What's the cost of following Jesus? – Parables E5

In this episode we focus on parables that encourage us to make decisions about the Kingdom of God. We explore the confrontational nature of the parables about the sheep and the goats and the barren fig tree, drawing out their emphasis on the importance of what we do – Christian faith in action. We discuss how Jesus used these stories to provoke and challenge his audience regarding their relationship with God and their life choices. We conclude by thinking about the cost of discipleship, highlighting the trials and sacrifices involved in following Jesus.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Intro
• (00:40) - How do parables bring us to a decision?
• (02:45) - How do these parables function?
• (04:45) - The parable of the sheep and the goats
• (07:00) - What does this parable mean?
• (12:00) - What we do matters
• (17:07) - The parable of the barren fig tree
• (19:07) - Ancient views on misfortune and sin
• (22:12) - The patience of God
• (26:22) - Pursuing the right fruit
• (28:42) - The cost of being a disciple

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Creators & Guests

Host

Esther King

Esther is part of Bible Society's Communications team.

Host

Mark Woods

Mark is a Baptist minister and sometime journalist, who now heads up Bible Society's comms team.

Host

Noël Amos

Noël is the editor of Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal.

What is The Rooted Podcast?

Listen to The Rooted Podcast for in-depth conversations about the Bible and how we can apply it to our lives. Join the team behind Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal, as we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible in each series and explore its message for us today.

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You're listening to the Rooted Podcast from Bible Society. In each series we take a closer look at a theme or book of the Bible and explore its relevance in our lives today. This is our series on the parables.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Rooted podcast. I am Noelle and I'm joined again today by Mark and Esther back together again, which is nice. We're going to continue talking about the parables this week, but we're going to focus on parables that lead people to a decision about the kingdom of God. So this is the fourth section in the Rooted journal. These are the sort of parables that we focused on in that section. So we're just going to take one episode of this series to kind of talk about those parables.

So what we mean when we say parables that are bringing people to a decision about God's kingdom is basically that Jesus, like the Old Testament prophets, in some ways with his parables was delivering a warning message to Israel, basically saying, if you continue on in the way that you're going, some of you are headed for destruction. And he didn't just mean that metaphorically, but also destruction by Rome. basically, some of his parables, we see him sort of encouraging

people to make a decision. Are they going to reject what he's saying about his kingdom or are going to accept it? So for example, we have the parable of the landowner. This is in Matthew 21. Basically in this parable, a landowner goes on a journey. When he goes on this journey, he hires some people to look over his property basically and take care of it. And then he sends his servants to the property to take in the harvest.

and the people who were looking over the property killed those servants. And then he says, I know what I'll do, I'll send my son. And so he sends his son to take in the harvest and the people who are looking over the property also kill his son. And when Jesus is telling this story, he then turns to the people who are listening and he says, when the owner of the vineyard comes back, what will he do to these people who have killed his son? And Matthew tells us that the Pharisees realized that Jesus was talking about them.

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And so we see this as one of those parables where Jesus is kind of more directly saying to people, are you going to accept what I'm saying? Are you going to reject it? And so these are the kinds of parables that we want to look at today. I guess one of my questions just right off the bat as we're thinking about these sorts of parables is that to me, when I read these, they seem a bit more pointed than some of the others. So before we've talked about earlier in the series how some parables hide things from others and they reveal things to others.

And I guess as I was reading some of the ones that we're going to talk about today, we're going to look at three parables today. I was thinking, are these parables acting in the same way or are they actually functioning a bit differently than the ones that we've read so far? What do you guys think? think you're right. They do seem really confrontational, don't they?

Jesus is not taking any prisoners, he's just sort of telling it like it is. And he really wants them to understand that, yes, I am talking about you, and yes, you do have this decision to make, and you better make the right one. And I think it is interesting, though, the commentary that you kind of get reading around some of these parables, because it's made clear in the Gospel accounts that this is what Jesus is saying to them. Meanwhile, amongst themselves, these Jewish leaders, Pharisees, et cetera, are plotting to kill him.

