WWUTT 2163 Jesus Sends Out the Twelve (Mark 6:7-13)

Jesus sent out his disciples into the area villages to preach the

Word of God and to perform miracles, authenticating that the word that they spoke was not from man, but from God.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we've been in Chapter 6, and the section we're looking at today really goes with yesterday, but we had so much to cover in just those six verses,

I couldn't fit it all into one lesson. So it's kind of like we continue with yesterday's lesson, moving into verses 7 to 13 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible, Mark 6, 7 to 13, hear the word of the Lord. And Jesus summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and was giving them authority over the unclean spirits.

And he instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey except a staff only, no bread, no bag, no money for their belt, but to wear sandals.

And he added, Do not put on two tunics. And he was saying to them, Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town.

And any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them.

And they went out and preached that men should repent. And they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them.

So, if you'll remember back to yesterday, as we looked through those first six verses, Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth.

He preached in the synagogue there, and the people did not receive him. They were amazed at what it was that he taught.

They were awed by the miracles that he performed. But they said, This guy's the son of Mary.

We know him. He grew up here, used to play right over there. We know his brothers. We know his sisters.

And Jesus could not do any miracle there in any sort of way that would be convincing to the people.

He did do miracles, for it says that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them back in verse five.

But he was marveling at their unbelief, and he was going around the villages teaching.

So we go from that, where Jesus says that a prophet is not welcome in his own town or among his own relatives and in his own household.

We go from that into this section where Jesus is sending out the disciples.

Now it says the 12. We know this from other places, Jesus sending out the 72. But Mark is just focusing on the 12 disciples here and the mission that Jesus is preparing them for.

So the fact that he pairs them up and he sends them out, and we read about that here in Mark 6, this is preparing them for what it is that they're going to do after Jesus is gone.

So he dies on the cross. He rises again from the grave. He ascends into heaven 40 days later.

And of course, the disciples will be sent out to the world, as we have in Acts 1. The commission that's given there is you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So before they get there, this is kind of the trial run. Jesus is showing them what they are in for, giving them a little experience here.

And even the instructions that he gives them here will carry on later also.

Beginning in verse 7 again, he summoned the 12 and he began to send them out in pairs and was giving them authority over the unclean spirits.

Now that statement bookends this particular section because he sends them out. They have authority over unclean spirits.

That's verse 7. Then in verse 13, they were casting out many demons, anointing with oil, many sick people and healing them.

So that's the beginning of the end of this block of text here.

He summoned the 12, began to send them out in pairs, was giving them authority over unclean spirits.

That's the mission. It's not a very long section, of course, just seven verses. But what we have chronicled here is the mission that Jesus sends them on and even the mission that they will continue doing after Jesus is gone.

Verse 8, he instructed them that they should take nothing for their journey except a staff only, no bread, no bag, no money in their belt.

So he's wanting them to travel light. He doesn't want to obligate them or weigh them down with anything.

And he's also teaching them that they're going to be cared for by the people that they go in minister to.

So in verse 9, just wear sandals, he added, do not put on two tunics. Now why not?

Why is that even necessary to mention? You might think, well, you know, it's kind of heavy. It's kind of hot.

You take off one of those tunics and then you're obligated to carry it. But really wearing two tunics ensures that you would be warm at night.

Jesus is not intending for them to sleep out in the cold open air.

He wants them to stay in people's homes. And so if they have two tunics, they might be tempted to stay outside.

But with one tunic, they're going to sleep in the home of a host, somebody who will welcome them in and want to host them because of the gospel they proclaim, because the work that they're doing is of the

Lord. And this person is going to show that they receive the work of the Lord when they receive these disciples or apostles into their own homes.

Hence why Jesus says, don't put on two tunics, because you are going to, you're going to receive the hospitality of people.

You're going to give them the opportunity to show their commitment to God when they receive the messenger of God that has been sent out.

