Let The Dead Bury Their Own Dead, Jesus Being More Important Than Family

[FlowerDemon]

Matthew 8:21-22 

21Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 22But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

 

I always thought this verse was weird. It's like Jesus was saying "No you can't take the time to mourn for your father's death, to bury him, to have a funeral, etc. Just follow me and let the dead bury themselves."

 

If my mom died and Jesus told me to just leave her corpse there, I would be very upset and extremely sorrowful. Some Christians told me that this passage is referring to the importance of following Jesus and putting him first, and not letting the death of a loved one get in the way of that. But it's still kind of heartless. When I was a believer, I tried to make sense of this passage but to no avail. 

 

Here's another passage that shows how Jesus wants people to follow him and put him first, above family/loved ones.

 

Matthew 12:46-50 New International Version (NIV)

 

Jesus’ Mother and Brothers

46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

 

48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

 

So his family stands there wanting to talk to him, but instead of talking to his family he just completely disregards them and says whoever does the will of God is his brother and sister and mother. On top of that, he favors his disciples over his blood family. I think that's also messed up. I mean I understand the message he was trying to convey, but he did it in a way that was disrespectful to his family. Whatever happened to "respecting your elders" as it is taught through the Bible?

 

Matthew 19:19 honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”

 

Deuteronomy 27:16 “Cursed is anyone who dishonors their father or mother.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

 

It didn't seem like Jesus honored his family by what he did in Matthew 12:46-50. He didn't even say hi to them or show them any honor or respect. instead, he went on to preach to the guy who told him "hey your family wants to talk to you." If Jesus dishonored his mother in this passage, along with his brothers, then that means Jesus sinned. That also means Jesus wasn't a man without sin, since he didn't honor his mother's desire to speak with his son.

 

Overall, the Bible seems to teach people to put god above their family and loved ones. As a Christian I thought this made sense to me, since God made everything and everyone, I should put him first cuz he's the reason behind the people in my life. But now it seems like God wanted so much attention and praise, to the point where family and loved ones become less important and god becomes number one priority. It just doesn't make sense like it did before.

 

Christianity caused me to put a distance between myself and my non-christian friends, and i was constantly praying for my non-christian friends and family. it took away my ability to just love them for who they are. i became so focused on God being my top priority, and praying for my non believing family/friends to convert...that it fucked up my ability to truly love and accept them. as soon as i left the church, i was able to get in touch with old friends again, to enjoy their company, to not think they sinned if they said a bad word or spoke about something impure. no longer did i think "oh i should pray for this guy because of the way he speaks." i was free to speak my mind about anything again, and my priorities with the people in my life became balanced again. my true love and acceptance for them returned.

 

this is one reason why i will not return to the faith again. 

 

what do you guys think about all of this? let's discuss.

[Guest Furball]

 

Matthew 8:21-22 

21Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 22But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

 

 

 

 

He's is talking in the spiritual sense. People according to jesus, unless born again, were spiritually dead. So what he is saying is let the spiritually dead (though physically alive) bury the physically dead. 

 

As far as parents go, the biggest contradiction is that after that heavenly talk about how mary was going to give birth to jesus and how special he was, she later thought that jesus was beside himself for the way he was acting. 

[amateur]

 

 

Matthew 8:21-22 

21Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 22But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

 

 

 

 

He's is talking in the spiritual sense. People according to jesus, unless born again, were spiritually dead. So what he is saying is let the spiritually dead (though physically alive) bury the physically dead. 

 

As far as parents go, the biggest contradiction is that after that heavenly talk about how mary was going to give birth to jesus and how special he was, she later thought that jesus was beside himself for the way he was acting. 

 

The explanation I heard of the "first let me go and bury my father" verse when I was in church was, "Jesus knew the man's father wasn't anywhere near death, and the man just wanted to go home and live his life for another 20 years or whatever before his father died before he would follow Jesus."  So it was imperative that the man follow Jesus now and not wait another 20 years.  

 

The trouble with either explanation (spiritually dead vs physically dead, or waiting 20 years) is that people have made those up.  If you read the verses, it only says that a disciple of Jesus wanted to go home and bury his father before following Jesus, and Jesus said "let the dead bury the dead."  

 

We DO NOT KNOW what Jesus really meant by those verses because he did not explain it.  People MAKE UP explanations, but we do not really know.

 

We also do not really know what was going through Mary's mind during Jesus's lifetime.

 

People make stuff up to make Jesus seem good, and not like someone breaking his own basic laws like "honor your father and mother." 

 

That's the trouble with the entire bible.  It makes grand statements, but in no way explains them.

[FlowerDemon]

You guys both make good points. That definitely is a problem with the Bible, amateur, people come up for explanations for verses like these that don't ACTUALLY explain why those things happened. Being a Christian is being in a battle with your rational mind. From my own personal experience, I have found that Christianity teaches you to deny how YOU feel about the Bible, and to put God first instead of your own knowledge/logic. There were countless passages in the Bible that I didn't agree with or understand, even as a Christian, but I repressed those thoughts and just told myself "God will help me understand, but his ways and thoughts are higher than mine so I need to rely on God more than myself."

 

But yeah, we really don't know why Jesus actually said that here, there are probably multiple explanations for this, other than Catt's. I could probably ask 20 different Christians the same question, and I would have 20 different answers.

[Mythra]

There are so many verses in the bible that lead to WTF moments.  Like the verses where Jesus says you need to hate your family, abandon your loved ones, turn your back on your unbelieving friends, give away all your possessions, gouge out your eye, etc.  And I knew Jesus said those things because the letters were red.  

