The Narrow Path Ministries

I'm doing a study in John's gospel parsing the character groups. Example: the Jews, disciples, the world, the crowds.

I'm noticing that two different phrases are used for disciples. "The disciples" and "His disciples." Should I discriminate between those?

John 6:66 demonstrates the difficulty of discriminating between disciples and apostles.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Jeff.

I have just always thought that Jesus had a bunch of disciples that followed him, and 12 that he selected as the "inner circle." For example, I would say that Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha were disciples, as was Mary Magdalene and others.

But even in the inner circle there was an untrue disciple (Judas).

I think you would have to parse out the general disciples from the inner circle, because He taught the inner circle some things and had them do some things that he did not teach/command those not in the inner circle.

Whether what he taught/commanded the inner circle applies to all "disciples" today is a bone of contention, as in Mt. 10:8: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay." Charismatics use this as a proof text for ministry activity; non-charismatics might say this was just for the apostles.

TK