In Mark 8:31-38, Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, and then proceeds to tell others who desire to be his follower that they must take up their cross and follow Him. I.) Jesus explains to the disciples that the Son of Man will suffer and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes. (v 31) II.) He tells them that the Son of Man will be killed.(v 31) III.) He also tells them that after three days the Son of Man will rise again. (v 31) IV.) Peter rebukes Jesus for what He just told them out of protection for Jesus. (v 32) V.) Jesus rebukes Peter back saying “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God but the things of men.” (v 33) VI.) Jesus invites the crowd of people to hear along with his disciples what he was about to say. (v 34) VII.) Jesus tells the people that if they want to follow him that they must “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow” Him. (v 34) VIII.) He tells them that whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Him will save it. (v 35). IX.) Jesus asks the crowd “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his own soul? (v 36) X.) He makes his final statement of which if anyone is ashamed of Him and his words in this sinful generation, then He himself, the Son of Man, will be ashamed of them when they come in the glory of His Father and with the holy angels. (v 38) The book of Mark is a book that gets straight to the point and tells us of the main events in Jesus’s life. In Mark 8:31-38, Jesus goes about telling His people what He has to say differently than He might have normally done. Jesus does not tell them through allegory or a parable, but He gets down and straight to the point. Jesus wanted his words to be clear and understood because they were of high importance. The words Jesus was telling them would ultimately change the destined fate of the eternity of their souls. In this essay, we will unpack what Jesus tells his people in the gospel of Mark chapter 8 in verses 31-38. We will go through it verse by verse and then ultimately evaluate how we can apply this to our daily lives, while being a follower of Christ in this modern time. Before we can fully emerge ourselves into understanding the full meaning of the text in the passage of Mark 8:31-38, and to be able to understand it to our fullest ability, we first must be informed of some of the historical and literary context of this scripture. Mark dives right into the life of Jesus. There is no account of His birth or his childhood. There is no genealogy, no shepherds or wise men from the East. In fact, Mark’s entire Gospel describes only the three years of Jesus’ public ministry that culminated in His death and resurrection. The Gospel of Mark, the first of the Gospels to be written, has an anonymous author. However, there are many evidences that indicate and point toward John Mark, cousin of Barnabas (Colossians 4:10), and early traveling companion of Paul (Acts 12:25), as having authorship of this book. The Gospel of Mark has vividness of description that is consistent with its being an eyewitness account; details that are unnecessary to the flow of the narrative are included in the gospel. This is significant evidence that points towards John Mark as being the author because John Mark traveled with Paul. It makes sense that his writing style would flow as if it was written through witnessing some of the events(About Mark). Now that we have a good idea of who was the author of the gospel of Mark, we must ask the next question, who was he writing to? Within the text, there are several places where the author has to explain the Jewish customs to the people he is writing to. Some of these verses include Mark 3:17, 5:41 and 7:11. If the group of people he was writing to were the Jews, he most likely would not have had to include these explanations. John Mark also used the Roman’s system of time instead of the Jewish System. If he wrote in Rome, either while there with Peter, or perhaps shortly after Peter's death, then Mark probably was writing for the Roman Christians, and possibly to address the crisis in the church around the intense persecution that was beginning to be directed at them during this time (About Mark). Now that we understand a little bit more about the book of Mark, it’s time to focus in on the passage of Mark 8:31-38. In this passage, Jesus explains to the disciples what must happen in order for God’s complete will to be done. Although the disciples are not too fond of what must