In Mark 8:27-38 Jesus asks the disciples who they think he is and also talks about his suffering and death. Peter is the only disciple who could say who Jesus was; he said Jesus was the ‘messiah’. The disciples had seen Jesus perform many miracles but only Peter believed that Jesus was the ‘messiah’, this passage therefore shows that real belief comes through faith and not through what is seen.
Jesus told them about his suffering and death to show the disciples that he was not going to be the type of messiah they would expect. Many people including Peter wanted a warrior messiah who would lead the Jews to glory but Jesus was not that type of messiah. Peter did not like the idea of a messiah who would suffer like a servant and began to rebuke Jesus. However Jesus rebuked Peter blaming the way he thought on human nature. Jesus later said that the disciples who wanted to follow him must “forget self, carry his cross and follow him,” and said that only those willing to give up there lives for him would be able to save him. This means in order for someone to be a true Christian and be able to get into heaven they must be willing to make sacrifices just like Jesus did.
In Mark 9:14-29 Jesus helps his disciples to understand the importance of prayer. Jesus and his disciples were surrounded by a crowd, a man approached Jesus and said his son had been possessed by an evil spirit, the disciples had tried to get rid of the evil spirit but couldn’t. Jesus rebuked them for there lack of faith and headed off to the mans house with some disciples, on the way the man asked could Jesus help his son. Jesus replied “everything is possible for the person that has faith.” The man replied, “I have faith but not enough help me to have more”. Jesus healed the boy and when he and his disciples left they asked him why they couldn’t heal the boy and Jesus said, “only prayer can drive this kind out. Nothing else can.”
This passage shows how important prayer is to faith and how it can build up faith. When you have doubts you should pray to God to help you increase your faith.
In Mark 9:33-37 Jesus’ disciples were arguing about which one of them was the greatest disciple. Jesus heard them and said that to be great you must be a servant of everyone else; the disciples had misunderstood what discipleship meant. Jesus brought a child before them to make his point clear, the point he was making was that they needed the same qualities as a child, these qualities are innocence, be very trusting, have enthusiasm, they would need to do as they were told and not ask questions just like a child is supposed to, these qualities would help them to be a good disciple and help them get into heaven. This point is consolidated in Mark 10: 13-16 when Jesus was asked to bless some small children but the disciples scolded people and wouldn’t let them to Jesus. When Jesus saw this he told the disciples to let the people through to him. Jesus said “the kingdom of god belongs to people such as these, I assure you that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”
In Mark 10: 17-31 Jesus is talking to a rich young man, the young man asks Jesus what he has to do to get eternal life. Jesus tells him that to receive eternal life he must follow the Ten Commandments; the man says he has done this since he was young. Jesus then tells the man to sell all he has and give the money to the poor, and tells him to follow him (Jesus), and says this will give him eternal life and riches in heaven. The man was unable to give up his riches and therefore did not follow Jesus. Jesus tells his disciples it will be hard for a rich person to enter heaven, this statement shocks the disciples as they thought anyone could get into heaven. Jesus sees that the disciples are shocked and explains why it is difficult for a rich person to enter heaven, he says it would be as difficult for a rich man to get into heaven as it would for a camel to get through the eye of the needle because a rich man would find it extremely hard to give up his riches. People believe that what Jesus meant when he said the eye of the needle was a narrow gate leading to Jerusalem. It was virtually impossible for a camel carrying lots of baggage to get through; the image is representing a rich man trying to get into heaven carrying the baggage of his wealth.
James and John asked Jesus if he would let them sit next to him in the kingdom of God. Jesus asked them could they suffer and be baptised in the way he was, they both said that they would but Jesus to them that he could not choose who set next to him in heaven, it was God that would choose. Jesus told them to be the greatest disciple they must be the servant of the rest and whoever wants to be first must be a slave for all. Jesus then told them that God sent him down to serve not to be served. This means that we should be a servant of the church to be a good Christian and that through service greatness is achieved.
The disciples were with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked them to sit down and watch while he prayed. He took Peter, James, and John on further with him, he became overtaken with anguish and distress and told them to wait and keep look out and he went further on by himself. Jesus threw himself on the ground and prayed that he wouldn’t have to suffer. “ Take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet not what I want, but what you want.” When Jesus returned to where he left the disciples he found them asleep, he rebuked Peter. Jesus told them to stay awake and keep watch, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”
In Mark 16:14-18 after Jesus resurrected he appeared to the eleven disciples and scolded them for not having faith and because they were too stubborn to believe he was alive. Jesus said to them “go throughout the whole world and preach the gospel to the whole human race………believers will be given the power to perform miracles, they will drive out demons in my name, and they will speak in strange tongues.” Jesus scolded the disciples because they did not believe that he had risen from the dead like he had told them therefore they were being bad disciples. This passage shows us that to be a good disciple we must have lots of faith and if we have faith things can happen that are hard to believe.