If you'll remember to Matthew 25, it's there when Jesus is talking about the great white throne of judgment, when the nations are going to be gathered before his glorious throne and he's going to separate them one from another, like the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and the sheep, of course, go on his right hand and the goats go on his left.

And he will say to those who are on his right, come, you who are blessed of my father inherit the kingdom, which has been prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.

I was a stranger and you invited me in naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me.

I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him saying,

Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and invite you in or naked and clothe you?

And when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? And the king will answer and say to them, truly,

I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.

It wasn't that long ago we were in that section, it was earlier this year, we were reading that out of Matthew, chapter 25.

But remember what I said about that particular passage. If you were with me then, I said that when Jesus refers to the least of these, he's talking about fellow believers.

Oftentimes that phrase, the least of these is used to refer to all of the marginalized or the outcast in society.

Now, Jesus doesn't say that at all. He says that which you do to the least of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.

And as we read earlier in Matthew, chapter 12, and it was even said here in Mark three, whoever does the will of my father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.

That was in Mark three thirty five. We read that a few weeks ago. So those who do the will of the father are those whom

Jesus considers his brothers. And so saying here that what you did to one of these brothers of mine, even to the least of them, those that that would otherwise be ostracized or cast out, that what you have done to the least of them, you have done also unto me.

So those who care for fellow Christians are caring for brothers of Christ and those who care for even the least of those

Christians, those who end up in prison, those who are poor and are cast out. And otherwise, those who are persecuted for sharing the gospel.

That's that what you have done for the least of these you've done also unto me, Jesus says, and that's really the exercise here with sending out the disciples, he wants the people to have that opportunity to do unto the brothers of Christ.

And what you have done to even the least of them, you've done also to me, those who receive

Christ's messengers, it will be the same as if they receive Christ. But those who reject

Christ's messengers, who ostracize them, who won't listen to them at all, Jesus says, shake the dust off the soles of your feet as a testimony against them.

If they don't receive you, they don't receive me. So let me read verse 10, and he was saying to them, wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town.

And again, that comes right after the statement, do not put on two tunics, wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town.

You're not going to sleep outside. You're going to sleep in a person's home. But if you go to a place that does not receive you or listen to you, then as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet as a testimony against them, kicking the dust off your feet.

I'm not even taking your dust with me. Your dirt, your judgment will lie with you.

In Acts chapter 18, the apostle Paul went to Corinth and he found a

Jew there named Aquila, a native of Pontus, and his wife Priscilla, who recently came from Italy because Claudius had commanded all the

Jews to depart from Rome. That was the expulsion of the Jews from Rome.

Claudius was trying to stop the proselytizing, the converting to Christianity, which he thought was happening by Jews.

Of course, they were the first to receive the gospel, the first likely to take the gospel to Rome and spread it.

So Claudius thought it was the Jews. Therefore, if I get rid of the Jews, I'll stop this proselytizing, these people converting to worshiping this

Jesus of Nazareth. But he targeted the wrong people. Even Gentiles had been believing in Jesus Christ and continued to spread the gospel even after Claudius had expelled the

Jews. So you have Aquila and Priscilla who had come from Italy because the

Jews had been expelled from Rome. And because he was of the same trade,

Acts 18, 3 says Paul was staying with them and they were working as tent makers.

That was what they did together. That was the job, the bivocational job that Paul had in addition to the missionary work that he did.

And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks. Remember, this is in Corinth that Paul is doing this.

A very populous city, a port city. So you have it right there actually on the isthmus of Corinth.

And the Acro -Corinth was the name of the mountain that was right there where sailors who were coming up on Corinth would see the mountain before they saw anything else.

And there was even a temple at the top of that mountain and a lot of pagan worship that went on there as well.

There was all kinds of paganism in Corinth. There tended to be more of a flood of it in port cities than anywhere else because you just had so many different people from different areas and nationalities that would come to this place.

So Paul is there in the synagogue. He's attempting to persuade Jews and Greeks. But when

Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly bearing witness to the

Jews that Jesus is the Christ. But listen to this. This is verse six.

When they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, your blood be on your own heads.

