When I was in junior high school, one of the classes we boys had to take was woodshop. The teacher was eccentric, but I learned some fundamentals of woodworking in that class. Of course, the best part was using essential hand tools to build simple projects. Because of that positive experience, I took woodshop as an elective in my sophomore year in high school. After that, I became hooked and spent many years in the woodworking industry. To this day, I enjoy it as a hobby.
One of my experiences was working with custom cabinetry. In the shop where I worked, an older man, an experienced cabinetmaker, taught me most of the things I eventually learned about the trade. I was not in any formal apprenticeship, but I enjoyed that kind of role with him, and we got along very well.
Something that always amazed me about him was his ability to fix other people’s mistakes. We worked in a shop with about a dozen employees, and inevitably, somewhere in the process, from building the cabinets to shipping them out the door, mistakes were made, or the product was damaged. When that happened, where did they bring them to be fixed? To this older man I worked with. Very seldom was a piece beyond his ability to repair. I will be grateful for the opportunity to work with and learn from him as long as I live.
Today, we hear much about mentoring as though it were something new. It’s not; it’s just another word for being an apprentice. Or there’s an even older term – a disciple. Whenever I hear the word, disciple, I think of the twelve – the disciples of Jesus.
Working through Mark’s gospel, we see how the twelve accompanied Jesus. They listened to His teaching. They watched Him respond to the needs of the people He met. They saw Him cleanse the lepers, restore sight to the blind, heal the crippled, and even raise the dead to life. They heard His teaching, which was so different from the other rabbis of His day. And they saw Him live out what He taught.
In all of this, they were learning what it meant to be His followers. But in every relationship like theirs, the time comes when the disciple or apprentice needs some hands-on experience. That’s what we see in Mark chapter six. Jesus commissions His disciples and sends them out to preach the gospel of the kingdom, to put into practice what they had learned.
Today, every person who repents of their sin and accepts by faith the sacrifice of Christ as the only acceptable payment for their sin is forgiven and becomes a disciple of His. As disciples, you and I are called to proclaim the Gospel. It is important for all disciples to be part of a local church fellowship. It is in that context that newly converted disciples can be mentored by older, more experienced followers of Jesus. Paul’s epistles give clear teaching on how this process should work. Paul’s letter to Titus, especially chapter two, is a good example for us.
Much of what is recorded in the gospels is historical, especially in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is narrative that shows how Jesus began to establish the kingdom of God on earth. Not everything that Jesus and the twelve did is commanded to be done today. However, we can learn many things by observing the underlying principles of the historical narrative.
Our text for today illustrates this fact. In Mark 6:7-13, we see Jesus giving specific instructions about how the disciples were to ca...