So, you know, we might say that Jesus is pretty stark in the imagery he uses, pretty harsh, but at the same time, what they're plotting against him is as extreme as it can get. They want him dead. So he's sort of matching their energy in a way, isn't he? And he's doing it in a very public fashion with Onla. Because I think you said the Pharisees perceive that he's talking about them with that parable of the tenants or parable of the landowner.

But it then goes on to say, were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowds because they held him to be a prophet. So there's so much going on here. It's very public, but also there's this private element too, which the gospel writers let us into. Yeah. And there also seems to be this sort of intensity that starts, because this is sort of towards, well, it's closer to the passion, isn't it? And there seems to be an intensity that's building. And Jesus is

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you could say feeding into it. He's not really shying away or backing away from it. And it seems as if the parables become more intense as well, that he tells as time goes on, which I think is interesting. The first parable we're going to look at a bit more closely today is the parable of the sheep and the goats. So that's in Matthew chapter 25, verses 31 to 46. And Mark, you're going to summarize that for us? Yeah, sure.

It opens with a sort of vision of the end of time, the judgment, and you've got the Son of Man, Jesus, and all the angels, and Jesus is sitting on a throne, and it says the nations are gathered before him, and he separates them. As a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, so the sheep go on the right and the goats go on the left. The right is the sort of favorable side, the left is less so.

of the sheep. He says, Come blessed by my father, take your inheritance. I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty. You gave me water to drink. I was naked and you clothed me. I was in prison and you visited me. And they say, Well, when did we do this? And the punchline is whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did to me. And then to those on his left, he says, Depart from me into eternal fire.

you didn't feed me, you didn't give me anything to drink, you didn't clothe me, you didn't visit me. And you didn't do it for one of the least of these, so you didn't do it to me. And this is, I would say, probably the most challenging of all Jesus's parables. There's a lot going on here. Wow. So I guess when we were preparing this, one of the things that we said really is striking about this, or I guess coming back to the idea that Jesus is

bringing people to make a decision is that the binary here is quite clear. Are you going to be a sheep or are you going to be a goat? And that's sort of what Jesus is getting at. I think one thing I found really interesting is at the very beginning where it says that nations were sitting before him. And I've heard this interpreted to say that there are nations that are sheep.

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and there are nations that are goats. So it's not necessarily individualistic, but that it could apply to a whole nation of people. I don't know, I think I would more quickly reject that. But what do you guys think? Or did you think anything about that? Do you think Jesus is speaking to people or do you think the nations thing is significant? I've never heard that interpretation myself. And I guess when I hear nations in that kind of context of the final judgment, always

of think of Revelation, where is it Revelation seven, you've got this picture of people from every tribe, nation and tongue, yeah, worshiping God. So I don't know, I don't know how I would sort of read those two things alongside if we were going to say some nations, entire nations might be set to one side. But what do think, Mark? Yeah, I don't

I must admit I'd never heard that interpretation before, there's quite looking around at the commentaries, there's quite a bit that I'd never thought of before, actually. But I certainly don't think it's nations as in, you know, British, American, French, Germans, that's that sort of thing. I don't think that's the idea. I think it's a way of saying, well, all peoples on earth, commentaries that have been written during most of Christian history have taken this as as

addressed to Christians about how we treat other Christians, which is really interesting, isn't it? And during the 18th century, apparently, people started to say, well, this is about how the nations of the earth receive Christian missionaries. So, you know, that's another shift. And I just think it's really interesting to see how we, or how people interpret this parable differently throughout the centuries.

I mean, I've got to say that I think when I've, even when I've preached on this before, I've taken it really as saying something about how, just how we treat other people, basically. And that's, you know, that's where it has always started from for me. But it looks as though that's not an obvious interpretation. It looks as though there might be something else going on there.

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Yeah, I've never thought about it in terms of how we treat Christians actually, so that's really interesting. I guess how I normally think about this is Jesus is closely connecting himself with the poor or the marginalized. So Jesus is saying, he doesn't even say, when you do something for them, it's like you were doing it for me. He says, you were doing it for me. I've always found that really touching and moving.

