Bible Question: In Mt 8:20 a scribe says to Jesus, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus looks at him and says "Foxes have holes and birds have nests but the Son of man has no place to lay His head." In other places in the word he used these animals as symbolic representations of specific sins. The little foxes spoil the vine, like gossip, etc. Birds can represent hidden sins, etc. So I'm wondering in light of Jesus being part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, could He be referring to not being able to rest His "head" which is symbolic of "authority" in man, due to sin and people needing to clean thier "house" in order that His Holy Spirt could "rest" in us? Like, we have all these sins we have not rid our lives of and hold onto, we keep them in our lives which then gives less "abiding space" for Jesus to dwell. To me I see Him saying to walk where I walk you need to clean house so I may rest in you and dwell. Any thoughts on this one? |
Bible Answer: follower...- welcome to the forum. A bit of info in the user profile would be appreciated if you don't mind. Glad to see you've found us here. I'll just say briefly that I'm not seeing what you’re seeing in the passage. The meaning seems straight forward and so no attempt to symbolize His words should be made. The context is important. Christ is responding to the call of the scribe, the scribe is not responding to the call of Christ. While Christ did not refuse the scribe we do not know that the scribe did indeed follow Christ after the encounter. We can fairly assume that the scribe would have had at least adequate resources (though we’re not told) and may have even been well off as his profession was depended on in the time and they were few. Christ’s reference to the animals was literal, I believe, and not symbolic. The scribe likely had plenty as material things go, and Jesus literally was from place to place, essentially homeless as He went. He was demonstrating to the scribe the cost of following Him. You wrote; "To me I see Him saying to walk where I walk you need to clean house so I may rest in you and dwell". I think I see your point in our need to resist sin as we abide in Christ (if this is what you mean) but keep in mind... our rest is in Him, he does not rest in us. Hope this is helpful. Others will likely chime in soon. I believe it's very important to always view Scripture literally without attempting to look for spiritual or symbolic meaning that's not there. Where the Scripture uses symbolism it is usually clear that that is the case. God bless, Jeff |