Matthew 822 The point of the halfepigrammatic , halfproverbial saying , lies in the contrast between the two meanings of the word dead . Let those who have no spiritual life linger in the circle of outward routine duties , and sacrifice the highest spiritual possibilities of their nature to their fulfilment . Those who are really living will do the work to which their Master calls them , and leave the lower conventional duties to be done or left undone as the events of their life shall order . Something there was , we may be sure , in the inward state of the disciple which called for the sternness of the rebuke . He had been called to a living work he was resting in a dead one . That is just from biblehub . comOops , i should have read further , you were agreeing with me . This scribe was spiritually dead