Assessing the Work........................................................155

e call and costliness of discipleship relates to how his original hearers would have taken the statement to “take up his cross.” Today, we have sterilized this statement to make it safer for us. We o en turn it into a metaphor that loosely means giving up preferences and desires to live a life serving Jesus and doing his will. is perspective may present an application of biblical truth for us, but there are at least two reasons why Jesus’s audience would have understood his statement di erently. First, the cross was not a metaphor for living the Christian life for them. e only referent, and thus meaning, that the cross had then was as a Roman execution device. Second, remember what Jesus had just taught his followers and the context in which he had taught them this truth. He is going to Jerusalem to die. Jesus was not going to die metaphorically to self; he was going to die literally on the cross.

Simply saying we are going to give up our own preferences or way of living does not capture the meaning of Jesus’s call here. We are called to costly discipleship. We are called to be worthy of Jesus. We are called to, at least, be willing to lay down our lives. In order to answer the call, we must come and die. is is a di cult statement. We are called, then, potentially to give up so much if we answer the call to follow Jesus. Do we have any con dence in this calling? Is there any place to look for hope as we pursue his calling?

e Comfort Is a Promise that You Not Lose Your Soul (vv. 25–27)

Included in verses 25–27 are a series of gar clauses in Greek, usually rendered as “for” in most English translations. ese clauses and their consecutive order are important because on most occasions this type of construction in the Greek