<p>6:7 <em>And he called the twelve- </em>Mt. &quot;called to him&quot;, implying they were not always with Him. But there seems an intended contrast between calling them to Him, and then sending them forth (:5). They were with Him when they were away from Him. It is simply so, that when we witness, the words we speak are in effect the words of Jesus. Our words are His. This is how close we are to Him. And this is why our deportment and manner of life, which is the essential witness, must be in Him. For He is articulated to the world through us. And it explains the paradox of the parallel record in Mk. 3:14, whereby Jesus chose men that they should &ldquo;be with Him and that He might send them forth to preach&rdquo;. As they went out to witness, they were with Him, just as He is with us in our witness, to the end of the world both geographically and in time. And this solves another Marcan paradox, in Mk. 4:10: &ldquo;When He was alone, they that were about Him with the twelve asked Him&hellip;&rdquo;. Was He alone, or not? Mark speaks as if when the Lord was away from the crowd and with His true followers, He was &ldquo;alone&rdquo;- for He counted them as one body with Him. This was why the Lord told Mary, when she so desperately wanted to be personally with Him, to go and preach to His brethren (Jn. 20:18), just as He had told some of those whom He had healed- for going and preaching Him was in effect being with Him.</p><p><em>And began to send them out in pairs</em>- The &quot;pairs&quot; may not just have been for mutual encouragement, but in allusion to the principle of two or three witnesses. For a witness was being made to Israel, to which they were to be held accountable.</p><p><em>And he gave them authority over the unclean spirits-&nbsp;</em>This is in the context of the Lord's concern that the crowds were sheep with no shepherd, which I have suggested was an allusion to Moses' words of Num. 27:17 (see on Mt. 9:36). Moses asks for God to raise up another to do his work, and God gives him Joshua- and is told &quot;You shall invest him with some of your authority&quot; (Num. 27:20). So the Lord is here treating the disciples as if they are His replacement, going out to do His work, just as the later body of Christ are to do. We have in this preaching tour they are sent on some sort of foretaste of the great commission.</p>