And I guess I've taken it quite seriously in my life. I've thought, well, if I am doing this for someone, really am. It really is as if I'm doing it unto Jesus. So I guess that's kind of how I've always interpreted it. I guess that fits in, doesn't it, with sort of other New Testament things, like in Paul's letters where he sort of says, do everything as though you're doing it for the Lord. Yeah. And maybe it kind of is that same idea. it's not. So I don't...

think that this passage is kind of saying that they are blessed and they kind of enter into their inheritance because of their good deeds. I think it's something to do with like the fruit of their sort of salvation in Christ. It's like a response. It flows out of being in the kingdom and aligning themselves kind of in that way. but that's a really good point, Esther, because I think one of the things that struck me was how

they just don't know that they're doing this for Jesus. They're doing it because they're that kind of person. They're the kind of person who wants to help people who are in need in whatever way. And then it's only afterwards that they find out that they're doing it for Jesus. So it's not as if they're doing it to win respect, win salvation or anything like that. They have just become the sort of person who will act in that particular way. Yeah, that's good.

I think it is interesting just to sort of flip back a little bit as well and see what Jesus has been saying before this, because before this chapter, you've got Matthew 24 where kind of the disciples are asking Jesus about the signs of the end of the age they want to know or how we know when the Son of Man returns. And you've got that whole bit of him saying, like, no one knows except God the Father when it's going to happen. And there's kind of this message of be ready.

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And then in chapter 25, you've got the parable of the talent. So, okay, you've been given something by God. How are you going to invest it and be fruitful in it? And that's sort of a similar idea as well to, okay, there's going to be this judgment day, this moment when we're all held to account. And what we do now matters. And it is a sign of what we're doing with what God has entrusted us and do we love others as He loves them.

I think it's all beautifully connected and it's making that same point, but just in a different way. And I think what you said about what we do being important, I think is really interesting because I think sometimes I genuinely think that gets overlooked. Someone was reading the last chapter of Revelation recently at church and I noticed the passage where it says, each one will be judged according to their deeds. And it really

stuck out to me as I read it, like it hadn't before of like, doesn't say each one will be judged according to what they believe or what they think, but actually according to what they did. Yeah. And I guess, you know, if somebody said to you, right, you've got two choices. You can be blessed and inherit these great things, or you can go into eternal fire, as it says in the passage, like you would obviously choose. You'd be like, yeah, I want to be blessed. But then.

There's the daily reality, isn't there, of the choices and the sacrifices that you have to make sometimes to really be obedient and follow God. And I think this is like looking at the big choice or the big destination to where our sort of choices are leading. But it's then saying, okay, and what daily choices are you making? How are you following Jesus? Yeah, it's the James quote, isn't it? In the Life of a James, faithful without works is dead.

And that's a very, that is a really challenging verse.

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There's a couple of stories that sort of come out of this parable that you might have heard. But one is of Saint Francis, who apparently was just, I suppose, as part of his conversion experience, he was just overcome with love for people. And he flung his arms around a person with leprosy and

found that the face of the person with leprosy changed to be the face of Christ. And then the Saint Martin of Tours, he was the Roman Christian convert who was riding along and he had his big soldier's cloak on and there was a beggar in the way who was sort cold and hungry and everything and he cut his cloak in half and gave half to the beggar.

that night he had a dream and Jesus was there with his angels and Jesus was wearing a tatty old soldier's cloak and one of the angels asked him, why are you wearing that cloak? And Jesus says, my servant Martin gave it to me. And obviously both highly mythologized, I'm not going to say that they're true, but they're great. And I think they're quite moving actually.

