Jesus 101: Jesus Sends Out His Disciples (Mark 6:6b-13)

If you missed Sunday Oct 16 2016’s message, you can listen to it by clicking here.

Read Mark 6:6b-13 together. 

• What jumped out at you as you read this passage together? Why?

Jesus provided his disciples 4 specific sets of instruction:

1. How they were to go.
2. What they were to take.
3. How they were to act.
4. What they were to do.

1. How they were to act (V7).

• What is the significance of Jesus sending his disciples out “two-by-two”?
• How do you see the role of community and spiritual friendship in your spiritual journey?
• What is the significance of Jesus giving his disciples (and us) HIS authority?

2. What they were to take (V8-9).

• Why do you think Jesus instructs his disciples to take nothing with them (except a walking stick)? What is Jesus trying to teach his disciples here?
• In what ways do we sometimes place our trust in stuff (i.e. money, material possessions etc) as opposed to God? How have you experienced God’s provision in your life?
• In what ways can “stuff” sometimes distract and add clutter to our lives? What does it look to “simply our lives” and to not allow “stuff” to distract us from God’s calling on our lives?

3. How they were to act (V10-11).

• In telling the disciples to “Shake it’s dust from your feet”, Jesus was reminding his disciples (and us) of two very important things:
  1. The seriousness of the message (that there is a hell and a coming judgment of unbelievers).
  2. Our role as messengers (not as Saviour).
• The seriousness of the message: In what ways should considering the afterlife (hell, in particular) impact the way we think about the Gospel and about sharing our faith with others?
• Our role as messengers: In what ways do we sometimes minimize our role as “messengers” and downplay our role in sharing the Gospel with people? In what ways do we sometimes overplay our role and sometimes take on a bit of a ‘messiah complex’ with people?

4.What they were to do (V12).

• The disciples had a message that they were to TELL EVERYONE about (with their lives AND their words). Why is it so important that we actually TELL people the good news of Jesus (and don’t just live once Christian lives, hoping that they will one day ask us about Jesus.)? What is at stake here?
• What will happen if we don’t tell people? What might happen if we DO tell people (V13)?

Jeff challenged us to to prayerfully consider how we can “tell everyone” the good news of Jesus. One practical next step is to simply invite someone to church next week.

• Who did God lay on your heart to invite to church this coming Sunday?
• Have you invited them yet? If not, when will you do that?

Spend some time in prayer for the people God laid on our hearts as well as for one another – that we would have the courage to follow through and be obedient to God in this.