Chapter # 6 Paragraph # 2 Study # 1
August 3, 2021
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: The "beginning" of Jesus' sharing His "might" with "The Twelve" is Mark's lead-in to his burden that resulted in his writing of a "Gospel".
Introduction: In bringing his first major sub-section to a conclusion, Mark brought the reality of the necessity of "faith" into high visibility. This was the major truth to which the disciples must subscribe if they were to "lay hold of that for which they had been laid hold of". It does little good to be "gifted" with a spiritual gift if it is not going to be pursued by faith. Being an "apostle" of Jesus, the Mighty One, is an extremely high privilege that will ultimately be revealed when The Twelve (excluding Iscariot) take their seats upon the twelve thrones of the twelve tribes of Israel after the Christ's "judgment" of His Church. But, unless those "apostles" come to grips with the nature of "faith" and their participation in it, the "privilege" will not be realized as Judas Iscariot demonstrated. Thus, Mark focused upon this "necessity of faith" as he concluded his record of the preparation of The Twelve by Jesus so that He could send them forth as His representatives.
This evening we are going to launch out into the second major sub-section of Mark's presentation of Jesus as "The Mighty One" by looking into his record of Jesus' commission of The Twelve.
- I. The Issue Involved.
- A. Mark points to this matter by recording that Jesus "was going around the villages in their surrounding areas, teaching".
- 1. As at the beginning of Mark's post-introductory record, the issue is the content of Jesus' truth.
- a. When Mark said of John that he was announcing the coming of "The Mighty One", and then introduced Him as "an authoritative teacher" in the synagogue, he was drawing a definitive link between Jesus' "might" and Jesus' "doctrines".
- 1) This is no small thing: the entire creation came into existence by the words of "The Almighty" so that "words" from God are His expression of "Might"; an expression that is indisputable because not even a "jot" or "tittle" of a single "word" has "fallen to the ground as ineffectual" nor will it ever happen.
- 2) All "effects" in this cause/effect creation are governed by the words of God: nothing any angel or man can do can undercut this reality.
- b. Thus, when Mark records in 6:6b that "Jesus was going around the villages...teaching", he was setting the stage for his thesis that "teaching" is the foundation of Life, and "faith" in the words of the teaching is the mechanism of that Life.
- 2. Up to this point in his record, Jesus is consistently "teaching" and it is His "teachings" that are at the root of all of men's reactions to Him -- positively (in "faith") or negatively (in "unbelief").
- B. Mark presents Jesus as calling The Twelve to Him to "begin" to "send them forth".
- 1. Mark's focus in his record of this commission as a "beginning" is upon Jesus' sharing of His "authority" as demonstrated in the dominion of The Twelve over "the spirits which are unclean".
- a. There is a deliberate omission in Mark's initial words of the commission: no mention of His telling The Twelve to "heal".
- 1) This "omission" is temporary because in the outworking of the commission as described in 6:13, The Twelve "were anointing many sick with oil and healing them".
- 2) This "omission" was, however deliberate (as Matthew 10:1 clearly reveals).
- a) A possible reason for this "omission" was Mark's fixation upon the connection, not between Jesus' teaching and physical healings, but between the "authority" of "The Mighty One" and "spirits" who are, as Peter says in 2 Peter 2:11, "greater in might and power" than men.
- i. This link between the "authority" given to The Twelve and the designation of their "subjects" as "those spirits which are unclean" is a deliberate contrast between the "human" servants of The Mighty One and the "spirits" who are in rebellion against The Mighty One.
- ii. When God puts "a mighty one" whose major characteristic is "arrogance against God" under the authority of a "puny one" whose major characteristic is "believing the words of God", the outcome is an extreme humiliation of the rebel that causes him to writhe in rage at the spectacle of his required obedience.
- b) And another possible reason for the omission is Mark's major thesis that God's words (particularly the words of forgiveness out of repentance) can be trusted with the backdrop of eternity in mind.
- b. There is, in the omission, an even more significant omission as Matthew 10:8 reveals.
- 1) This more significant omission is Jesus' commission to "raise the dead", an ability imparted to The Twelve but, as far as the records go, was never exercised.
- 2) That they did not exercise this ability given to them was, very likely, because their "faith" did not reach that far.
- a) It is clear that the disciples strongly resisted the idea of the dead being raised (because every time Jesus told them He would be raised on the third day, they blew it off as delusion instead of embracing it with enthusiastic hope).
- b) Given this resistance, the disciples apparently side-stepped every opportunity that they had to "raise the dead": thus, Mark's focus upon the necessity of "faith".
- 2. Jesus' commission included His linking each of The Twelve to another of The Twelve.
- a. He sent them forth "two by two".
- b. This was for their "exercise of faith" as something buttressed by companionship.
- c. But, as the truth about Iscariot comes out much later, it is also so that "faith" will be present in each of the "representations of Jesus" that have been sent forth.
- C. Mark presents the basis of the ministry of The Twelve as Jesus' "gift of authority".
- 1. This "gift" was to be exercised "to the hilt" (given the variations in the degrees to which each disciple "believed").
- 2. But this "gift" was to be understood as the true basis for every "success"; and, therein was a significant danger as a later incident revealed (9:18).
- 3. This "gift" had an unexplored root: the motivations of the "gifted".
- a. When those motivations swirled around the desire of the "gifted" to accomplish the will of God in the lives of others, there was genuine "success".
- b. When those motivations began to sink into the desire of the "gifted" to prove just how "gifted" he was, there was a stunningly humiliating outcome.
