What is a Christian disciple? What did Jesus expect of his disciples?

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What is a Christian disciple? What did Jesus expect of his disciples?

A Christian disciple is a person who follows the way and teachings of Jesus Christ. Mark shows that anything Jesus asked his disciples to do, he put into practice himself. These things were that Jesus had task given by God, he acted with power and authority, and his work caused great difficulty and suffered and died and was raised to life.

The call of the disciple was a call to follow Jesus and leave their lives behind. For Jesus to call disciples in this way was unusual since disciples always made their own way to follow a teacher rather then the teacher selecting them.

In the first two chapters in Mark's gospel, Jesus appoints five men to be his disciples. The first four were chosen by the lakeside in Galilee (1:16-20). They were fishermen. Simon and Andrew, his brothers were fishing while the other brothers were mending the nets, James and John. Jesus told them to leave everything and come with him. He said to Simon and Andrew that they were to become 'fishers of men', (1:17).

The other disciple called by Jesus was Levi. He was a tax collector. He was by the lakeside and Jesus told him to follow him and he rose and did.

In both cases we see Jesus speaking with authority and without saying anything the five men responded immediately to the call of Jesus. There are two points made. That Jesus has the authority to call the men and then to respond right away. The other is that Discipleship makes a total demand to leave everything and follow him.
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When he picked the whole twelve, they were expected to do three things: to be Jesus' companions, to preach and to cast out demons. (6:13)

The twelve stand for the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jesus instructed the twelve and sent them out to do the work that he had done. They were to travel in pairs. They were to be poor people. No bread, a beggar's bag, any money, any extra - clothing, they were allowed to wear sandals but not to have a second coat. They were to take nothing with them except a stick. ...

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