I find that wrongly moving. Yeah, it does lead you to thinking, well, what are the things that I do in my life? Not that could mythologize into a dream with Jesus and angels and everything, but yeah, what does this look like in my life? Yeah. I think it also says something about the extent to which Jesus is willing to go to take care of the poor, to make sure that the poor are taken care of.

like he doesn't just say if you take care of them, that's really good. He associates himself with them. That's like the most you could possibly do like to make sure they were taken care of and loved is to say, just so you know, me, the person that you love, I feel what they feel. And there is such a tendency isn't there in our society today, and I think it's probably always been the same, you know, this idea that the people are poor, because they've made wrong choices, you know,

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you know, you know, like people are ill, I mean, we don't say if people are ill, it's because God is judging them for sins they've committed. But we might say, well, they didn't have a healthy diet or they didn't do enough exercise or something like that. And, you know, it's the same with poverty. Well, why didn't this person get a better job? You know, why didn't they work harder at school or whatever? And that's not the point, you know, in Jesus's

the point is that they are poor, the point is that they are in need. And that's, I find that very challenging as well. This moves us on well actually to our next parable, which is the barren fig tree. So this is in Luke chapter 13, verses six to nine. Esther, you're going to read that for us? Yes, I will. I was wondering though, if I could just read actually from verse one.

Because the context is quite interesting what leads into this parable. So this is in the NIV and I'm reading from verse one.

But unless you repent, you too will all perish. All those eighteen who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them, do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you no. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Then he told this parable. A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard,

For three years now, I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and I haven't found any. Cut it down. Why should it use up the soil? Sir, the man replied, leave it alone for one more year and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine. If not, then cut it down.

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So we can see really clearly that this is another parable where Jesus is leading people to make a decision about repentance and changing their ways. But Mark, what you just said, I think leads really interestingly into the first part versus one through five of this. I think the reason it's interesting is because these people seem to think that the misfortune that has come on the people who this tower fell on

or who the Galileans whose blood pilot mixed with their sacrifices has to do with their sin, which I find interesting because that seems to be maybe a way of thinking that they had back then. Because it also reminds me of the passage where some people come to Jesus and they say, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind? And Jesus says, it wasn't either of their sin, but so that the glory of God could be seen in him.

But there seemed to be something back then, and I wonder if it was because of Old Testament curses or things like that, where people thought that if someone had a misfortune in some way that was unexplainable, it had to do with past sins. I just found that interesting. I don't know if you guys had any other thoughts on this first sort of paragraph. Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it? I think it just seems to be an idea that, well, it was certainly an idea that was around at the time, but it it kind of seems to be inherent in how we

how we think about sin and suffering really. We seem to make a connection even when there isn't one there. I don't know. Jesus certainly seems to say, no, not necessarily. Not necessarily. Jesus seems to move the thinking on. So it's not about them and why they suffer. It's about

It's about the result of the suffering and whether God is glorified in the suffering. And that's the point in the John 9 passage that you were talking about, the man born blind, it's so that God's glory might be seen in what happens. There's something about how we respond to suffering, what we actually do with it, and what God is able to bring out of it in our lives, I think. Yeah, I mean, just on that point of

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sort of the connection between suffering and sin. I think there's so many places in the Bible that kind of grapple with this, this thinking. You know, the whole book of Job, you've got Job's friends coming to him and they're sort of sure that he must have done something wrong, he must need to repent, else why would God be punishing him in this way as they see it? I still think it is a complicated question because, for example, when you read the wisdom literature, like the Proverbs,

They do kind of connect like if you live in a foolish way, it leads to these kind of things. If you live in a wise way, it tends to lead to blessing. It's not necessarily a guarantee or a promise, but there is a connection made and a sense of responsibility in like how are you going to live and what that leads to. But I don't know if that is totally what we're getting at in this parable.

I think the link between this preamble, which is about what people deserve, whether people get what they deserve, and the parable seems to me to be saying something about the patience of God, because you might think that the fig tree didn't deserve to survive because it was not actually producing fruit. But the man who takes care of the vineyard says, no, just leave it for a bit.

