18Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” Matthew 8:18-22 (ESV)
Today I have been looking at this passage in depth. As a result of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and a series of miracles that followed, Jesus had an enormous following. Instead of embracing what many of us would have viewed as success, His words seemed to be aimed at weeding out some of the crowd. He seemed to know that many of them were not sincerely committed.
He then did something very unusual–He prepared his main disciples to leave the crowd behind by sailing across the Sea of Galilee. Most “preachers” would stay with the crowd, but Jesus’ desire was simply to do the will of His Heavenly Father. He did not let the crowd set His agenda.
What do you think about His statements in this passage? What do you think He is saying about the cost of following Jesus?
Steve Rice 
I have question. What does it when it says let the dead bury their dead.
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Jesus wanted to please his Heavenly Father. I believe in sending his disciples away they were to carry on the Lords will. GO and spread the gospel elsewhere. Maybe to say Now is the time , there are enough people here .
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Hi Donna. Tell Steve I said hello. I’ll talk about that tomorrow night, but most scholars believe that the man’s father had not recently died. Actually, his father wasn’t even near death. The man was saying, “let me go back home and after my father ages and dies, I will come and follow you.” Jesus was possibly saying then, “let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead.” His larger point was, you should put nothing before your commitment to God. He was kind of repeating the first commandment. He was not saying that we should not honor our fathers and mothers because that would go against God’s teaching.
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Fairly put, I think it has to do with the mission Christ came to fulfill. No where to lay one’s head is to say that the work in the field is not yet complete so there is no time for rest, or, first let a man plant his field then go build his house. The same can be said of secondary issues, common issues of life, and nothing is more common than death. There is a mission, the call of the Gospel, be instant in and out of season, do the work of an evangelist, it is a single mission for those called to ministry, and that is what Christ is speaking of, that takes priority over all other issues of life. So even Paul would say, let those who are married be as if they are not. Simply put, when it comes to the commission, there are no personal commitments that supercede it.
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Hey! Long time, no see!!!
How goes it???
Hugs to Laura, Lauren, and Andrew!
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Thanks Jules. We miss you guys a lot. Wish we could share the joy of the additions to your family. We celebrate God’s goodness with you!
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AAAWWW! Makes me wanna cry. I was just laughing to myself the other day thinking about exercising with Laura and Lauren! 😦 Miss the good ole days! Love the pic of you guys on Luaren’s blog. Matthew looks great!:(… we should plan to get together!
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Julie, let’s plan a Regency Court reunion! We would love to see you guys as well.
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Give of you best to the Master. Nothing else is more important, even going to a funeral of a love on.
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