“Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them” (Mark 6:8-11).
I received a letter from a couple who were going to the mission field for the first time. It listed their financial requirements: so much for support, so much for medical expenses, so much for insurance, pension, the cost of operating an automobile, travel to and from the field, overhead for the home office and so on. I was not disturbed by the letter. I was actually quite sympathetic. I knew that the requests were reasonable. Still I could not help contrasting their letter with the Lord’s commands to his disciples when they set out on their first mission journey. He told them to go without possessions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them” (Mark 6:8-11).
