Jesus Sends Out the Twelve

By Pastor Vam Foung Vang

Mark 6:6-13 6 Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. 8 These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. 10 Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11 And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

These 12 disciples and hundreds from the 1st Century church went out to Jerusalem, Samaria and eventually to the ends of the world, preaching the Kingdom of God and making disciples of all Nations.

Charlotte Diggs Moon known to us as Lottie Moon, a heroine of the faith, in one of her letters to the Foreign Mission Board stated, “Please say to the [new] missionaries they are coming to a life of hardship, responsibility and constant self-denial.” Reading about her mission to China in the late 1800s, it is hard for us to imagine what struggles a well-to-do white American woman born in Virginia, and one of the first women to graduate with a Master’s degree in the South, had to overcome: culture, language, racial, food, living conditions, and many other hardships.

Some can say that 1st century Israel was not too different from 1800 China. For perspective, such technological conveniences as toilet paper, cars, telegraph, light bulbs, and many more were invented around the mid-1800s in the west. Maybe a little of this was reflected in her quote about hardship and responsibilities.

Lottie’s letters reveal her passion to serve Christ and the lost people of China, is palpable. Her passion and love come across when she retells her standing up against hundreds of years of cultural practices, such as feet binding for her female students. Or dressing up as a male government official and carried into Pingtung in a sedan during the Boxers Rebellion; to console and encouraged persecuted Chinese Christians.

Missionaries today have their share of struggles but what drives them forward must always be compassion for the lost persons that becomes more than theology and sermon points – but real persons they hug, eat with, and risk their career or life for. Lottie reminds us that she is compelled because Christ set us free and the lost needs this same Savior. The missionaries in 1st century Israel and Lottie still remind us of 1 John (1 John 4:19), “We love because he first loved us.”

Reflections:

Am I obedient to Christ Great Commission?
Is there a mission field in my family and neighbors?
What is the easiest step I can take to be as fire up as Lottie Moon for my own family that are not saved?

(Photo Credit: IMB)