Faith and Discipleship

Following Jesus begins with a response

A disciple is a follower or learner. In Mark, discipleship means more than agreeing with Jesus’ ideas: it involves following him, learning from him and continuing his work. Faith therefore has a practical dimension. Trust in Jesus changes what people do and what they put first.

The first disciples: leaving the nets behind

In Mark 1:16–20, Jesus walks beside the Sea of Galilee and sees Simon, later known as Peter, and his brother Andrew casting a fishing net. He calls them: “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” They immediately leave their nets and follow him.

Jesus then sees James and John, the sons of Zebedee, repairing their nets in a boat. They also respond immediately, leaving their father with the hired men.

“Fish for people” is a metaphor. Jesus takes an activity familiar to these fishermen and gives it a new purpose: instead of catching fish, they will bring people to God. Their ordinary working lives become the starting point for a different calling.

The repeated emphasis on their immediate response shows Jesus’ authority and the strength of their commitment. Leaving nets means leaving their work and livelihood; leaving Zebedee shows that family ties are also affected. The call creates a new community around Jesus, but joining it has a cost.

For Christians today, this can support a lifelong commitment rather than occasional religious interest. Some express that commitment through religious life or missionary work. Others remain in ordinary employment and family life, allowing faith to shape their priorities, decisions and treatment of other people. Following Jesus does not therefore take exactly the same form for every Christian.

The woman with a haemorrhage: faith in a desperate situation

In Mark 5:24b–34, Jesus is travelling to help Jairus’s daughter, surrounded by a crowd. A woman in the crowd has suffered bleeding for twelve years. She has endured treatment from many doctors and spent everything she had, yet her condition has become worse rather than better.

Her suffering is more than physical. Under Jewish ritual purity rules, her bleeding makes her ritually unclean, restricting participation in religious life. Ritual uncleanness is not the same as moral wrongdoing, but it could bring isolation and shame.

Having heard about Jesus, she approaches him from behind and touches his cloak. She believes, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately the bleeding stops, and she feels that she has been healed.

Jesus becomes aware that power has gone out from him and asks who touched his clothes. The disciples are puzzled because the crowd is pressing around him. Nevertheless, Jesus looks for the person, and the woman comes forward, trembling with fear, falls before him and tells him the whole truth. Her fear can be understood against the purity rules: touching another person while unclean could be regarded as making that person unclean too.

Instead of rebuking her, Jesus says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Calling her “daughter” treats her with dignity and belonging. His public response provides reassurance as well as recognising her healing. Mark directs attention to her trust in Jesus, not to his clothing as a magical object.

The woman is not one of the Twelve, yet she shows striking faith. Christians may understand this as encouragement to trust God during suffering and to treat vulnerable people with compassion. It does not establish that every faithful person will recover from illness, or that someone who remains ill lacks faith. The woman had already sought medical treatment; faith and seeking medical help need not be opposites.

A non-religious reader may reject the miraculous explanation while still valuing the attention given to a distressed person and the importance of seeking help rather than suffering alone.

The mission of the Twelve: learning to share Jesus’ work

In Mark 6:7–13, Jesus sends the Twelve out two by two and gives them authority over unclean spirits. Working in pairs provides companionship and protection, as well as witnesses to their message and actions. They are now taking part in the work they have seen Jesus perform.

Jesus gives specific instructions about travelling light. They may take a staff and wear sandals, but must take no bread, no bag and no money, and must not wear two tunics. These restrictions require them to rely on hospitality rather than their own supplies. Christians interpret this as training in dependence on God and the generosity of others.

When welcomed into a house, they must stay there until they leave that place. This encourages acceptance of the hospitality offered rather than searching for more comfortable accommodation. If people refuse to welcome them or listen, they must shake the dust off their feet as they leave, as a testimony against that rejection. The gesture expresses the seriousness of refusing the message; it also shows that the disciples are to move on rather than force people to listen.

The Twelve carry out three connected tasks: they preach that people should repent, cast out demons, and anoint sick people with oil and heal them. Repentance means turning away from sin and changing one’s life. Their mission therefore combines a religious message with care for people who are suffering.

For Christians today, this can support both evangelism and practical service. Some become missionaries; others visit the sick, volunteer at food banks or support development work. Organisations such as CAFOD and Christian Aid express Christian commitment through practical assistance. The use of oil also connects with the Catholic sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. Christians differ in how they apply the passage: many understand the travelling restrictions as instructions for this particular mission, while retaining the wider lessons of trust, simplicity and service.

