Discipleship: The Call, the Cost and Living It Today
The Call of the Disciples
Discipleship in Mark’s Gospel begins with a simple, urgent invitation. In Mark 1:14–20, Jesus walks beside the Sea of Galilee and calls Simon and Andrew, then James and John. Each time, the response is immediate: “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” There is no lengthy deliberation, no negotiation. The disciples abandon their livelihoods on the spot. In Mark 2:13–17, Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector — a figure despised as a Roman collaborator — with the same two words: “Follow me.” Levi gets up and follows.
This pattern communicates something important about what Mark means by discipleship: it is a total reorientation of life, not a part-time commitment. Scholars note that in the ancient world, students usually chose their rabbi; here, Jesus chooses his disciples. This reversal is deliberate. The disciples did not graduate to follow Jesus — they were called, often from ordinary working lives, and they left everything in response.
In Mark 6:7–13, Jesus sends out the Twelve on a mission. He sends them “two by two” and instructs them to “take nothing for the journey except a staff — no bread, no bag, no money in their belts.” They are to travel light, depend on the hospitality of others, and preach repentance. This commissioning extends the model: discipleship is not just internal formation but active participation in Jesus’s mission.
The Parables of Discipleship
Two parables in Mark address what discipleship looks like in practice.
The Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1–20) describes four kinds of soil: the path (no response), rocky ground (initial enthusiasm that withers), thorny ground (choked by wealth and worries), and good soil (bearing fruit). Jesus explains that the seed is “the word.” The parable is a sobering map of how differently people receive the invitation to follow Jesus, and it connects directly to the Kingdom of God — the disciples are called to be “good soil,” remaining receptive to God’s word even when life makes it difficult.
The Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12:1–12) is an allegory about Israel’s history of rejecting God’s messengers. The vineyard owner sends servants (the prophets) and finally his “beloved son” (Jesus). Each is rejected or killed. The parable ends with the owner’s judgement on the tenants. For Christians, this parable shows that true discipleship means recognising the Son and accepting the cost of that recognition, even when rejection and suffering follow.
The Rich Man and the Cost of Discipleship (Mark 10:17–31)
In Mark 10:17–31, a man runs up to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. He claims to have kept all the commandments from youth. Jesus looks at him with love and says: “One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” The man goes away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus then says: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
This passage shows the cost of discipleship in concrete terms: it may require surrendering wealth, status and security. It connects to the Kingdom of God — present discipleship and future reward are linked. The disciples are astonished and ask who can be saved; Jesus replies: “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Peter then notes that they have left everything — Jesus assures him of reward “in this present age” and in “the age to come.”
In Mark 10:17–31, Jesus tells the rich man to sell all his possessions, and then says “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” This striking image shows that discipleship may demand the surrender of everything that competes with God.
The Failure and Problems of Discipleship
Mark’s account of discipleship is unflinchingly honest about human failure. In Mark 9:14–29, the disciples who remained behind while Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration are unable to drive out a spirit from a boy. The father cries: “I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” Jesus heals the boy and privately tells the disciples: “This kind can come out only by prayer.” Their failure is a lesson in the limits of disciples acting on their own authority without relying on God.
Most dramatically, Peter — the first and most prominent disciple — denies Jesus three times in Mark 14:66–72. A servant girl twice identifies him as a follower of Jesus; bystanders also challenge him. Each time Peter denies it, the last time with curses. The rooster crows. Peter “broke down and wept.” This is the same Peter who confidently declared “You are the Messiah.” His failure shows that discipleship is not a matter of confidence or strength but of grace. For Christians, Peter’s later restoration (implied by Mark 16:7 — the angel says “tell the disciples and Peter”) shows that failure is not the end.
In Mark 10:41–45, the other ten disciples are angry because James and John have asked to sit at Jesus’s right and left. Jesus calls them together and says: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” This teaching on servant leadership defines the purpose of discipleship: not status but service, modelled on Jesus himself.
Women in the Ministry of Jesus
Mark’s Gospel gives significant attention to women as disciples, which was countercultural in the first century. In Mark 7:25–30, a Greek (Syrophoenician) woman approaches Jesus and persistently argues for her daughter’s healing. Jesus initially responds with what sounds like a rebuff, but she persists. Jesus praises her response and heals her daughter. She shows tenacity and faith in a context where Gentile women would not normally address a Jewish rabbi. Many scholars read her as a model disciple — persistent, faithful, willing to engage with rejection.
In Mark 14:3–9, an unnamed woman breaks an alabaster jar of expensive perfume and pours it over Jesus’s head. Some of those present are indignant at the “waste.” Jesus defends her: “She has done a beautiful thing to me… wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told.” Her act anticipates Jesus’s burial anointing. It is a profound act of devotion that those watching fail to recognise.
In Mark 15:40–47 and 16:1–8, it is women — Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome — who are present at the crucifixion, witness the burial, and are the first to hear the resurrection proclamation. The male disciples have fled. This pattern of female faithfulness at the cross and tomb is significant for Christian understandings of women’s role in the Church.
Mark 8:34 contains Jesus’s definition of discipleship: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Three modern Christians are studied as examples of costly discipleship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian. His book The Cost of Discipleship (1937) argued that “cheap grace” — Christianity without cost or commitment — was a heresy. Genuine discipleship required what he called “costly grace.” He put his beliefs into practice: he joined the resistance against Hitler’s Nazi regime and was arrested in 1943. He was executed at Flossenbürg concentration camp on 9 April 1945, just weeks before the end of the war. His example embodies Mark 8:34 — he literally took up a cross.
Oscar Romero (1917–1980) was the Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador. In a deeply divided society, he became an outspoken advocate for the poor and the victims of state violence. His outspokenness made him a target. He was assassinated on 24 March 1980, shot while celebrating Mass at a hospital chapel. He was canonised by Pope Francis on 14 October 2018. His life shows discipleship as prophetic witness even at the cost of death.
Mother Teresa (1910–1997) was an Albanian-Indian Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata in 1950. She devoted her life to serving “the poorest of the poor” — the sick, the dying, and those abandoned on the streets. She connected her service explicitly to Mark 10:45 — the one who came “not to be served, but to serve.” She was canonised by Pope Francis on 4 September 2016.
The three modern disciples all embody Mark 8:34 (“deny themselves and take up their cross”): Bonhoeffer (German Lutheran pastor, executed 1945 for resisting Hitler), Romero (Archbishop of El Salvador, assassinated 1980 while defending the poor), Mother Teresa (Albanian-Indian nun, founded Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata 1950, canonised 2016). All three were canonised or recognised by the Church as heroes of faith.
From an atheist or Humanist perspective, religious observance such as discipleship can be seen as unnecessary. Humanists argue that compassion, service and ethical commitment do not require a religious framework — Bonhoeffer’s courage against the Nazis, or Mother Teresa’s care for the dying, reflects universal human values that anyone can hold regardless of belief. They might also question whether religious motivation can sometimes lead people in the wrong direction — history contains examples of harmful actions done in the name of following religious commands.
Christians respond that the examples of Bonhoeffer, Romero and Mother Teresa show discipleship producing exactly the kind of self-giving, justice-seeking, care-for-the-marginalised that Humanists also value — and that the explicit connection to Jesus’s teaching in Mark provides both motivation and a consistent framework for costly action that secular ethics can also affirm.