<p>10:28 <i>Peter began to say to him: We have left all</i>- The family based structure of the first century is hard to fully empathize with from our distance. Family was all. Peter comments that the disciples had &ldquo;left our own homes&rdquo; (Lk. 18:28 RVmg.), and the parallel here says &ldquo;left&nbsp;<i>all</i>&rdquo;. Your home was your all. To have to leave it for the sake of Christ was the most fundamental thing you could do. Hence the real meaning in the first century of the Lord&rsquo;s response that such converts would receive families in this life, i.e. in their relationships in the ecclesia. And yet the radical call of Christ is no less demanding and intrusive as men and women meet it today, the only difference being that the starkness of the choices is less pronounced today- but just as essentially real.</p><p>I have repeatedly mentioned that the material here is strongly related to that in Mt. 18. The Greek here for &ldquo;left / forsook all&rdquo; is identical to that in Mt. 18:32: &ldquo;I&nbsp;<i>forgave&nbsp;</i>you&nbsp;<i>all</i>&rdquo;. Peter had balked at the idea of &lsquo;forgiving all&rsquo;. It is easier to &lsquo;forsake&rsquo; s.w. &lsquo;forgive&rsquo; all material things than to&nbsp;<i>forgive</i>&nbsp;all. This explains why the incident of the rich young man follows the teaching about the need to forgive all. He would not forsake all, just as some would not forgive all. Peter claims to have forsaken all, and yet it&rsquo;s apparent that he struggled with the idea of&nbsp;<i>forgiving&nbsp;</i>all, thinking that seven times / day was more than generous enough of him. Likewise one wonders whether Peter had really forsaken all materially- he still had a wife, and apparently his fishing boats back in Galilee, to which he returned after the Lord&rsquo;s resurrection.</p><p>Was Peter really correct to say that he had really &ldquo;left all&rdquo;? He evidently had in mind how he had left his nets and walked away, following Jesus (Mk. 1:18). Then he thought he was following Jesus in the way the Lord demanded. For some time later, the Lord &ldquo;entered into one of the ships, which was (i.e. still, at that time) Simon&rsquo;s&hellip;&rdquo; (Lk. 5:1). Peter had been fishing all night in Jn. 21:3- strange, for a man who had so dramatically left his nets to respond to the Lord&rsquo;s call. But after the miraculous catch of fishes, Peter &ldquo;forsook all, and followed him&rdquo;. Note that Mark&rsquo;s Peter&rsquo;s Gospel omits many incidents, but also uses the device of repetition to stress what the writer considers significant. Thus in Mk. 1:16 Peter tells us twice that he <i>was</i> a fisherman cp. 14:68. By the time of Lk. 18 and the conversation with the rich young man, Peter was confident he had forsaken all. But &ldquo;I go a fishing&rdquo; (Jn. 21:3) would suggest that even this forsaking of all had not been so dramatic. The boats were still there. Peter still carried his fishing tackle round with him in his pack (Mt. 17:27). The Lord had taught that following Him meant not just leaving behind for a moment, but selling up and giving the money to the poor. This Peter had not done. But he assumed that because he was physically following Jesus, well therefore what the Lord demanded of the rich young man, he had as good as done; for that young man wouldn&rsquo;t follow Jesus, but Peter would. It is easy to understand how Peter reasoned- for the fact we are&nbsp;apparent followers of the Lord in a world which chooses to reject Him, can lead to an assumption that we must of course be following just as He asks of us.</p><p><i>And have followed You</i>- Just as Peter&rsquo;s claim to have &ldquo;left all&rdquo; was perhaps questionable, likewise Peter seems to have under-estimated what &lsquo;following Christ&rsquo; really meant- for the idea of carrying the cross is strongly connected with following Christ (Mt. 10:38; 16:24). And Peter failed to carry that cross to the end, for he denied the Lord when the going got tough.</p><p>Peter had the impression that by forsaking all and following the Lord, he would somehow benefit. He still had to learn that the carrying of the cross is not to be motivated by any desire for personal benefit, spiritual or otherwise. We live in a world in which religion, like everything else, is seen as a means toward some personal benefit. If we love the Lord, we will follow Him, wherever the life in Him leads us; purely for love of Him, and recognition that His way is the way to glorifying the Father. Peter had left all, but expected something back. For the excellency of fellowshipping the sufferings of the future Saviour, Moses gave up all the riches of Egypt. The Lord responded by saying that nobody who had left all&nbsp;<i>for His Name's sake</i>&nbsp;would go unrewarded (Mt. 19:29). The riches, the surpassing excellence of Christ, all the things tied up in His Name, these were not appreciated at that time by Peter. They are enough, purely of themselves, to make a man count all things as dung. Later, he understood this. He told the lame man that the silver and gold which he had was the salvation possible in the Name of Jesus (Acts 3:6). Peter rejoiced that he was counted worthy to suffer shame for the Name, and he preached in that Name. There is quite some emphasis on this: Acts 2:21,28; 3:6,16; 4:10,12,30; 5:41. Now he had learnt his mistake, or rather he realized the poverty of his understanding of the Lord. He now found the excellency of the Lord's Name an imperative of itself to witness to it. Likewise &quot;for his name's sake they went forth&quot; in obedience to the great preaching commission (3 Jn. 7; Rev. 2:3). &nbsp;</p>