Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do You Need a Pilgrimage? | The Gospels | Matthew 4:12–17

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Can traveling somewhere actually help us encounter God? What would it look like to step away from ordinary life and seek him? Could you use a change of place to create space for God? In today’s episode, Patrick shares how Matthew 4:12–17 reveals Jesus bringing God’s kingdom near and shows us how intentionally stepping away from the ordinary can create space to seek God by grace. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Matthew 4:12–17

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. In the medieval world, Christians practice the spiritual discipline of pilgrimage. They would travel to the shrines of nearby saints or even board ships and visit Rome and Jerusalem. Sometimes they did this as an act of penance, sometimes to seek healing, and sometimes just out of a longing for spiritual renewal. Now, crudely understood, we could look at pilgrimage as a moment. a cheap form of works righteousness. In other words, someone goes on a physical journey to reap

spiritual rewards. And I'm sure that there were some people who became pilgrims for precisely this reason. In fact, the reformer Martin Luther famously described his own pilgrimage to Rome as exactly that. He said it was an effort to pay for his sins. But then he discovered, that's a futile effort. We humans can add nothing to what Christ did for us on the cross. He paid for our sins fully. But that's not the only way to see a pilgrimage. In fact, there was a far richer, far less transactional understanding of pilgrimage in the ancient world. It's an understanding that makes us modern people feel a little itchy because it doesn't fit with our mechanistic, materialistic view of the universe.

This richer view of pilgrimage was rooted in the idea that some places are different, that some places are thin, that in some places the veil between heaven and earth is almost penetrable. And they also understood that the normal doldrum of human life could become an anesthetic, numbing us to ourselves and preventing us from seeing what's happening in our souls. I've seen this in my own heart and in the lives of many. We become so entrenched and ingrained in our present reality that we stop growing. It's not that we want to stop, but we can't see how to move forward. And the reason why is because we never step out of our ordinary world, our ordinary time. A pilgrimage was a way of doing exactly that, a way of stepping out of ordinary space, ordinary life, ordinary time, to step into

God's space, God's time, God's life. It was a way of seeking an encounter with the living God. Jesus in some ways actually modeled this for us, and when he goes on these pilgrimages, Matthew presents it oftentimes as a kind of prophetic pattern and fulfillment. In other words, as Jesus moves through space, through geography itself, the old story of Israel, Israel is retold in his movements. It's re-narrated. It's filled up and it's given a newer, fresher meaning. Places take on newer, fresher meanings. And here's why I say that. Because Jesus could have stayed in Nazareth. He could have just stayed there and healed people and taught. If he had a phone, he could have just posted his videos and podcasts online and stay put.

But Jesus didn't stay put. Because in Matthew's mind, and I think in Jesus' mind, geography isn't just space. There aren't just places. To Jesus' mind, to Matthew's mind, geography has a far richer, far deeper texture. Thus, we saw in yesterday's passage, Jesus entering into the wilderness to be tested by the devil for 40 days. The geography really matters here. I mean, after all, why did he travel over 100 miles on foot when he could have just let the devil tempt him in the foothills of Nazareth? Well, I think it's because the location mattered, the pilgrimage mattered.

The wilderness was the place where God tested Israel. Israel failed, but Jesus went to be tested in the wilderness to succeed on their behalf. The wilderness was the place where David became a man after God's heart, and Jesus exits the wilderness as a king who's greater than even David. The wilderness was the place where Elijah sought the Lord's voice as a prophet, and Jesus himself leaves the wilderness as the greatest prophet to ever live. The wilderness wasn't just a symbol. It was a thin place, a place for Jesus's soul to be laid bare, a place to find strength from the Lord, a place to be tested and strengthened and prepared for ministry.

And what I find fascinating is that Matthew doesn't stop reading geography this way. He actually continues. When he gives Jesus' travel itinerary, he doesn't merely say, Jesus went to Nazareth and then he went to Copernum on the Sea of Galilee. No. Instead, Matthew pulls back the veil and shows the spiritual significance, of Jesus' geographical journeys. We'll read all of today's passage, Matthew 4, verses 12 to 17.

When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Copernum, which was by the lake and the area of Zebulon and Naftali, to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah. Now we're going to get a quote from Isaiah 9, Land of Zebulon and Land of Naftali, the way of the sea, beyond the prophet, the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people living in darkness have seen a great light. Of those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned. And from that time on, Jesus began to preach, repent, for the kingdom of God has come near. Now that last line matters,

because it signifies that Jesus' ministry has actually begun. The kingdom of God has come near through him. And Matthew is implying here that the time could not have come, the time of God's kingdom, until Jesus went on his pilgrimage to the desert, to the wilderness, and then returned to the north by way of Nazareth to Galilee. You see, this isn't simple prophetic prediction and fulfillment. Matthew is saying that Jesus is fulfilling an ancient pattern laid out by the prophet Isaiah through his pilgrimages. What pattern is it? It's the pattern of the Messiah. The passage that Matthew quotes from is Isaiah 9. And in that passage, Isaiah foretells the birth of a child who would one day become a king and sit on David's throne and would even be called mighty God. That would have been unimaginable

for Jews to call a man mighty God, and yet it's right there in Isaiah. Isaiah sees a day when the hands of the oppressors and the unjust will be stopped, and war itself will end. He sees a day when God will establish his kingdom on earth as in heaven. By his physical, geographical pilgrimages, Jesus is fulfilling that prediction and he's fitting the pattern of the coming Messiah and by doing that he's now ready to preach about his coming kingdom

so what can we learn from Jesus' example here well I think the first thing is to recognize that geography is not just geography I suspect that in our highly connected over-intertained always online world there might be no discipline more important than putting away your phone and going on a pilgrimage

finding a thin place where the spirit can unveil your soul, meet with you, bring repentance, and carry forth healing. I do this every year with a group of friends in Colorado. We meet atop our own holy mountain, our own thin place. We turn off our phones and we let the spirit meet us on that peak. It's a life-changing experience every single year. That pilgrimage has been one of the greatest gifts God's given me for my soul. And you can do the same thing too.

you don't have to go to a mountain. You can take a spiritual retreat to any place where you sense God's presence, to a sacred place like an abbey or a monastery, or to a retreat center, or simply someplace out in nature. But the key is to become a pilgrim, which means to disconnect,

to leave your old world behind for a bit, old time, old life, old space, so that for a moment you can encounter God. After all, Jesus himself was God, and yet he saw, geography and pilgrimage as a gift, as a way of encountering God himself. Perhaps we would be wise to follow suit, not as a work to earn God's favor, but as an act of faith, trusting him to arrive in our pilgrimage and meet with us by grace. Hey, before we wrap up, can I tell you about something we've

been working on here at 10-minute Bible talks? We believe that everyone should know how to read the Bible. But the truth is, a lot of us have never been shown how. That's why we created the 10-minute Bible Guide. It's a simple framework for helping you understand God's Word and build a sustainable Bible reading habit, not so that you can simply check the Bible reading box off your to-do list, but so that you can spend meaningful, life-giving time with God in His Word. Inside our guide, you'll find practical tips for getting started, strategies for how to stay consistent, ideas for how to apply the Bible to your life and how to pray through the Bible and even journal through it once you're done. So if you've ever thought, I want to read my Bible, but I don't know how to start

or how to stick with it, then this is for you. You can download our free 10-minute Bible guide today at 10-minute Bible Talks.com or just hit the link in our show notes.