Commitment and the cost of discipleship

In Mark 8:34–38, Jesus addresses the crowd as well as his disciples. He says that anyone wishing to follow him must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. The demand is therefore not limited to the Twelve.

Self-denial means putting loyalty to Jesus ahead of selfish desires and personal advantage. “Take up your cross” is a severe image: the cross was an instrument of execution. It means readiness to face suffering and even death for faith, rather than merely tolerating everyday inconveniences.

Jesus then contrasts saving and losing life. Those who try to preserve their life at the expense of faith will lose it, while those who lose their life for Jesus and the gospel will save it. Christians understand this in relation to eternal life: protecting present comfort or survival is not the highest good.

His question about gaining the whole world but forfeiting one’s life challenges materialism. Wealth and success cannot compensate for losing what ultimately matters. He also warns that the Son of Man will be ashamed of those who are ashamed of him and his words when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels. Public loyalty to Jesus is linked with future judgement.

This develops the fishermen’s response: they do not merely admire Jesus while carrying on unchanged. Today, costly discipleship may mean giving up comfort, resisting materialistic priorities or remaining faithful despite ridicule or persecution. Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, spoke against injustice and state violence in El Salvador and was assassinated during Mass in 1980. His commitment offers a concrete example of service that carried a serious personal cost.

Rewards now and in the age to come

In Mark 10:28–31, Peter tells Jesus, “We have left everything and followed you.” Jesus replies that those who have left a house, family members or fields for him and the good news will receive a hundredfold in the present age: houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—“with persecutions”—and eternal life in the age to come.

The present reward can be understood through the new community of believers. Those who have lost familiar support gain belonging and access to the care and resources of a much wider family. This includes practical support as well as spiritual encouragement; it is not a promise that every disciple will become personally wealthy.

The qualification “with persecutions” matters. Rewards do not remove the costs of discipleship. Christian community and opposition may be experienced together. Eternal life is the future reward, distinct from the support available now.

Jesus concludes, “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” This reverses ordinary measures of success and status. Wealth, influence and social importance do not guarantee a privileged position before God.

Are the sacrifices worthwhile?

A Christian may argue that discipleship is worthwhile because loyalty to Jesus, belonging to a supportive community and the hope of eternal life matter more than wealth or status. Sacrifice can also benefit others, as Romero’s defence of vulnerable people illustrates.

A different view questions whether such losses are justified. Giving up income or leaving family can affect dependants, not just the disciple. An atheist or humanist may value courage and compassion but reject eternal life as a reason for sacrifice, instead judging actions by their effects on human wellbeing. Even a Christian may argue that responsible service often means remaining in work and fulfilling family duties rather than leaving them.

A justified conclusion should distinguish freely chosen, compassionate service from hardship pursued for its own sake. Mark presents suffering as a possible cost of faith, not as something automatically good. Whether the ultimate rewards justify that cost also depends on whether someone accepts Jesus’ authority and the promise of eternal life.

Peter’s promise: confidence before the test

In Mark 14:27–31, after the Last Supper, Jesus tells the disciples that they will all have their faith shaken and abandon him. He quotes scripture: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be dispersed.” The image connects Jesus, the shepherd, with the disciples, the sheep: when he is struck down, they will scatter. Yet Jesus also promises that after his resurrection he will go ahead of them to Galilee. Their coming failure is not presented as the end of their relationship with him.

Peter insists that even if everyone else loses faith, he will not. Jesus replies that that very night, before the cock crows twice, Peter will deny him three times. To deny Jesus here means to disown any connection with him. Peter protests that he would die with Jesus rather than deny him, and all the other disciples make the same promise.

Peter’s confidence makes what follows especially striking. He understands that loyalty might cost his life, but promising courage is easier than showing it when danger arrives.

Three denials in the courtyard

In Mark 14:66–72, Jesus has been arrested and taken to the high priest. Peter has followed at a distance and is warming himself in the courtyard below while Jesus is being questioned.

The accusations and denials become increasingly public and forceful:

• First denial: one of the high priest’s servant girls sees Peter warming himself and says that he was with Jesus the Nazarene. Peter denies it, claiming that he neither knows nor understands what she means, and moves into the outer courtyard.
• Second denial: the same girl tells the bystanders, “This man is one of them.” Peter denies it again.
• Third denial: the bystanders insist that Peter is one of Jesus’ followers because he too is a Galilean. Peter begins to curse and swear, declaring, “I do not know this man.”