So be patient and I'll dig around it and maybe it'll bear fruit next year. And so there is something about, I think, the patience of God here. So if you compare this to, I guess, the people of Israel, they've had time to repent and to turn to God or to listen to what Jesus has been trying to tell them about the kingdom, and they're sort of resisting that and they're not bearing kind of kingdom fruit. And then if you see this

one more year. It's like this additional grace period and one more chance to respond. I definitely think it says something about God's patience, his kindness and the grace that he extends in giving people time to respond to him. I think another interesting thing about this parable is the three years, because that is quite significant, because back in Leviticus chapter 19, it says, don't eat from

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a fruit tree for the first three years and then in the fourth year the fruit is holy so the fruit becomes an offering to God and then in the fifth year you can eat as much of it as you like. So it might be that some practical gardening wisdom here in that if you nip off the fruit as it's forming during the first three years of its life you actually strengthen the tree because it's not putting its energy into producing fruit so you end up with a stronger tree.

And it might be, you know, just so it might be practical gardening or it might be, you know, it might have a religious significance to it. But the three years, there's definitely something going on here with the three years, isn't there? So it might be that what we're talking about is an absentee landlord who doesn't know much about gardening, doesn't know much about farming. And he comes back and he sees that the there's no fruit on the tree. Well, that's because the gardener

has actually been nipping off the fruit and it's quite deliberate. And the gardener knows perfectly well that in the fourth year there will be fruit. And so, I mean, I don't think we have to imagine that any of the people, any of the characters in this story actually stand for God or stand for Jesus. The focus is on the fruit tree, the focus is on the fig tree. And so it might be that you just have

you have a critical person who's saying, this isn't really working out. And somebody who does know what's going on says, well, no, just leave it. It'll be fine. And still, it is a picture of patience. It is a picture of just waiting until the right time when the fruit will come and when everything will be OK. And that makes me think about patience, I suppose, in church life, patience in my own life.

How willing am I to bear with people who just seem to be behaving really badly? Well, you know, probably not very. I mean, I'm not the most patient of people really in some ways. But then maybe if I look back, if I've known them for a few years, I might think, well, you know, is this person the same as they were a few years ago? Well, the chances are no. And maybe they have progressed. Maybe they are better people, better Christians. And of course, maybe I am.

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I hope I am. But you know, it's all about patience. think it's all about waiting.

That is such an interesting insight. And yeah, I don't think I've not necessarily thought about it in that way before. I mean, I was reading a commentary, Luke for everyone, think, or Luke for you, something like that from Tom Wright. And he just shed a whole different light on this parable for me, which we haven't even discussed.

But he kind of really seems to make quite a lot of the mention of the Galileans that Pilate slaughtered as they were trying to offer sacrifices and of these people that were crushed when the Tower of Siloam fell. And he sort of says that maybe, because the context here, it says there was some person at that time who told him about these events. And they're wanting to see, what is Jesus going to say about that? Can you imagine the out

But there will have been about these slaughtered people. They were trying to offer sacrifices as outrage. We already know from the wider context that the Jewish people wanted to overthrow the Roman oppressors and Pilate was sort of part of that and he's done something horrific and outrageous. It's a tragedy. And maybe, so Jesus is saying that they want him to say, right, we need to fight back or...

something should be done. And he's saying, look, this isn't the fruit that I'm looking for in my kingdom. Like if you're obsessed kind of with this thing, you know, if you, if you fight, if you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. If you enter into this fight, then you too will perish in a similar way. You'll be crushed. You'll be slaughtered. That's not the fight that I'm interested in. And then he tells this story of a vineyard and maybe he's trying to

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Tom Wright kind of puts it that he's trying to redirect them to the kingdom work that he does want them to be busy with. So I think just even in our discussion, we can see how multi-layered these things are, all the many ways that you can interpret them, the things that are true about God that you can read from them. And yet it's still kind of like, well, which one of these exactly did he mean?

