AO 2 In the world today, discipleship in Mark's Gospel is being used as a guide to the modern disciple. The disciples in Mark's Gospel are good role models for Christians today. Disciples were taught to care for one another and always put others before...

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

AO 2

In the world today, discipleship in Mark’s Gospel is being used as a guide to the modern disciple. The disciples in Mark’s Gospel are good role models for Christians today. Disciples were taught to care for one another and always put others before themselves; this is reflected in Christians today. An example of a disciple like this is Bob Geldof who is a good role model who helped raise money by using his talent and the talent of others. Another example of disciples like this is the organisation Amnesty International who together fight for the rights of others.

In the calling of the disciples Jesus chose twelve men, he did not chose men of status or wealth he chose men with faith. This is reflected in modern Christian life how we too can be called into religious order or priesthood, we all answer a call at baptism to become a Christian, a disciple of Christ. In this we have to be a good role model to all Christians, in doing this we can do simple things like praying or going to mass and fulfilling the command at the end of mass.

In becoming a disciple there is sacrifices to make, they had to leave their family/ friends all material possessions and give up any wealth or power. The disciples were sent on their journey to carry out three duties they were; preach repention, drive out evil spirits and to anoint people with oil and heal them. The mission of the church remains the same as the mission of the twelve, many people still go out and preach. Organisation throughout the world continue to go out and care for the sick, feed the hungry, fight against injustice and preach the message ...

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Many individuals go out of their way to make a difference by giving up their life to help and support those in need, an example of this type of person is the Pope who brought endeavoured to bring peace to countries and visited the sick/poor, another shining example was Mother Theresa who devoted her life to caring for the sick and under privileged in the third world. We ourselves can do simple things like giving up our spare time to care for an elderly, work for a charity that you admire or even by just praying makes us a better disciple.

To become a good disciple today we must have hope in God, believe in the resurrection of Jesus and the grace and glory of God. We must be able to accept failure, Peter accepted failure in his denial against Jesus. Many times we see Peter speak out and defend his mission, however by the same token there are many times when Peter struggled with his understanding of faith and courage. One of the most significant times that Peter lacked faith was his denial in the courtyard, here Peter’s courage failed him and he wepted with realisation of what he done. This gives comfort to the Christians to know that Peter failed because we too experience times of anxiety and despair. Jesus forgave Peter and will continue to forgive us for our sins if we repent. Jesus also forgave the disciples for falling into weakness, when they were asked to stay awake and pray with Jesus but they gave into temptation and fell asleep. This can shows how easy we can be lead into temptation by material possessions. The point is to keep trying to use our experiences to form a deep and lasting relationship with God.

The importance of being a good disciple in the modern world is not to give into temptation, things like material possessions, riches and power. We must give a good example to future generations by going to mass, giving to charity, fulfilling commands given at end of mass and by putting others before ourselves.