I am clean from now on. I will go to the Gentiles. Then he left there and went to the house of a man named

Titius Justice, a God fearer whose house was next to the synagogue.

But there's Paul reasoning in the synagogue. He's attempting to persuade Jews that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the fulfillment of all of those prophecies that have been made in the

Old Testament. You're not looking for a future Messiah. The Messiah has come. He is Christ and he has accomplished by his death on the cross, by his resurrection from the grave, salvation for his people and unification of both

Jews and Gentiles into one body through Christ. So Paul is trying to show these things, reveal them from the scriptures.

Of course, the scriptures would have been right there in the synagogue, but the Jews won't listen to him.

And so as they continue to resist the word and deny that Jesus is the Christ, finally it comes to a point where Paul shakes out his garments.

They resisted and blasphemed. It said. And so Paul shook out his garments and said to them, your blood be on your own heads.

I am clean from now on. I will go to the Gentiles later on in Acts 20. So a couple of chapters later,

Paul will be speaking to the elders of Ephesus, whom he summons to come and meet him.

And he says to them that he had taught them the full counsel of God.

Now, these are men whom he loves and these are men who have been taught by him. They are not rejecting the word at all.

But Paul simply reminds them that I've I've given you the full counsel of God.

So, in other words, you have no excuse not to know the things that you have been taught. Paul held nothing back.

He taught them everything. They are equipped for the work that needs to be done, the work of ministry, either in the church or going out and spreading the gospel, whatever it might happen to be.

So there's an example of somebody who had received the complete word here in Acts 18 is an example of those who had rejected the complete word.

Even here in Corinth, Paul would have taught the full counsel of God, concealing nothing.

So much to the point that whatever rejection that these Jews would make would be blasphemy against God because they've been told everything, and yet they continue to deny that Jesus is the

Christ. That's blasphemy. So Paul shakes out his garments as though to shake himself free of them.

That's kind of what that symbolizes. I am I am free of you, your blood is on your own heads, which is a statement back to Ezekiel 33, incidentally, where the watchman raises the alarm, but the people don't heed the watchman's alarm.

Well, they're going to be responsible for the death that comes at them when the sword comes against them.

And that's what Paul is saying here. When judgment comes to you, well, it's it's on you.

It's not on me because I warned you and you did not listen. So he shakes his garments free of them symbolically as though to shake himself free of them.

And that's kind of the the image that Jesus is presenting here with the disciples kicking the dust off their feet.

Don't even take the dust of their town with you. You leave them to themselves and the judgment of God will pour out upon them later.

Remember that Paul says in Romans 12, don't take vengeance into your own hands. Vengeance is mine, saith the

Lord. Instead, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will keep burning coals on his head.

You want to bring judgment on your enemy, then that's the way to do it, by showing him kindness and love, not by trying to take matters into your own hands.

God is the one who will deal with him in the proper time. And God is the one who knows his heart, that he won't ever repent, no matter how long he's given.

So Jesus says here, kick the dust off your feet as a testimony against them. And then verse 12, they went out and preached that men should repent.

They were preaching the gospel. Turn from your sin. To God and live, obey his commands.

Now, they preach the gospel insofar as they pointed to the Messiah, even though Jesus had not yet died and risen again.

But everything in the Old Testament, as far as gospel goes, is looking forward to the Messiah, whereas everything after Jesus ascends into heaven is looking back on what it was that he did and accomplished.

So here, if they're preaching the gospel, then they're preaching something that is about to take place, not something that has already taken place.

But even so, confirming the message that they preached by the miracles that they performed, what they preached came from God.

So verse 13, they were casting out many demons and anointing with oil and many sick people, anointing with oil, many sick people and healing them.

They were even given the authority to perform these many miracles. And this was the first mission that Jesus gives to them, sending them out in pairs.

