57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” 62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” ~ Luke 9:57-62
Every time the Lord Jesus called someone to follow Him, He used the same word, akoloutheĊ. And, every time He did so, He used the present imperative, meaning it was an ongoing response.
According to Matthew, this event happened during the Lord Jesus' Galilean ministry in the town of Capernaum. Luke includes it here, out of its sequential order, because it is part of the training of the twelve. He had just given them a lesson on humility and mercy. And here He indirectly gives them a lesson on discipleship.
On this day, three men could have become disciples, but they were not willing to meet the conditions of a disciple. According to Matthew 8:19, the first man was one of the Scribes who were very highly esteemed. Scribes were highly educated and loyal to the Jewish religious system.
This first man volunteered to follow the Lord Jesus until he heard the cost: he had to deny himself. Since the Fall in the Garden mankind has been a slave to his own fallen self. The Bible calls this "the flesh" which, as Paul says in Galatians 5, is the evil within us that is out to destroy us.
In v.58, "Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Foxes were everywhere in Israel in those days. They had their burrows and they had their places to go and rest and eat. And, birds were certainly everywhere. Everybody knew birds had nests. Everybody knew foxes had holes. The Lord Jesus uses the common day animals to illustrate to this Scribe, "Don't expect comfort and ease."
In v.59 we read, He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” With this second man, the Lord Jesus calls him and says, "follow me." The man's response was: "I must bury my father." This is a familiar Middle Eastern statement still used. And when they use it and they say, "I must bury my father," they mean: "I must stay at home until he's gone so that I can bring his estate to its close, so that I can receive my inheritance. I'll follow You someday, when my father's dead and I've gotten what I need."
In v.60, the Lord Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." The Lord Jesus is essentially saying, "Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead ..." Let the people in this world who are outside the kingdom of God take care of the dead. Leave temporal things to temporal people. You are called to come into the kingdom of God and for the rest of your life to go and proclaim the glories of that kingdom. Let go of the kingdom of this world, even its noble responsibilities.
This second man was called by the Lord Jesus, but he would not take up the cross and die to self. The Lord Jesus is not suggesting here that we dishonor our parents, but only that we not permit our love for family to weaken our love for the Lord. We should love Christ so much that our love for family would look like hatred in comparison.
Then in v.61 we read, "Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family." Perhaps this man was thinking, "I don't need to wait till my father dies to get all the money, I'll just go home and raise some support."
To this in v.62, the Lord Jesus responded, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Jesus responds with a proverb that can be traced back to a writer named Hesiod in 800 B.C. Essentially He is saying, "You can't have a divided heart."
The third man could not follow Christ because he was looking back instead of ahead. There is nothing wrong with a loving farewell, but if it gets in the way of obedience, it becomes sin. The Lord Jesus saw that this man’s heart was not wholly with Him, but that he would be plowing and looking back.
To follow the Lord Jesus is a way of life. True Christianity is not seasonal. It is following the Lord Jesus all the time. Of course, this is not what makes us right with God, but this is evidence that He is in our lives. We became believers in the Lord Jesus when we were at the end of ourselves, we had a beatitude moment of mourning over our sinfulness, we embraced meekness because we understood the bankruptcy of our hearts.
