For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon in him”.
In these words Jesus points out the rejecting and critical attitude that people showed toward John the Baptist. John lived a strict, restrained, ascetic life, renouncing comforts, emphasizing his complete devotion to God. But instead of accepting his disciplined life as dedication to God, people criticized him, saying that he was under demonic influence. In this way Jesus shows that society did not accept John because his way of life was too strict and unusual for them. These words emphasize that people often prefer to criticize and reject what they do not understand, rather than accept manifestations of God’s word that differ from what they expected.