Christ Jesus sent his disciples into the world. In his great prayer just before his crucifixion, he said that he was not asking the Father to take them out of the world. But he also affirmed in regard to them, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 17:16.
Jesus' prayer indicated his own viewpoint toward his disciples. And this spiritual point of view must have had a powerful healing effect on them. It helped them break free from the limits of their past. They went out to fulfill their mission of Christ-healing with a freedom and authority beyond anything that could have been imagined on grounds of their previous experience. They wrote unique pages in the story of spiritual accomplishment. This pure Christianity had the power to change a world.
Wasn't the basis of this surprisingly extensive influence of a handful of people their understanding of "where they were coming from," to use a popular phrase? And "where they were coming from" was not a mortal and material selfhood but Christ Jesus' teaching that they had a divine origin. "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." John 1:12.
