Mark 6:7-13
Sent Out Two by Two
7Then Jesus called the Twelve to Him and began to send them out two by two, giving them authority over unclean spirits.
8He instructed them to take nothing but a staff for the journey—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—
9and to wear sandals, but not a second tunic.
10And He told them, “When you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area.
11If anyone will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that place, as a testimony against them.”
12So they set out and preached that the people should repent.
13They also drove out many demons and healed many of the sick, anointing them with oil.
Berean Standard Bible
Jesus has just been turned away by the town that raised him, and what he does next is send twelve men out to do the work he has been doing. It is not the order most of us would pick. He does not wait for a better week.
They go out two by two, and none of them goes alone. He himself gets up before daylight and walks out to a quiet place to pray, so he plainly values being on his own, and he does not hand any of it to them here.
Then he tells them what to bring, and most of the list is what to leave behind: a staff and sandals and nothing else. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts, no second tunic. Each of those four is a way of arranging a journey so that you never have to ask anybody for anything. Bread means you eat tomorrow whatever happens. A bag means your supplies are your own. Coins mean a stranger will feed you without caring who you are. A spare tunic means a warm night even if no door opens. He takes all four away, so the plan now depends on somebody being willing to feed them.
Two instructions follow, and both are about houses. The first settles where they sleep.
When you enter a house, stay there until you leave that area.
They are not to trade up. If a wealthier family down the road makes a better offer on the third night, the answer is no, and the household that first took them in keeps them until they go.
The second instruction is harder to hear. It assumes that some of this work will land on people who want none of it.
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that place, as a testimony against them.
He is warning them before they set out that some of the people they go to will not welcome them or listen to them, and he does not tell them to stay longer and argue better. He gives them one small thing to do with their feet at the edge of town. Then they walk on with none of it stuck to them.
They went. Mark tells the entire trip in two sentences: they preached that people should repent, they drove out demons, and they anointed sick people with oil and healed them. These are the same men who had woken him in a storm to ask whether he cared that they were drowning.
How We Know
The pairing in verse 7 matches a rule in the law. Deuteronomy 19:15 says a lone witness is not sufficient to establish anything, and that a matter must be established by two or three witnesses.
Men sent to announce something and to be believed about it would be sent in twos for exactly that reason, so the arrangement is consistent with a legal requirement already in force rather than with a practical convenience.
Mark does not make the connection or quote the verse. He states the number, lists what they could not take, and moves to the instructions about the towns.
Questions
1 Jesus takes bread, a bag, money and spare clothes away from them. If you left tomorrow for a week, which of those would you miss first?
AnswerMost of us would say the money, because money stands in for all the rest of it. Whatever the answer is around this table, it is a way of saying what we rely on when nobody at the far end of the trip owes us anything.
2 What are the Twelve allowed to carry, and what are they told to leave?
AnswerA staff and sandals, and that is the whole permitted list. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts, no second tunic. Four different ways of being able to manage without the people they are going to.
3 What does Jesus tell them to do about a town that will not listen?
AnswerShake the dust off their feet on the way out, as a testimony against that place. He says it before they leave, so they go out already knowing that some of this will be refused, and knowing what to do with it when it is.
4 Why do you think he sends them out in twos rather than one at a time?
AnswerThe passage does not give a reason. What it does show is that he keeps nobody on his own for this, even though he goes off alone himself to pray. Whatever this work was, he did not build it to be carried by one person.
What This Means for Us
He sent them out short on purpose, and most of our effort goes the other way: a little more saved, a little more margin, so that whatever God asks of us will never cost more than we can cover. There is nothing wicked in wanting that. But every item he took off their list was a way of not needing people. Bread, bag, money, spare clothes.
So try one thing this week. Ask somebody for help with a job you could have finished alone, and let it be as awkward as it turns out to be. And when something you tried does not work, shake the dust off it instead of carrying it into next week.
Prayer
Father, we like being the ones who do not need anything. Thank you for sending people out with too little on purpose. Teach us to depend on you and on each other, and help us put down the things that did not work instead of dragging them along. Amen.