Others Who Serve

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. (Mark 9:38–41)

Inevitably the question comes about others who serve Christ, but do not serve him like we do or in fellowship with us. What about them?

The sad reality of human nature means that even among God’s servants there may be jealousy, envy, and a nasty competitiveness — seeking to control, without God’s authority, whatever we may see as a threat to our popularity or to our presumed power. Moses was confronted with a similar situation, others beside him prophesying in the Israelite camp in the wilderness, and his response was, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” (Numbers 11:29) Paul also responded to the same issue:

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. (Philippians 1:15–18)

In your name: The disciples could bring no accusation against the theology of these other miracle workers. The phrase “in your name” is laden with biblical meaning, that they proclaimed the real Jesus. It is very likely that they were from among those seventy disciples* that Jesus sent out on mission (Luke 10:1). They had returned to Christ rejoicing that the demons were subject to them in the name of Jesus. This was also the occasion for Christ to rejoice, “And He said to them, ‘I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you’” (Luke 10:18–19).

Later in Acts we are introduced to the “seven sons of Sceva” who sought to cast out demons “in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches” (Acts 19:13), though they had no personal knowledge of Christ, nor any faith in the gospel. At one point a demon responded to them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I have heard of, but who are you?!” and he gave them such a beating that they fled naked and bleeding from the house (Acts 19:16). Christ said also, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Matt. 12:30). So we may assume that these disciples in Mark 9 were not insincere in their service, nor were they using the name of Jesus inappropriately, without faith in the person of Christ — they were with Christ, just not among the twelve.

Today we face another problem, that many groups are Christian cults, that though they use the name of Jesus in their teachings, they have significantly altered the biblical understanding of Jesus Christ. It is not enough just to use his name if you have twisted the meaning of the name, and have rejected cardinal biblical teachings on his divinity or biblical teachings on the cross, the word of God, and the doctrine of salvation by Christ alone, through faith alone.

The one who is not against us is for us: No one can say “Jesus is Lord,” sincerely from the heart, except by the Spirit of Christ (1 Cor. 12:3). The sincere testimony of Christ, as well as the sincere good work done in his name, all have the power of God behind it. The Lord is building his church in two ways: he is building the church invisible, or the church universal — which includes all of the redeemed through all of the ages (Eph. 1:22–23); and he is building the church local, which are the individual churches and associations of churches that we find on earth (1 Cor. 16:19).

Christ said that they were not to forbid them from doing these good works. The disciples themselves, along with Jesus, had been victims of the jealousy of the Scribes and Pharisees, and they knew too well the pain of these encounters. Here the Lord did not “nitpick” or find fault in minor matters that they were probably doing differently from him and the twelve. And Christ knew that among the twelve there was one who would betray him (John 13:11), so, though no fault of his own, even then he would have had to admit that there was a dissenting voice to his mission even among these twelve.

It is no mistake that the Spirit inspired Mark to place this story where he did in his gospel — this section highlights the trouble that disciples had with their own egos (Mark 9:34–37; 10:35–45). Rather than seeing the hand of God upon these ministries, they were simply jealous of the threat they felt they posed to their own positions. They were worse than the associates of Moses who were at least jealous for Moses’ sake. They were just jealous for their own sake.

The promise of rewarded faithfulness: The final words of Christ assured the disciples that it is impossible for the smallest act of good in the name of Christ to go unnoticed by heaven. God knows and he will reward faithfulness in his time and in his way. We need not worry what God does with another. We only need to follow him as he has led us to.

We should remember that Christ and Christ alone is the Lord of the Harvest, and he commands us to pray that he would send more workers into the harvest fields of the world (Matthew 9:38). The Holy Spirit never gets in his own way! We never need to fear what God is doing with another Christian or another church. If he uses them more than us (as it may seem from our limited perspective), then that is between God and them. All we need to do, and all we should be concerned about, is fulfilling the mission that God has given us to do, in the power and means which he has given us to do it. All glory should go to Christ and to Christ alone.

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*Some biblical manuscripts read “seventy-two”