Verse 34 The people. The foregoing conversation had been a confidential one between Jesus and the disciples alone. We notice how naturally the course of remark which he addressed to the people at large, flowed from the subject of the private conversation which had held with his immediate followers. The doctrine of the passage Mark 8:34-38 is, that whoever becomes the follower of Jesus Christ, must expect, not worldly prosperity and honor, but self-denial, trial, and suffering. He must be prepared to put life, and all that is dear in life, at hazard; but then he will, in the end, secure what is of inconceivably greater value,--the salvation of the soul.