According to Mark, what did Jesus teach about the demands of being his disciple?

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Gemma Sykes 11.8

RS Course Work – Discipleship

  1. According to Mark, what did Jesus teach about the demands of being his disciple?

A disciple is someone who believes in and helps spread the teachings of another. Mark shows that being a disciple of Jesus meant being able to drop everything and follow Jesus, as we saw when the disciples were chosen.

When he saw Simon and Andrew, “Jesus said to them ‘come with me and I will teach you to catch men’. At once they left their nets and went with him”.  We see this again in Chp. 1, “they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and went with Jesus.”  On both these occasions, Mark is showing that one of the demands of being a disciple is being able to leave everything, including their family, at an instance and follow Jesus. The fact that they were able to do this, Mark is showing that to be a disciple of Jesus you must have great trust and faith in him.

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Another demand of discipleship, which Mark shows Jesus’ teaching about in Chp. 8, is that you must be prepared to die for your beliefs. “He must forget self, carry cross and follow me”. Here Mark is showing that Jesus is teaching that Discipleship comes before everything else, including your own life. When Jesus is talking about carrying the cross, he is saying that another demand of discipleship means you may be called upon to endure suffering or death.

This theme of suffering is shown also in Chp. 10 when Jesus asks James and John, “Can you drink the cup ...

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