Jesus kept telling his disciples, 'any one who has ears, let him hear.' Not everyone is going to understand the message, he told them. Not everyone wants to hear. But for those who do hear, there is an obligation.
"Consider carefully what you hear," he continued. "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." - Mark 4:24-25 NIV
After demonstrating to his disciples the power he received from God by healing the sick and demon possessed and by raising the dead, he went with the disciples to his home town where all of the townspeople looked down on him with derision because they knew his family and where he came from. After all, he was just the carpenters son. Only in his own town is a prophet without honor, he told his disciples, then he sent them out. These were his instructions: Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them."
They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. - Mark 6:8-13 NIV
The disciples had the same power that Jesus did. They had taken his word to heart and they knew that they had to give what had been given to them. But they would also be like Jesus in that their lives would not be the comfortable status quo. They would be the sowers of seed. They would go from town to town and often be ill received. They too would be prophets without honor.
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