Jesus has been modeling what ministry looks like to all who care to watch Him. He is doing that by preaching repentance, calling people to God’s Kingdom and traveling through the area demonstrating the reality of God’s Kingdom, “teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.”
To this point, Jesus has been very public in His ministry. He taught extensively from the sermon mount and He healed people along the way. He freed people from demonic oppression and possession whenever He encountered them and whenever they were brought to Him. He even raised the dead!
All of this has been in close proximity to the disciples. He has been teaching them how to respond to sickness, to the demonic and to the myriad of human need in a broken world. He has modelled preaching and teaching and the operation of the spiritual gifts of spiritual discernment and healing and as ways of revealing the Kingdom to others. Yet to this point He hasn’t asked His disciples to actually do anything more than simply follow. They have simply been observers. No doubt keen observers, because they left everything to follow this man Jesus. But they were just observers, watching and listening – drinking in all they could of the work and methods He was demonstrating.
Called to follow, they were patiently waiting for their Master to call them to the work itself. Now that moment finally arrives, “He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.”
Every Christian is supposed to do as Jesus did. But there are prerequisites to spiritual ministry. One cannot simply make a personal decision for Christ and immediately start to wage spiritual war. To overcome the demonic, one must have more than a wish to be able to do so. One must have more than words and more than a cloak and tunic. One must have understood something of the protocols of heaven. For without understanding of how, one will be lost for practicalities.
Jesus spent significant time with the disciples so they could see how He dealt with spirits of infirmity (in healing all manner of disease), how He dealt with spirits of incapacity (in healing all manner of handicap) and how He dealt with spirits of oppression (in casting out the demonic). They have seen and observed and learned much. One must also have the Word of God entrenched in your being. For without God’s Word, one cannot speak past the boundary of our physical world. Jesus has preached and taught so that the disciples might know the Word of God better than they have evener known it. They have heard Him from the sermon mount, along the way and in homes and synagogues throughout the area. He has prepared them well.
Yet Jesus knew they must have even more than all that observation could grant. They must have spiritual authority. For without authority, they will be decimated by counterattack. It is the authority of Christ that gives a disciple the ability to not merely force a demon out of its chosen place, but to direct it away from those it would cause harm to. Spiritual ministry requires authority, and the disciple who purposes to act without first receiving an impartation of authority is headed to disaster!
If Satan can defeat a Christian leader, he can cripple a whole ministry and discredit the cause of Christ.
Warren Wiersbe
APPLICATION: Thankfulness
The same Christ who gave authority to the apostles still gives authority to His disciples today. Thank God for thee authority He has given you to be salt and light, bringing His peace, righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit wherever you go.