalypse. According to the UN, we’re already “at least one degree Celsius above preindustrial levels and close to what scientists warn would be ‘an unacceptable risk.’”
Now, there’s already just enough vagueness in that statement for me to never want to leave it alone with someone I care about. But don’t you find “unacceptable risk” to be a fascinating choice of words? It almost feels like I’ve heard that exact phrase used in a different context, but that also involved experts and suffering. Questions arise from the shadowy recesses of memory and start chattering frantically at me: What criteria renders a risk unacceptable? What worldview do the individuals assessing risks hold to? What will the human cost be of responding to risks deemed to be unacceptable?
To be clear, my problem isn’t conscientiousness. My problem is the state attempting to legislate conscientiousness. This is a problem because:
A secular state is only concerned with expanding its power.
Without God, all the aims, operations, and policies of the state trend towards this singular end (Psalm 2:2).
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It is vitally important to be participating fully in public worship, especially when we come to the Lord’s Table. God uses the ordinary means of grace – the Word, Sacraments, and Prayer – to communicate the benefits of redemption to His people. There is more going on in worship than we perceive; the Spirit is at work in us and upon us in each of the elements of the worship service. We are not coming to a lecture, but divine worship where God meets with and transforms His people.

Reformed worship is an integrated whole with each of the elements of the worship service building upon one another. God calls His people to worship, and His people respond to that call. Reformed worship is a response to the truth of Who God is and what He has done in creation and redemption.
This is all the more the case when we come to the Lord’s Table. Our Westminster Standards remind us that all who come to the Lord’s Table should prepare themselves to meet with Christ there by faith and commune with Him and His people at the table:
What is required to the worthy receiving of the Lord’s Supper?
It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves, of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon Him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves. (Westminster Shorter Catechism No. 97)
So there is an individual aspect to preparing to come to the Lord’s Table, but coming to the Lord’s Table is a group, corporate activity. The Lord’s Supper, by its very nature, is a corporate act, which is reflected in it being commonly called Communion or Holy Communion. It is not communion with Christ only, but with all His people at the Table.
Sometimes we erroneously suppose the observance of the Lord’s Table conveys a benefit that can be separated from the worship service as a whole, but nothing can be further from reality. This is why Reformed Christians reject the idea of “private communion” or “virtual communion” but teach that the Lord’s Supper (i.e. Communion) can only take place within the context of gathered, corporate worship. Our Standards again emphasize this clearly, stating that to do otherwise is “contrary to the nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ” (WCF 29.4).
In light of the nature of the Lord’s Supper, it should be understood that corporate worship is the culmination of one’s private preparation to commune at Christ’s Table.
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