{"id":148,"date":"2022-05-25T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reflectivebiblestudy.com\/gospeladventure\/?p=148&2022"},"modified":"2022-05-23T18:00:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T00:00:10","slug":"to-follow-or-not-matthew-19-16-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reflectivebiblestudy.com\/gospeladventure\/to-follow-or-not-matthew-19-16-30\/","title":{"rendered":"To Follow, or Not: Matthew 19:16-30"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"spoiler spoiler-style-2\"><div class=\"spoiler-title\">Focus Passage: Matthew 19:16-30 (NCV)<\/div><div class=\"spoiler-content\"><p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">16<\/sup> A man came to Jesus and asked, \u201cTeacher, what good thing must I do to have life forever?\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">17<\/sup> Jesus answered, \u201cWhy do you ask me about what is good? Only God is good. But if you want to have life forever, obey the commands.\u201d <\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">18<\/sup> The man asked, \u201cWhich commands?\u201d <\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jesus answered, \u201d \u2018You must not murder anyone; you must not be guilty of adultery; you must not steal; you must not tell lies about your neighbor;  <sup class=\"versenum\">19<\/sup> honor your father and mother; and love your neighbor as you love yourself.\u2019\u00a0\u201d  <\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">20<\/sup> The young man said, \u201cI have obeyed all these things. What else do I need to do?\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">21<\/sup> Jesus answered, \u201cIf you want to be perfect, then go and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. If you do this, you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.\u201d <\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">22<\/sup> But when the young man heard this, he left sorrowfully, because he was rich.<\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">23<\/sup> Then Jesus said to his followers, \u201cI tell you the truth, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.  <sup class=\"versenum\">24<\/sup> Yes, I tell you that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.\u201d <\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">25<\/sup> When Jesus\u2019 followers heard this, they were very surprised and asked, \u201cThen who can be saved?\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">26<\/sup> Jesus looked at them and said, \u201cFor people this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.\u201d <\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">27<\/sup> Peter said to Jesus, \u201cLook, we have left everything and followed you. So what will we have?\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>\u00a0<sup class=\"versenum\">28<\/sup> Jesus said to them, \u201cI tell you the truth, when the age to come has arrived, the Son of Man will sit on his great throne. All of you who followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  <sup class=\"versenum\">29<\/sup> And all those who have left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, or farms to follow me will get much more than they left, and they will have life forever.  <sup class=\"versenum\">30<\/sup> Many who are first now will be last in the future. And many who are last now will be first in the future.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"passage-read-more\">Read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew 19:16-30&amp;version=ncv\" title=\"Read the passage on BibleGateway.com\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"hyperlink-underlined\">Matthew 19:16-30<\/a> in context and\/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!<\/p><\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>While the event we are focusing in on is found in three of the four gospels, for this journal entry, we will focus on Matthew\u2019s version of this event. In Matthew\u2019s version of the story, we read, <strong>\u201cJesus answered, \u2018If you want to be perfect, then go and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor. If you do this, you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.\u2019 But when the young man heard this, he left sorrowfully, because he was rich.\u201d<\/strong> <em>(verses 21-22)<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n<p>This the only time I am aware of where Jesus gives someone a task to complete before following Him. Where this story is placed in each of the gospels, it is unclear if there was enough time for the man to even complete the request, but it doesn\u2019t seem to matter, because he went away sorrowfully, because he was \u201crich\u201d.<\/p>\r\n<p>What the story doesn\u2019t tell us is the end of this man\u2019s journey. He could have written Jesus off and stayed rich and \u201calmost\u201d perfect, but he may have instead been convicted when he reached his home and thought a lot about what Jesus had said.<\/p>\r\n<p>\u201cHe went away sorrowfully.\u201d This tells us that there was tension in his mind. Wealth\/money\/stuff or Jesus \u2013 which for their view of the Messiah at that point would have meant status and fame, even if Jesus didn\u2019t seem to be interested in going that route. This man had a definite conflict in his mind.<\/p>\r\n<p>We don\u2019t know where his story ended, but that tells us something too: our story hasn\u2019t ended either. We still have the option to accept Jesus\u2019 call to \u201ccome and follow\u201d Him. As we pointed out in the previous journal entry on this event, we are late in the world\u2019s timeline of history \u2013 but we still have the option to come, which if you think about it, is all that really matters in the end.<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>We don\u2019t know where this man ended up, but we can decide where we will end; we can decide to accept the invitation to \u201cfollow\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<div id=\"aj-wrap-up--148\" class=\"aj-wrap-up\"><p><em>This thought was inspired by studying the <strong>Walking With Jesus<\/strong> \u201cReflective Bible Study\u201d package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, <a class=\"underline\" href=\"https:\/\/reflectivebiblestudy.com\/\" title=\"Check out Reflective Bible Study!\">click here<\/a> and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!<\/em><\/p><p><em><a class=\"underline\" href=\"javascript:void(0);\" onClick=\"rbs_aj_inline_subscribe(this, '148');\">Subscribe<\/a> to this blog and never miss an insight.<\/em><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the event we are focusing in on is found in three of the four gospels, for this journal entry, we will focus on Matthew\u2019s version of this event. In Matthew\u2019s version of the story, we read, \u201cJesus answered, \u2018If you want to be perfect, then go and sell your possessions and give the money [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text"],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":false,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>To Follow, or Not: Matthew 19:16-30 - Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/reflectivebiblestudy.com\/gospeladventure\/to-follow-or-not-matthew-19-16-30\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To Follow, or Not: Matthew 19:16-30 - Reflective Bible Study Gospel Adventure\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While the event we are focusing in on is found in three of the four gospels, for this journal entry, we will focus on Matthew\u2019s version of this event. 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