Two by two
Saturday, Nov. 30
Mark 6:1-29 Click here to read
This first part of Chapter 6 contains three different stories. Remember that we’ll be reading each of the gospels three times over the course of our two-year journey in the Bible, so this time I’m just going to look at one of the stories…we’ll get to the others when we are back in Mark later.
In verses 6-13 Jesus sends out the 12 disciples to minister in his name and gives them power to do so.
For those of you who have seen The Chosen you will remember this was presented powerfully in Season 3 of that TV series. But having seen that interpretation served to draw my attention to a couple of ways that it differed from the actual story as shared by Mark.
Mark is characteristically brief in his telling. In his record, Jesus gives them authority to do one thing only—but Mark then lists three things they did.
In verse 7, Jesus “sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.” (“Unclean spirits” is an alternate translation).
A few verses later we read, “They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.”
This isn’t a case of “mission creep”—the phenomenon in which jobs tend to expand their scope as time goes on.
Instead it’s a matter of understanding what is really meant by authority over evil spirits.
In our assembly-line view of how the world works, people specialize and tasks are broken down into bite-size pieces. That may be an efficient way of building cars, but it’s not very satisfying from a human perspective.
“Authority over evil spirits” isn’t just what we call exorcism or fighting against people who are trying to do bad things. It also includes healing illnesses of the body and mind and curing ignorance.
Preaching and teaching and exhorting to repentance are part of the task of combating evil in the world, as is healing and comforting. The realm of evil spirits isn’t just the kind of things that superheroes in action movies fight against. It’s also the battles fought by doctors and nurses and teachers and preachers.
Teaching and healing aren’t just for the professionals, either. A word of comfort here, a prayer for healing there, a patient ear to listen. All of those things are part of claiming authority over evil spirits.
Sometimes serving Christ requires embarking on scary adventures. Other times it means just taking a few extra seconds to be kind.