We can't necessarily know, but it's so rich, isn't it? If we were to apply this today, do we sometimes get caught up in what we think might be a kingdom cause, but isn't actually what Jesus wants us to be doing? It's not the fruit that he wants to see. I think that's a good question to kind of ask ourselves. That's good. Shall we move to our last parable, which is in Luke chapter 14?

verses 25 to 33, we're going to look at this. It's called The Cost of Being a Disciple. I'm not going to read it, but basically some crowds were traveling with Jesus. He says sort of the classic line, whoever doesn't carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. And then he gives two illustrations of what he means by that. And so one of them he talks about.

If you wanted to build a tower, wouldn't you first sit down and make sure that you had enough money for the whole thing or else you'd lay the foundation and people would mock you because you couldn't get any further. And then the second one, he says, what if you were a king going out to war? Wouldn't you first figure out basically if you could fight your enemy properly? If not, you would have to send someone before they got to you to try and make peace so that you weren't

attacked and killed. And then he says, in the same way, those of you who do not give up everything cannot be my disciples.

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I think for me, the first thing that I thought about after reading this is he's saying you need to be prepared, but you need to be prepared to give up everything. But I guess I think, what does that mean? How could I prepare myself to give up everything? And what is giving up everything? And maybe that meant something different. Does that mean something different to the people who are hearing him say this, to the large crowds that were traveling with him?

And what does it mean for me? So yeah, I guess that was my question. What does everything mean?

That's a big question now. But fair enough, you know, it is the question, isn't it? Yeah. I think he's taking it to the nth degree, you know, if we're going to put God absolutely first in our lives, that means God and his priorities are first and foremost above everything else. I was reading

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. But I was reading that hating there is actually, it means loving less, not necessarily how we think of the word hate. But it's in comparison, like I love these things less than I love God because he is my first, the first.

thing and pleasing him is the first thing in my life. So in comparison, I hate other things because I don't put them first. In Aramaic, it's quite difficult to say you prefer one thing to another thing. You have to say you love one thing and you hate another. And then that gets translated into Greek, which gets translated into English, and you end up hating your parents, which would not be true. But it does, you know, it's still challenging because it means putting Jesus before even your parents.

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It goes a certain distance in overcoming the difficulties of this verse, but not all the way for sure. And how do I know if I love Jesus more than I love all of these things? How do I know I love him more than I love my children or my family? That too is interesting to think about.

I think it's a very difficult time in life when we're tested on that sort of level. I think probably, you know, people can think of their own examples of either feeling tested themselves or having seen this happen in other people's lives where it kind of comes to a crossroad and it's like, well, am I going to support and affirm someone I love in whatever it is? Or am I going to say,

no, this doesn't please God. And I can't support you in that. And there's sort of a parting of ways in that sense where someone chooses God and affirming what he says is good and right instead of maybe what somebody else is saying is very near and dear to them. very complicated sometimes as well. You I mean, you might feel that you know what God is saying and somebody else might say, well, no, I think you're wrong there. It just, I think it does get

get very complicated and we just have to act with as much integrity and as much wisdom as we can and try to do the right thing. But I was thinking, when I read this, was thinking about a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was the famous anti-Nazi German Lutheran pastor in the Second World War. And he wrote a book called The Cost of Discipleship. And he wrote, When Christ Calls a Man, He Bids Him Come and Die.

And that's putting it really starkly, isn't it? And in his case, it did mean his death because he was executed for conspiring against Hitler in the last days of the war.

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I was thinking back to in my first church, which was a long time ago when I was, I hadn't long been a minister, I suppose. It's a Baptist church, so we baptize adults. Some people had said they were interested in baptism, so I had a baptismal class and we met five or six times, whatever it was. There were probably half a dozen of us in the class there.

And there was a lady who'd been coming to church for a few months and she had no particular faith background and I can't remember at this distance in time what brought her along to us. But, you know, I did, I suppose I laid it on thick and I said, well, baptism is a really serious thing and you are making a commitment, you are stating your faith in Jesus before family, friends, church.

everything. And, you know, something happens at baptism. And it's a really important step. And, you know, there's no going back. And as I said, you know, maybe I did lay it on a bit thick, I don't know. But I do remember that of the six people in the class, five of them decided that they would go forward and that they would be baptized. And this lady decided that she would not. And so, you know, I said, Well, that's, you know, that's fine.

you know, it might not be the right time for you. It's fine. isn't, you know, there's always another opportunity. But she stopped coming to church and we didn't see her again. And I have quite often thought, well, did I handle that right? You know, did I present this as a sort of binary choice? And she maybe got the impression that if she decided not to go forward, that was that she wasn't going to be a Christian.

