Mark's Gospel and Nature of Discipleship

Mark's Gospel and Nature of Discipleship

In Mark's Gospel, there are many accounts of Jesus' disciples and

Apostles which are helpful to Christians as examples of the nature of

discipleship. In this part of my coursework essay I hope to address

questions involving what Mark's Gospel tells us about Jesus' disciples

and Apostles, as well as defining the principle of what being a

disciple entails, and defining also who the apostles were. This is

because by learning about past disciples and the Apostles, a modern

disciple of the Church can learn about the nature of discipleship.

A disciple is somebody who is inspired enough by somebody to learn

about them, listen to their ideas and follow them and their way of

life. Disciples take someone as their leader and try to do what they

say. It is possible to be a disciple of anybody, but all Christians

are disciples of Jesus. An Apostle is a selected disciple. There were

only 12, and were chosen by Jesus to be leaders of the other

disciples. At the time of Jesus, He had a following of about 300-400

ordinary disciples. Jesus chose to have 12 disciples because the

number twelve was significant to Jews, and representative of the 12

tribes of Israel that Jews are descendants of. Although the Apostles

did not all belong to a different tribe, the fact that there were 12

showed that there was an Apostle to represent each of the tribes. The

Apostles all led very different lives before being called up by Jesus.

Their names were: "Simon (Jesus gave him the name Peter); James and

his brother John, sons of Zebedee (Jesus gave them the name Boanerges,

which means Men of Thunder); Andrew; Philip; Barthol...

... middle of paper ...

...lcomed and

participate in helping in the Christian community to which the parents

belong, and they may enjoy doing so, by helping with charity work or

doing small tasks in church that can make they feel special. It is

also a great comfort to many small children to pray to God, as they

can feel more secure and relieve some of their anxieties.

So, although I agree that some good can be drawn by introducing

children to Christianity, I feel it is wrong to expect from them the

level of commitment that being fully Christian means. This is why I

think that baptism and confirmation should be left until the child is

old enough to make his/her own decision about religious life, whereas

I find no wrong in letting children draw good from finding comfort in

praying or enjoy making themselves useful by helping out at church.