Discipleship.
It’s a buzzword in the Christian community. We promote it. We declare it, We say we make them, but do we really understand what it is? If you had to define it in the next 15 seconds, what would you say?
Far too often, the efforts to disciple believers becomes systemized… programmatic, like financial management or how to be better at parenting. Not to say that these things are bad, but are they moving the ball forward in your effort to be a disciple of Christ or help others do the same? This brings us back to our initial question. What exactly is a disciple, anyway?
If we have any hope in growing spiritually, we need to take some time to digest what it is we are trying to become.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
A prerequisite to becoming a follower of any leader is to understand the nature and authority of the person whom you intend to follow. Any human leader is just that: human. Jesus, however, claims to be more than human. The gospels reveal Jesus as God himself, who condescended into human history; who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). To follow Christ is to follow God himself, and the very fact that the Son of God (the creator of the universe) exists to begin with, demands that he be followed and worshiped. In effect, a disciple has first gone through a discovery phase of who Jesus truly is and has accepted his claims of divinity, power, and truth on an intellectual (as well as a spiritual) level.
NOW THEN, LET’S PROCEED
Any attempt to define a disciple of Christ would be futile unless the definition is rooted in the scriptures. Because scripture is God’s revelation about himself, his activity in human history, and man’s relationship to him, it must be the first source to analyze to discover a disciple’s true nature. In scripture, to understand a follower of Christ, one needs not look any further than the gospels.
A study of the four gospels will reveal a vast amount of information about what the twelve disciples did while they were able to live and work with Jesus, however, there are a few key scriptures that provide a compact definition.
One of these passages is called the Great Commission given in Matthew 28:18-20 which says,
“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”
This scripture contains many aspects of discipleship but begins with a recognition of who Jesus is any why he is worthy to be followed.
It is vital to understand that to profess faith in Christ means that anyone who does so is bowing to the Creator. When Jesus said that all authority was in his hands, he was speaking as the sovereign Ruler of all creation, and his instruction is clear. His people are to obey his instruction and to go into all the world and preach his gospel. We, as his redeemed people, are to do as he did.
Our call to as disciples, our Missio Dei here on earth has not come about in the will of man, but is from the will of God. So, here we understand the nature of the faith we profess; that a disciple is one who follows the call of the Creator, the Son of God, who hold all authority of heaven and earth. Jesus is central to everything we do, because without him, there is no call or purpose.
With that said, there are 3 basic phases that are recognizable in any disciple and are important to identify as we continue to search for the answer to our question.
PROFESSION
So then, there is step one. A disciple is one who has professed faith in the Son of God, the ruler of all creation. The first call of Jesus is to simply follow him. The beginning of the journey needs not be any more convoluted than that simple command. It leaves no room for competing influences other than Jesus alone and places him rightly as the ultimate authority over our lives.
The process does not, however, stop there. The very fact that a call to follow has been given implies there is more to be done. Now that a scriptural definition has been provided and the starting point has been established, it is now possible to see what next steps must be taken.
DEVELOPMENT
The development stage moves beyond the stage of acceptance into a transformational life. Jesus’ disciples left their livelihood to follow Christ wherever he went. They committed to memory his teaching and obediently began their apprenticeship. This is a picture of sanctification, meaning, to be progressively molded into the image of Christ. The obedience to follow Jesus’ example and teachings naturally leads to a transformed way of living through the on-going work of the Holy Spirit within.
Recognizing and believing the call of Jesus is a vital and necessary step for all disciples, but once the profession has been made, each man and woman must then be transformed by the call and be obedience to ‘go’ and do as Jesus did. To take this next step, it is important to understand the cost of discipleship, of which is not widely known in our culture today, because we don’t want to stand out too much. Just a little edge is plenty enough, thank you very much.
The American Church today has seemingly lost the context of obedience to a higher authority, especially a religious one, to the message of personal independence. In the first century, however, students of an authority like a Rabbi were expected to leave everything behind, even the family occupation, to live with and study under their spiritual leader. They would spend most of their time committing to memory large portions of the Old Testament as well as the Rabbi’s personal teaching. The rabbi’s words would become their words and his life, their life. There was a complete submission to and dedication of themselves to their new teacher, and in turn, he would fully pour himself into his pupils. In Jesus’ call to deny oneself and follow him meant an exchange of wills; the death of the individual’s will in submission of the teacher’s will.
There was also never a concept of going to the temple to worship one day and living a different life for the remaining six. Following Jesus was not an add-on to their current lifestyle, but rather an abandonment to the world they knew in order to live the life of service they were called to. As Bonhoeffer (in his book Discipleship) so eloquently put it:
Peter has to get out of the boat into the waves, in order to experience his own powerlessness and the almighty power of his Lord. If he had not gotten out, he would not have learned to believe. His situation on the tempestuous sea is completely impossible and, ethically, simply irresponsible, but it has to happen for him to believe.
The disciples then, and us today, must make the transition from believing intellectually to allowing the seriousness of the call of obedience to transform our daily lives. This happens when it is understood that obedience spurs active faith, while, at the same time, the faith we profess began with our obedience to say yes to Jesus’ call.
Transformational living occurs when the disciple understands that her life is no longer her own, but the call to serve was paid for in Jesus’ blood. A life of discipleship cannot and will not ever be cheap. It will cost us everything, because, as Bonhoeffer also said,
nothing can be cheap to us which was costly to God.
COMMISSIONING
The third and final stage is a commissioning or deployment. As the disciple begins to live in the context of a transformed life, the natural tendency is to go and ensure others have the same thing. This is the ‘go’ of the Great Commission. The Rabbi has finished his work and has commissioned his pupils for service. The disciple has become missional. The transformed life has prompted the believer to go and declare this good news wherever God has called.
This is the point of regeneration, of God breathing life into a spirit that was formally dead in former trespass. The new nature has been established and has been justified, by God, for his service under the authority of Jesus Christ.
So, just to recap, the definition of a disciple goes much further than merely professing faith in Jesus. Rather, it begins in the soil of professed faith, but soon blossoms into a transformed life that is completely dedicated to following and teaching others to obey Jesus’ commands. In reviewing the Great Commission and other passages of scripture, a disciple is one who is willing to leave everything behind for the sake of obedience to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. To be a disciple will mean the loss of any previous identity, the shedding of current circumstances and the abandonment of the individual will.
In short, it will cost you everything, but will, in return, give you the everything God has created you for. The road of a disciple is not promised to be an easy one to travel, but when one finds the treasure hidden in a field, it is worth all that it may cost to get it.
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