So I have beaten myself up about that as well. I've also thought, well, you know, in some ways it is a binary choice, you know, not whether to be baptized at a particular point, but sooner or later you do have to choose, I think. I do think you're right. I think you're right because there's so much emphasis in, you know, the evangelism that I've kind of experienced through my life, like when I was a teenager and things like that, it was all very much focused on, you know,

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make this decision to follow Jesus and there was, know, like Jesus is this great savior, you know, that's true, you know, all this focus on just how amazing Jesus is, how much he loves you, make this decision, be his follower. But no, not really much idea, people going forward and saying, I want that, of like the cost of discipleship, how sometimes following Jesus involves

suffering and sacrifice and just having made what is a very like a warm and exciting moment, made this decision and said, yes, I'm a Christian, won't necessarily sustain you unless further discipleship happens through those really difficult times where people say, you can't be, we don't want you anymore because you're a Christian or whatever it is, whatever the suffering is that that could lead to. I think

Part of this is just saying that actually being a Christian is not easy. It won't always be easy. Following Jesus, doing what God requires, obeying Him is going to be costly. So realize that's the choice you're making and prepare for it. mean, the other thing just to put in here is that sometimes it's just inconvenient, isn't it? I mean, I don't think that in this country following Jesus is not costly to the point of martyrdom.

But it certainly is inconvenient. You know, if you have no church background, if you're used to having Sunday to do what you like, you know, you can have a lie in if you want, or you can go and play football or whatever you want to do on Sunday morning. And then suddenly somebody saying, no, no, you're a Christian, you come to church. That's a big life change, you know. And then what happens if you get sucked into the life of a church and, you know, you find yourself maybe with a different set of friends, maybe

with different expectations on how you spend your time and all that kind of thing. It's more of a life change than we might think, actually. That's not a comparison to Dietrich Bonhoeffer or any of the other great Christian martyrs or anything like that. But I'm just saying, I don't think we should underestimate what it takes to ask somebody to change their life in that way. Yeah, I do think it's perfectly good to

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not water it down when we are telling people about it, as Jesus didn't, not to say, this isn't that, you you can do what you'd like basically because you kind of can't in many situations. But it also reminds me of this passage in Luke 9 when we were preparing. I actually got confused. I thought this was the passage. It talks about the cost of following Jesus.

Jesus is walking down the road with some people and a man says, and he says, follow me to a man and the man says, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. And Jesus says, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God, which seems really harsh. But I think that's an example of like if Jesus himself was being this sort of serious about this, then surely if we are as well communicating to people that this is the cost.

I think that makes sense. I was also thinking about in Revelation, the letter to the church in Laodicea where Jesus says, you're lukewarm, so I'm about to spit you out of my mouth because you're not hot or cold. That's another passage where I think about Jesus being quite clear that this is an all or nothing type of a thing. Well, you don't love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. That is calling it. This is an all in thing and you've got to be willing for it to kind of affect.

all of your life, all these other things that you could have or be doing are not, they're not going to give you what, you know, the eternal life and the blessings that you have in God and the inheritance that you have with God. Yeah, that's good. Well, those are the parables we wanted to look at just to talk a bit about how we think Jesus was really trying to bring people to a decision about his kingdom, some of these more intense parables. So.

Thank you, Mark and Esther, for great conversation. We'll see you next week for our next episode. We have another guest next week, which is very exciting. have Dai Willridge, who is coming on the podcast, to talk to us for our last episode. So we will see you then, and thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Rooted Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission.

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to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales and around the world. Visit biblesociety.org.uk.