Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 3 Study # 3
October 22, 2019
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(116)
1901 ASV
14 And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach,
15 And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils:
16 And Simon he surnamed Peter;
17 And James the [
son] of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder:
18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the [
son] of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite,
19 And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him: and they went into an house.
- I. Jesus' "Ordination" of Twelve.
- A. Again, the translators have let us down.
- 1. The word (poieo), translated "ordained" (Authorized Version) or "appointed" (ASV; NASB) by translators, is used in 519 texts in the New Testament (according to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance) and is translated by the English word "ordained" once and "appointed" once. What's wrong with this picture? The almost total lack of awareness, by translators in general, of the crucial interpretive issue of "literary design" (see Elliot Johnson's Expository Hermeneutics), without which any "interpretation" is simply a wild guess, has produced the plethora of translations in existence at this present time that universally mis-translate on a multitude of occasions. It is a sad oversight (thankfully over-compensated by our gracious God so that we are not totally ignorant of His truth and that we Live in Him by His enormous grace).
- 2. If they had not let us down, we would be able to clearly see the link between Mark 1:17 and our current text (3:14).
- a. In 1:17 Mark records, using poieo, Jesus' declaration that He intends to "make" (poieo) Simon and Andrew "fishers of men" by the use of the "metaphor" of what they are actually doing at that minute ("casting a net into the sea"). As "fishers of men" they will be casting "doctrinal nets" into the "sea" of humanity to "catch" God's elect unto salvation and Life.
- b. Now, in 3:14, Mark records, using poieo, the actual beginning of Jesus' pursuit of the promise He made to Simon and Andrew, though, at this time, the objects of His promise have been increased to "twelve" (with a temporarily hidden reality that one of those twelve would never be "made" a "fisher of men" as he was chosen because he was a "devil" (John 6:70).
- B. The mis-translated word (poieo).
- 1. The general, underlying, sense of this word is "to bring something about". In the first use by Mark in 1:3, there is a "cry" to "...make His paths straight...". The sense here is that the paths are crooked and need to be addressed in some way to "straighten" them. In the next use (1:17) we have the commitment by Jesus to Simon and Andrew, already mentioned in these notes. The "point" is that Jesus is going to take a couple of "crooked" men, whose lives are twisted up around "making a living by fishing", and "straighten" them by giving them a greater "Life" and a more important "way of pursuit" for that "Life".
- 2. In our current text, Jesus "made twelve in order that...". The idea is that, out of all those whom "He wanted", He "made [a group of] twelve" so that they might be "with" Him and that He might send them forth "to preach" and to have authority "to cast out demons".
- a. He "made" a group of "twelve" to be a special unit who were to be (excepting one) His "friends" (John 15:14-15) so that they might take on the "status" of "surrogates" in His future absence and fulfill His decreed "destiny" for them as both "fishers of men" and "menders of nets".
- 1) That He made up this group with twelve men is significant because the number "twelve" in Hebrew thought is a combination of "four" (the number of representation of a unit; two for evangelism and two for edification) and "three" (the number of adequacy as a multiplier of the original representative). In the final state of affairs, there will be twelve gates to the City, twelve foundation stones for its resting place, twelve thrones for the tribes of Israel, etc., etc.).
- 2) The point is: Jesus chose "twelve" because He had the Plan of the Final Kingdom in mind and He "wanted" three times four so that the people would have adequate representation in His Kingdom and an adequate foundation in their labors for that eventuality.
- b. This "special unit" was to be "with Him".
- 1) The initial action by the first four of these twelve (dropping everything and following Him) was to be "hardened" into a lifestyle.
- 2) The rationale for this "hardening" is clear from the text: they needed to be "with Him" because He intended them to become His surrogates at the point in the future when He was "taken up from them". They could not "do this" without being "with Him" day in and day out because they needed to learn the ropes of their surrogacy.
- a) There was "doctrine" to be learned so that they could "preach".
- b) There was "technique" to be learned so that they could "cast out demons". [Note: there are textual "issues" in the Textus Receptus that have resulted in the idea that they were also going to be "healing"; a reality in history, but not in our text. The focus of Mark at this point is the "old" point of 1:27: His "doctrine" was established as "authoritative" by "exorcisms", not "healings".]
- c. This "special unit" was also to be "sent out" by Him.
- 1) This "sending forth" was so that they might "preach".
- a) According to 1:38, this was the original commission to Jesus by His Father.
- b) Now, in our current text, Jesus is extending His commission to them so that they might be united with Him in the pursuit of His Father's agenda, as evidenced by His commission of His "Beloved Son".
- c) And, as the record of Acts indicates, this was a continued commission.
- i. According to Mark 1:15, Jesus' "preaching" was concerned with "repentance and faith".
- ii. According to the author of the Acts, the disciples were commissioned by Jesus, just before His ascension, to preach "repentance and remission of sins" to all nations (Luke 24:47).
- iii. According to Luke, in Acts, this commission was diligently pursued as the "preaching" of "repentance ... and faith" (Acts 20:21) by Paul until his death.
- 2) This "sending forth" was also so that they might "cast out demons".
- a) This was the original "sign" of the "authority" of the message so that men might "believe".
- b) This ability was, by Jesus, extended to His "twelve" for the very same purpose: to set before men a "sign" that this "new doctrine" (1:27) might be accepted as "truth" by men who had been, up till now, steeped in demonic doctrines and who were "without hope" before God. Do we realize how massive is this task of drawing "men" out of the morass of the "sea of humanity" thoroughly indoctrinated in lies? It is no wonder that the commitment to James and John was that Jesus would make them "menders" of the "nets" of doctrine so the "Truth" prevails. That the "Twelve" could cast out demons simply made their "doctrine" impossible to side-step.