 

Rather than try and rationalize an explanation for those sayings, it makes a lot more sense to use Occam's Razor and figure out - 

a guy named Jesus didn't say those things.  

 

Some guy (we're not sure who)  wrote those words (we're not sure when) for a particular reason (we're not sure why) and put them into the mouth of Jesus. Jesus was a sock puppet for varying agendas.  Including many many writings that didn't make the cut at the Council of Nicaea. 

 

FlowerDemon:  christianity did not make me a better person either.  

[FlowerDemon]

There are so many verses in the bible that lead to WTF moments.  Like the verses where Jesus says you need to hate your family, abandon your loved ones, turn your back on your unbelieving friends, give away all your possessions, gouge out your eye, etc.  And I knew Jesus said those things because the letters were red.  

 

Rather than try and rationalize an explanation for those sayings, it makes a lot more sense to use Occam's Razor and figure out - 

a guy named Jesus didn't say those things.  

 

Some guy (we're not sure who)  wrote those words (we're not sure when) for a particular reason (we're not sure why) and put them into the mouth of Jesus. Jesus was a sock puppet for varying agendas.  Including many many writings that didn't make the cut at the Council of Nicaea. 

 

FlowerDemon:  christianity did not make me a better person either.  

 I didn't know much about the Concil of Nicaea and I looked it up. Holy shit, I just found out the Council of Nicaea (the first church council) did not clearly define the Trinity and the Holy SPirit in the Christian doctrine. According to Wiki "In Nicaea, questions regarding the Holy Spirit were left largely unaddressed until after the relationship between the Father and the Son was settled around the year 362.^[69] So the doctrine in a more full-fledged form was not formulated until the Council of Constantinople in 360 AD.^{[70]" (reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea#Trinity)}

 

That's crazy. The Holy Trinity, which is widely preached about in many churches today, wasn't even fully established in the Christian doctrine until 360 AD. Many Christians didn't even understand the Trinity and the Holy spirit that way until 360 AD. The Christians before 360 AD did not understand the concept of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity like most Christians do today. 

 

Which solidifies my belief even further, that a loving holy God would not demand his creations to follow such a confusing religion, that has been the cause of many unneccessary violence, wars, discrimination, prejudice, hypocrisy, and ignorance. There are so many versions of Christianity, and the Bible. It boggles me how people believe that one single god is behind this religion, but yet no one is receiving the same messages from said "god." everyone interprets the bible differently, thus different religions. It's all human interpretation that causes the divide in christian denominations, which shows that the Bible is not 100% accurate, true, infallible. 

 

I had a pastor who gave a sermon on this: "We know that the bible is true, accurate, and reliable, because it is true, accurate, and reliable. Jesus Christ crucified and alive again." And he never went into WHY he declared the bible to be true, accurate, and reliable. The rest of the sermon was a rant that wasn't related to the statement, saying that god is good and he is in control and we must trust him...you know, all of that. And it left me hanging. I was excited to hear what he had to say to prove the Bible's inerrancy and infallibility, but he never went into detail about that statement. It was disappointing.

 

As a Christian ,I wanted my questions answered. ANd I thought he had something seriously eye opening and knowledgeable to say. But his speech, ive heard it all before. Basically a sermon to inspire you to devote yourself more to god and to "walk the walk" every day, just worded different than the previous week. I didn't realize how brainwashing it was, since the same message was repeated and drilled into our minds once a week. It was like taking a pill every week to get myself used to following Jesus in the way my church preached about. Just like a medication. 

[Mythra]

Crazy, huh?  Our modern Christianity was determined by popular vote by a bunch of guys 1700 years ago. It would be another 500 years until they progressed to the Dark Ages.     There's a site online called Early Christian Writings that has a great many of the books that were thrown out during the council of nicaea.   And of course there were probably hundreds more that were destroyed and no knowledge of them remains.  

 

I think you and I had the same pastor, FlowerDemon.  The bible is the most perfect book ever written.  Flawless in every way.  Not one contradiction or error.  Proof that it was authored by God.  

 

That is very persuasive.  As long as the flock doesn't actually open the book and take a look.   

[Fweethawt]

Wait! What?!?!?! Mythra???? Is that you???? Where've ya'been all these years?

 

Welcome back, sir.

[Mythra]

Hi Fwee!  

 

Thought I'd check back in and see if the battle rages on..    Nice to see an old timer is still here.  Thanks for remembering me.  : )

 

I have a lot of great great memories of this place and the process of freeing my mind from God-pollution.  

[Fweethawt]

I have great memories, too. Things have changed quite a bit. But you'll find some interesting threads going on here and there. Maybe we need a decent old timer *ahem* to kickstart something into high gear?

 

Have a seat. Stick around for a while. Good to see you back.

[Guest Furball]

 

 

 

 

They never do. The biggest thing for me that started my deconversion was that there was actually no evidence to support christianity or jesus himself as having ever existed. I had been a christian for 13 years and just assumed it was all true because well....the pastor and the bible itself said it was all true. You're right on the second sentence as well. I have seen many books written by christians where on the cover they say how they can prove christianity to be true. As I am reading the book, I keep thinking they are going to provide evidence, when instead they just quote bible verses or go on another rant that has nothing to do with trying to prove christianity to be true. It's my own fault that after 13 years of christianity, only then did i start looking for evidence, only to find none, other than the bible mentioning a few geographical locales that were right. The strangest thing is, the further back i went into christianity's origins, the more i was able to see how it all had man's fingerprints all over it. Like man deciding what books were added and which were rejected. Christians like to say god had a hand in them choosing which books to include, but if that is true, then why all the contradictions and confusion which has led to over 41,000 denominations? Great post Flower, keep exposing that sham of a religion for what it is, fake.