6:6b–13 Just as the first rejection in the synagogue (3:1–6) is followed by ministry to a wide assortment of people (3:7–12) and by the empowering of the Twelve (3:13–19), so here, after the second rejection, Mark gives us an account of the empowering of the Twelve, who conduct an itinerant ministry in extension of Jesus’ own work. Here again (6:7) as before (3:15), the disciples are given authority over evil spirits; and by this term, so important in Mark’s description of Jesus (1:22, 27; 2:10; 11:27–33), we are to understand that the Twelve are actually given an extension of Jesus’ own power and ministry. This is another instance of the way that the disciples, so plainly described as failing in other places in the narrative, are also described in very positive terms as intimately associa…