Matthew puts together two stories about following Jesus. In the first story a man echoes Ruth's words to her mother-in-law Naomi to make a very generous and unconditional offer. "Wherever you go I will go." Jesus seems to reject the man's offer, but that cannot be so: Jesus would not reject such generosity.

Comparing Matthew's presentation with Luke's much more developed presentation (Lk 9:57-62), we see that the purpose of these stories is to point to different ways of responding to the desire or the call to follow Jesus. In Matthew's first story, the man makes his offer on his own initiative. Jesus' reply does not reject the offer but calls the man to further discernment: does he really know what he is getting into with his offer? Does such an offer come from a discerned decision?

The second man is already a disciple: he now starts laying down conditions for following Jesus. His request seems entirely reasonable: to bury his father. Jesus' answer seems unnecessarily cruel. But perhaps the man means: "I cannot follow you as long as my father is alive, but later on I will be free." Jesus' point is to challenge the man to be unconditional and generous in his self-offering.