Matthew 8:18-22

Aspirants to Discipleship (Luke 9:57). Mt. here breaks away from Mk.'s order, omitting Mark 1:35, and giving as the sequel to Jesus-' first stay at Capernaum what Mk. (Mark 4:35 to Mark 5:20) makes the sequel to the second stay. Mark 2:1 to Mark 4:34 (following on the first stay) is given by Mt. in chs. 9, 11f. Where Mk. (Mark 4:35) and Lk. (Luke 8:22) have an invitation, Mt. (Matthew 18) has a command. Lk.'s account of (three) would-be followers occurs on the last journey to Jerusalem; Mt. records them thus early as illustrating cases of unworthy discipleship. The scribe (? already a disciple, cf. Matthew 8:21) wishes to go with Jesus, not necessarily for good, but wherever you are (now) going; Jesus replies that He is not going home, for He has none. It is possible that Jesus is referring rather to His being outcast from the religious circles of His land (Bruce, With Open Face, p. 218). Certainly there seems to be a contrast between the easy, care-free life of the lower creation, and the dignity, with its entailed hardship, of the lot of man (cf. Psalms 55:6 f., Jeremiah 9:2). This is the first place where Mt. has the phrase Son of Man, and it may carry its simple human rather than its Messianic connotation. The second disciple (Philip, according to Clement of Alexandria) does not offer himself without a call, but delays in accepting a call already given. There is this likeness between the two one is reluctant to renounce his house, the other his relatives (cf. Matthew 19:29). Bury my father need not mean that the parent was lying dead, but probably that the disciple did not feel justified in leaving home while the head of the house was still alive. In accord with Oriental feeling, he was not yet his own master. Cf. also Genesis 50:5 f., Tob_4:3; Tob_6:14. The answer of Jesus is cryptic; perhaps the dead are the spiritually dead, the other members of the family. Another reading of the Aramaic underlying the Gr. gives leave the dead to the burier of the dead (cf. Ezekiel 39:11).