“Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” Matthew 8:19 ESV1
Read Matthew 8:18-27, Mark 4:35-40, & Luke 8:22-39
“When Jesus saw a crowd around Him” (Matthew 8:18), He said to [His disciples], ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake’” (Luke 8:22b). “And leaving the crowd, they took Him with them in the boat, just as He was. And other boats were with Him” (Mark 4:35-36). On their way to the boats, “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’ (Matthew 8:19-20).
When this sincere scribe made his declaration, he was serious. He probably expected Jesus to be pleased. So, he was no doubt disheartened by Jesus’ reply. But I don’t think Jesus wasn’t discouraging him from making such a commitment, He was just warning this scribe that things are often not as simple as they may at first appear. This scribe, and the others who followed Jesus wherever He went, could not have conceived of the difficult situation they were about to encounter.