St Mark’s Gospel and Meaning of Discipleship

St Mark’s Gospel and Meaning of Discipleship

Reading Mark’s Gospel tells you a lot about discipleship. It contains

several information to help Christians about being a disciple. The

Gospel gets its message across about discipleship through stories,

parables and examples of others in today’s modern world and in the

past.

Everybody has their own idea of what a disciple is but many are not to

sure about what is required from a disciple because discipleship is

very complex.

Straight away in Mark’s Gospel, in the first section it talks about

spreading the Good news. This is required from every disciple, where

ever you go you should preach the word and not be ashamed of your God.

For it is written (9:38) ‘If a person is ashamed of me and my teaching

in this godless and wicked day, then the Son of Man will be ashamed of

him…’.

Faith is absolutely essential for discipleship. Christians believe and

trust in God completely, otherwise why would they follow him. Jesus

said (9:23) ‘Everything is possible for the person who has faith’.

Many miracles in the Gospel required faith such as Jairus’ daughter

and the Epileptic boy. To be a disciple you must believe God has all

the power and surely does love you. But there are times us Christians

lack faith, such as The calming of the storm. The disciples thought

they were going to die even though Jesus was in the boat with them.

Discipleship plays a big role in Mark’s Gospel. It is important for

Christians today as it was for the first disciples. Just because

society has changed doesn’t mean discipleship must change as well. A

true disciple is someone who gives there full service to God is not

done in a half - hearted way.

In discipleship there are four main stages. The first is responsive.

This is shown in Mark 1:20, when the first four disciples immediately

left everything including their families to follow Jesus.

The next is misunderstanding. This when the disciples had no faith in