Sunday 15 October 2017

Apostolic Poverty

In Mark 6:7-13 and parallel passages in Matthew and Luke Jesus gives orders to his tweleve amjor disciples as to how they were to dress and equip themselves for ministry.

He commands paraaggelloo them to take/ lift off  airoo nothing  with them expect a staff , ei mee rabdon monos, and maybe a few copper khalkon coins tucked in their belt. They are not to carry bread or a leather bag, peran, and not to wear 2 tunics, just one and sandals.

Matthew differs in commanding them to have no gold silver or copper, don't carry any money,.

The differences very small may be due to him having to reissue this order a few times and varying or altering it perhaps because well meaning relatives tried to load down the boys with bags of flat bread or spare sandals or fancy walking sticks that were not plain wood?

The modern equivalent of this might be going out street preaching with nothing in your pockets, literally nothing, meeden, mee, is used in greek, and not even using public transport?

However there was no public transport system in ancient Palestine / Galilee and these men were walking much shorter distances between villages and used to walking!

Bear in mind the sandals were probably quite plain and more like thongs or havianas, a toe strap, maybe an ankle strap or a strap across the top of  the foot and they probably may have had a cloak for rough weather?

Verses like this contributed to the later practices of monastic poverty!

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