Immediately the cock crows a second time. Peter remembers Jesus’ prediction of three denials before two crowings. He breaks down and weeps. The contrast between his earlier promise to die with Jesus and his repeated disowning of him reveals how severely his faith has failed under pressure.

Failure, repentance and contrasting views of Peter

Christians in contemporary Britain may judge Peter’s actions as wrong and cowardly. He denies a friend at Jesus’ most vulnerable moment and fails to live out the costly loyalty Jesus taught. His behaviour also warns believers against assuming that strong declarations of faith make them immune to failure.

Others, Christian or non-religious, may judge him more sympathetically. He has shown some courage by following Jesus into the courtyard, but he is alone and may fear arrest or death himself. Followers of someone accused of treason could face imprisonment or execution. From this perspective, his denials are an understandable response to danger rather than evidence that he never cared about Jesus.

Many Christians also find the story encouraging. Even a leading disciple fails, and Peter’s tears are understood as a sign of remorse and repentance. At the empty tomb, the messenger specifically tells the women to inform “his disciples and Peter” that Jesus will meet them in Galilee (Mark 16:7). Christians interpret Peter’s inclusion as reassurance of forgiveness and restoration: he has not been permanently rejected. He later becomes a leading figure in the Church; Catholics recognise him as the first Pope. Failure need not prevent renewed discipleship.

There are also contrasting interpretations of the account’s origin. Some regard it as an eyewitness account coming from Peter himself, since no other disciple is mentioned in the courtyard. Others understand it as a story developed to encourage believers facing persecution who felt they had failed. These interpretations differ over historical authority, but both can recognise its message about human weakness and perseverance.

A balanced judgement can acknowledge that Peter’s fear helps explain his actions without making his disloyalty right. For Christians, the important response to failure is repentance and renewed commitment, rather than despair. A humanist may draw a similar lesson about admitting mistakes and allowing people another chance without accepting the religious claims about resurrection and forgiveness.

The final commission: imperfect followers are entrusted with a mission

In Mark 16:14–20, the risen Jesus appears to the eleven disciples while they are eating. He rebukes their lack of faith because they have not believed those who reported seeing him alive. Yet he still entrusts them with a task: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” Like Peter’s inclusion in the message about Galilee, this shows that the disciples’ failure does not end their calling.

This is a commission: work they must undertake on Jesus’ behalf. Its worldwide scope develops the earlier promise that they would “fish for people”. Their responsibility is no longer simply to accompany Jesus, but to carry his message to others.

Jesus connects belief and baptism with salvation and warns that unbelief brings condemnation. For Christians who regard the Gospel as authoritative, this gives evangelism serious importance: sharing faith concerns people’s relationship with God, not merely increasing membership of a church.

The passage also describes signs accompanying believers: driving out demons in Jesus’ name, speaking in “new tongues”, meaning new languages, protection involving snakes and deadly substances, and healing through laying hands on the sick. Speaking new languages enables communication with people beyond the followers’ own language community, fitting the worldwide mission. Within the narrative, these signs confirm the message and show divine support for the mission. They should not be treated as instructions to handle snakes or drink poison to test faith.

The ascension: Jesus’ departure does not end his work

Mark describes Jesus being taken into heaven and sitting “at the right hand of God”. This is a position of honour, expressing his exalted status and authority. The ascension is therefore more than a departure: it presents Jesus as sharing heavenly glory.

The disciples then preach everywhere, while the Lord works with them and confirms their message through signs. Although Jesus is no longer accompanying them in the same visible way, the account presents their mission as continuing with his support.

Significance in contemporary Britain

Christians can apply the commission through preaching, teaching, missionary activity, charitable work and everyday conduct. Some emphasise explicitly inviting others to Christian faith; others place particular emphasis on showing that faith through service. These approaches can overlap rather than being alternatives.

An atheist or humanist might respect the disciples’ commitment and the value of caring for others without accepting the resurrection, miracles or ascension. They might also question the claim that unbelief brings condemnation, arguing that moral worth should be assessed through conduct rather than religious belief.

The central disagreement concerns authority. A Christian who accepts Mark as scripture may regard Jesus’ commission as binding. Someone who does not recognise that authority may assess its ethical ideas independently. Both can value compassionate action, while disagreeing about the religious explanation and ultimate purpose of that action.