A Christian today is someone who has faith in Jesus as he is the Son of God and believes he saved us from sin when he was crucified and died on the cross for us. Christians believe God is our creator and sustainer, they believe the bible is there guide, they believe the trinity, they believe in eternal life and believe in heaven. Christians listen to the gospel in two ways; the first is by reading it privately where they can really take to heart what they are reading and what is meant by the passage they are reading. The second way is by joining the Christian community in its parish worship, when reading the gospel this way they can learn what is going on with other people present and get there views about what is being said and can worship God together. We can live out the gospels values by doing several things; we can live our life by speaking the truth therefore making ourselves other people can trust. We can make sure that whatever we do is right (justice) we can fight against bullying, we can stand up for people that are being mistreated. We can fill our lives with love, like the bible says love our neighbour. We can share with people and not be selfish; we can share by donating to people who are less fortunate then us by giving money to charities like Cafod. We should show others with respect “treat others as we would wish to be treated”. We should be able to forgive people in our lives because everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect. And last but not least we should have compassion in our lives, and put our beliefs into practice. We can live a good Christian life today by doing all the things above and following the Ten Commandments. Examples of these are you should do what your parents tell you and you should not steal because these things are wrong. Being a good son or daughter will make your parents life a lot easier and make you a better person. Being a good friend is important because the disciples would help people who were troubled and if you are a good friend and your friend is troubled you should help them. The problems for Christians are a lot different from the first disciples, the first disciples were part of a minority group so everyone was against them but nowadays Christianity is the religion most people follow so it is not the case anymore. Christians today I would say have stronger faith then the first disciples because we believe Jesus was the Son of God but we have not much proof of this while they saw him perform miracles.
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To answer the question is it possible to be a true disciple of Jesus in the modern world is a complicated answer. A disciple is someone who is a follower or pupil of someone who then puts what they have been taught into practice. The qualities a disciple has to have are having faith because there is a lot of people who will oppose them and say what they believe is wrong. They will need to know how to pray so when they are troubled they can pray to God and this will help them to cope with what they are going through. They will need to spread the gospel so that people will learn about God and Jesus and become a good Christian. They will need to study the bible because this will help them to live their lives. They will need to be God centred because they will have to devote their lives to serving God. They will need to be slow to judge because they will have to be willing to forgive everyone and understand why they do what they do. They would need to be willing to change so they can serve God properly. What I will be discussing is if I think someone could achieve these things in our world today. It would be hard for a person to be a disciple in the world today because of the following reasons, this is not a religious world so they might think if there is a God why do all these bad things like war and terrorism occur so therefore they would not dedicate there lives to being a disciple. The oriented society is basically just money and materialistic goods so people might not bother wasting time serving God. The media influences lots of people and the media promotes non Christian values such as sex before marriage and adultery so people might be influenced to do what they see in the media. In some parts of the world Christians would be mocked for there believes so they might not worship God in fear of being mocked and seen as an outcast. In countries such as China and Iraq it is illegal to be a Christian so people that live in them countries may not put into practice what they believe in fear of incarceration. People may find it hard to believe that there is a God because science and philosophy have disputed religious claims people may believe the theories gave by science therefore they would not believe in God.
Even though there are all these obstacles people find it possible to lead a Christian life, what helps them to overcome these obstacles are, the holy spirit helps Christians through difficulties and opposition they face. Its not just nowadays that Christians find it hard to be a Christian, even when Jesus was alive and performing miracles he and his disciples faced difficulties so it is nothing new. Even through all the difficulties Christians have faced the facts show that Christianity has survived, Christianity is the largest religion in the world 32.8% of the world’s population is Christian. There have been 44 million Christian martyrs who have sacrificed there lives for there beliefs so this shows that people can come through the difficulties Christians face and have a strong faith. There are lots of examples of modern day Christians one of which is Oscar Romero who I have wrote about on a separate page, the modern day disciples had great faith in God even through the difficulties they had to face. Christians have done a lot for people doing as Jesus wanted (love thy neighbour), an example of this is the social and political changes in South Africa and Eastern Europe lead by Christian groups.
Discipleship is about a persons attitude and beliefs, I think it is possible for there to be modern day disciples as long as they have enough faith.
