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DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

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Mark 6:6-13

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits. 8 These were his instructions: "Take nothing for the journey except a staff — no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. 10 Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11 And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them."  12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

NIV

It does seem a little odd these twelve were to go without taking any provisions with them on their journey. We may have to assume Jesus was expecting people in those towns to provide for the messengers of the Good News. It could be that the common of people of those towns would not relate a couple of rich guys showing up telling them about the wonderful things that will happen to them if they only believe. Surely being welcomed meant providing food and shelter in those days as well as being attentive to the message they were bringing. Of course having a couple of guys drive a few demons out as they came into town might help their being welcomed as men of God, or at least men with some sort of supernatural power. Why don’t we travel around from town to town? Was it only an order for those twelve? Sure we have missionaries that we pay, provide for, and send them to some far off land, rather than town to town. We do have a few evangelists that travel around from town to town, but they only come from church to church. Not sure why a bunch of believers need to be evangelized, or maybe they call themselves revivalists then we all can get revived from our spiritual deadness. In either case it doesn’t seem as though this command to go from town to town telling the good news to everyone who will listen applies to us today, or we would think we would be doing that since we do everything else Jesus said to do. That sounds a little sarcastic, but it is true? Maybe we can’t go from town to town, but we can go house to house, or person to person telling them about the good news. How many people do we actually tell the Good News to? To we leave that up to all the television preachers? Do we expect people just to come into our church and hear some sermon geared for believers and figure out what the Good News is? It appears the only way people might hear the Good News is if someone like us goes and tells them. It is not clear if we should be driving out demons and anointing many sick people with oil and healing them, but that sure would create quite a stir. So what should we do with this statement, this command of Jesus? Should we leave it as just for the twelve or should we consider it as for us as well? If it was just for them, why tell us about it? If it has no bearing on our live, why should we be told about it? Aren’t all scripture God-breathed and good for teaching, rebuking and correcting? Are we being taught what to do? Are we being rebuked for not doing it? Are we being corrected as to the correct way to do it? Maybe we should just start doing it.