Now, you might be familiar with the Mormon mission that the

Mormons or the Latter -day Saints like to do, where a good majority of their young people in the

Mormon church, for lack of a better term, but that's what it is, Mormon church, the majority of the young people under the age of 25 and they're serving in missions throughout the world and they will go to different major cities in the

United States or they'll go overseas. There was a young man that I was witnessing to in Junction City when

I lived there. And unfortunately, my witnessing to him with the gospel never took.

But he left and went down to South America, and that's where he did his mission. And I want to say he was there for two years, because I think that's how long a lot of those missions will turn out being.

They might be gone for a couple of years and then they come back. But anyway, that's a common mission for young people in the

Mormon church. Now, on the one hand, I like that. And not that it's in Mormonism, they're spreading a false gospel.

I would like to see that in the church more often, that we would send young people out to do something like that.

So there's something about that that seems appealing to me. I don't think enough emphasis is put on missions in the in evangelicalism, in the

Protestant church. You'll see Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses putting a lot on missions, but you don't see that as much in evangelicalism.

They'll talk about it. They'll go out and do mercy missions. But you don't see a lot of encouraging these young people to know the word and go out and share it to lead people to the gospel.

So on the one hand, I like it. But on the other hand, this is also something that you really need to train somebody up and prepare them to do.

Now, the disciples were trained by Christ, so they got no better training than that. But we can't just automatically think because a person's young and, you know, we want to give them experience in life, then we're going to send them out on mission.

They've got to be prepared for it. So we have to fill them up with lots of good teaching and sound doctrine.

And then through the testing of their faith, being able to see and recognize that this man or even woman, because remember going back to Acts 18 in Corinth, Paul was with Aquila and Priscilla, and we know that Aquila and Priscilla led

Apollos to the truth as well. So even women can do this. Having men and women that will go out and do evangelism.

But we need to be preparing them for that. Can't just say, hey, because the young person has nothing better to do that, we're going to send them out on mission.

Now, they need to have good training. There needs to be solid training in the word and understanding of how to do this.

My daughter has done it at the age of 16. Well, 15 when she went out and did it, witnessed to Muslims, a

Muslim community in Houston, Texas. And that was great experience for her.

But she had training in that. She went out with me and handed out tracks and would share the gospel with people.

And then there was also sort of training things that they did even before they went to Houston. And she had to get experience on even how to minister to this group.

So she was never left by herself or fit with other people that had never had any experience doing this.

She was with other people that knew the community and knew how to relate to this particular group of people.

So that's a great experience. That's something that I think that there should be more experience in doing, especially when you see that Mormons are out there doing it.

Jehovah's Witnesses are out there doing it and spreading their lies, their false gospel. Well, evangelicals need to be more passionate about being out there and sharing the word.

Even if you've got a Saturday or two to give over the course of the year, find a group with your local church that might be out there sharing the gospel with others and join them.

Get some experience doing that. Even if you're just tagging along and you're watching them do it, at least get some exposure to that.

So you understand even the responsibility that is upon every one of us to be out there sharing the gospel.

Now, you won't do like these disciples did here by going out and and casting out unclean spirits.

They are definitely demonstrating the power of God that they have been granted and the mission that they are doing as mouthpieces of Christ.

We're not going to do miracles like that, but you still may have a responsibility to be that kind of mouthpiece to share the gospel with those who otherwise would never have heard it if it was not for you.

Understanding that it is only by this word that we can be saved, that we can be forgiven our sins and given everlasting life.

So out of love for people, out of love for lost souls that are headed to hell without the gospel, considering what ways you might be a missionary to save them from death.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for what it is that we have read here, and we know, according to even what is said here, what

Jesus experienced, what he told his disciples. We know that a lot of the world is going to reject the message that we have to share.

Jesus also later saying, remember that when they hate you, they hated me first. But out of love for God and out of love for people, may we have hearts that are willing to go out and share the gospel with others.

Give us those opportunities. Give us courage to do so. Yes, we're going to be hated for it. But how else can a person be saved unless they hear the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and repent and believe?

So give us boldness in these days and help us to want to have the courage to share the gospel with others.

The life saving message of Jesus Christ. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.