The Mission of the Twelve

S. Mark vi. 7–13

For the first time the Twelve fulfil their office as Apostles. They leave their Master’s side, and are sent forth as missionaries to hasten His Kingdom. S. Mark notifies the change by appropriating to them in this place the new title of Apostleship.

The mission upon which they were sent was to the Jews, “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The second Evangelist says nothing of the large mission to the Gentiles, but it fitly finds a place of record in the Gospel of one whose watchword was the Universality of Christ’s Kingdom.

That Jesus yearned from the beginning for the emancipation of the world none can doubt, but He Who did all things “according to the counsel of His will” would not anticipate the orderly sequence of events: “to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles.” To have disregarded that, would have excited most bitterly the jealousy of His countrymen, as well as committed the Apostles to a work for which they were by no means prepared. The first qualification for a message of glad tidings to an alien people was the eradication of national antipathies, and nothing but a continued witness of the broadest sympathy could effect such a result. The hatred of the “Sons of Thunder” for the Samaritans survived wellnigh three years’ companionship with the Saviour of the world, and there is no reason for supposing that they were more prejudiced than the rest.

“He began to send them forth by two and two.” It would have been well for the Church in all ages if the principle laid down at the outset could have been generally maintained. There is perhaps no sphere in which companionship is more desirable. To be called upon to witness sin and misery in their worst forms, to see the disease spreading and eating the life out of a people, and to find oneself powerless to check it through distrust and unbelief, brings with it a depression of spirits unknown in its intensity in any other field of labour. If, as so often happens, the labourer has none to take counsel with, none to cheer and sympathise with him, it becomes almost unbearable.

Christ knew all this, and sent them forth, not singly, but “two and two,” that they might hold sweet converse together, and strengthen and correct one another wherever strength and correction were needed. And when we study their several characteristics, we see how careful He was in pairing them together. The fiery impetuous Peter is coupled with the meditative Andrew; James, so small of stature, with the lionlike Jude; the fanatical Zealot with the cold calculating Traitor, that the enthusiasm of the one might quicken the other’s reserved and despairing spirit.

The same principle is being happily revived in the present generation of missionary enterprise, and Colleges of priests are being planted by the Universities in Central Africa and Northern India for mutual help and encouragement in a most difficult work.

Our Lord’s next care was to make the mission in a sense self-supporting. “The workman was worthy of his meat;” and if they went forth in simple dependence upon their Master, He would put it into men’s hearts to supply their wants. They were to lay aside everything that would impede their progress in the way of baggage, every provision for the luxuries and conveniences of travel, and their “bread should be given them, and their waters be sure,” and therewith they must be content.

It is true that the East is proverbial for hospitality, and that it was a favourable country in which to try the experiment. To this day the Arab opens his door to the traveller, and if you meet him abroad he is ready to share with you his only piece of bread, or the last drop that is left in his wine-skin. We can hardly expect, therefore, the same measure of support to be extended to missions at large; but there cannot be a question that people for the most part value religion in proportion to what it costs them. The intense love which we are told heathen converts entertain for their churches arises not infrequently from the fact that they have built them at their own expense, and often, too, with their own hands.

No doubt His first purpose was to make them realise that they were going forth not in their own but in His strength; but we may not forget that a further reason has been suggested for the command to leave behind their shoes and purse.

These things were always laid aside before entering the Temple. It was a symbolical provision that in the service of God there should mingle no thought of the affairs of the world. Even so it may be there was reflected back from that old command the idea that the mission on which they were being sent was one which demanded the total surrender of all their energy and will for Christ’s cause.

Yet further, before their departure our Lord quickened their sense of responsibility by reminding them of the terrible consequences awaiting any who should reject the message with which they were burdened. Sodom and Gomorrha had perished in one of the most signal of God’s punishments, but no messenger had been sent direct from Him to warn them of the consequences of their awful sin. They, on the other hand, were going with credentials such as no ambassador had ever borne, and the guilt of impenitence would be proportioned to the force with which the truth was revealed. If those to whom they went turned a deaf ear to their words, then let them know that they had forfeited their birthright; they were no longer God’s people, but outcast heathen j and the very dust of their land must be shaken in displeasure from the Apostles’ feet, to symbolise that they were left to their own uncleanness.

“And they went out, and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick.” S. Mark alone mentions the outward sign that accompanied the healing. The use of oil in medical treatment was widely prevalent, but, apart from its application by the good Samaritan, it is only mentioned twice elsewhere in Holy Scripture. Isaiah clearly has it in his mind when, speaking of the wounds from which Judah suffered, he says, “they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment,” or more correctly, “oil.”

“Is any sick among you?” writes S. James. “Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord.” It was an outward act accompanying the exercise of unusual power, whether it was the prayer of the faithful rulers of the Church, or the preternatural gifts of healing with which the Apostles were intrusted. The purpose that it served was the same as the anointing of the eyes of the blind by the Lord’s hand: it was for the Quickening of the patient’s faith, without which no cure could be wrought.

Now the combination of the twofold work of preaching repentance and healing the sick, first formed in this temporary mission, has continued throughout the history of the Church. Care for the body and thought for the soul may never be separated without harm and loss in ministerial usefulness. It was the testimony of one of the bravest missionaries l that he owed no small measure of his success to the fact that he was possessed of the knowledge of medicine, which enabled him to work many bodily cures, and win confidence for the reception of his message.

It is the pride and glory of the English Church that her priests are the truest friends of the sick and needy; and though it is promised that “they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars,” our Lord has taught us that when we shall be called to give in the account of our stewardship, the inquiry will mainly turn on what deeds of mercy and compassion we have shown. It will be to those who have fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and visited the sick, that He will give the invitation, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you;” for “inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

Note: S. Luke is emphatically “the Historian of the Universal Gospel.” Probably he was prompted to take this view mainly by S. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles. The number 70 was regarded as the symbol of the nations of the world, taken from Deut. xxxii. 8. At the Feast of Tabernacles 70 oxen were offered in sacrifice for the Gentiles. Cf. Talm. Bab. Sukkah, 55, 6.

Note: Edersheim refers to the Rabbinic injunction, “not to enter the Templeprecincts with staff, shoes (mark, not sandals), and a money-girdle.” It told the worshippers that they were to “be wholly absorbed in their service.” — Life and Times, i. 643.

Note: Anointing the sick with oil is not spoken of from New Testament times till the beginning of the fourth century. It is noticed in an Epistle of Innocent I. to Decentius in 416 A. D. It is also referred to in the Orationes ad visitandum Infirmorum of the Gregorian Sacramentary, A. D. 590, after which it is often recognised both in the Eastern and Western Churches. In the first Prayer- Book of Edward VI. it was provided that the sick man might be anointed” if he desired it.” In the Primitive Church its object was the recovery of the sick through supernatural agency; now it is only administered in the Roman Church when recovery is considered impossible. Cf. Catech. Trident, ii. vi. 14.

Note: Dr. Livingstone in Central Africa. His case may be used to illustrate the principle, though his doctrine was not that of the Church.