BLOG 1/15/19. WHAT ON EARTH IS A DISCIPLE?
As per the New Testament gospel recorder, Matthew, Jesus’ parting mandate to his followers was to: “go and make disciples from every people-group/nation in the world …” Fine. So, what does such a ‘disciple’ look like in flesh and blood? For starts, he tells them that they are to teach these disciples to observe all that he has commanded them. Somehow, then, they are to be equipped to be the practitioners of Jesus’ teachings. Okay, but what kind of people are these disciples. Well, if Jesus’ own twelve disciples are any examples, they are personalities from all over the map: young, old, gentle, abrupt, … a semi-agnostic, a betrayer, some profane fishermen, and some who are never defined.
So, Jesus takes them as raw material. They began as some curious individuals, who had somehow come into contact with Jesus—some through the preaching of John the Baptist, and some through coming into contact with Jesus himself as he initiated his public career as an itinerant preacher. Their curiosity provoked them to ask: “Where are you staying?” His response was: “Come and see,” i.e., “If you want to know, come spend time with me. Get close. Watch me. Listen to what I am saying. Ask questions. Tell me what you are thinking,” etc.”
Long story, short: that is the essence of disciple-making. Jesus takes the raw material of these seriously curious, and very diverse men …[please, please note that this was a male dominated culture, but some of the most faithful disciples were the women, who were always there, from his mother Mary to the women who were the first at the tomb on Easter morning] … and chose the twelve to spend three years being formed by his teachings, his way of life (life-style) and his mission to inaugurate God’s New Creation.
This meant that when he told them to: “Go make disciples!” He was saying that they were to do to others exactly what he had done with them, to spend such significant time with others that they would be formed into the image of Christ. They would form other disciples in both the message and the praxis of God’s New Creation through Jesus Christ. They still were not there, however. Disciple-making requires the divine power which would be supplied by the Spirit of the Father and the Son at Pentecost. New Creation disciples are not accomplished by gimmicks, or ten steps. It is a work by God’s Spirit in conjunction with their human obedience.
Jesus had taught them: “Those who have these teachings of mine, and who do them …” are my true disciples. When we first come to Jesus, we bring with us all of the alien baggage of our former ways of thinking, of behaving, and of relating to God. Such requires our existential encounter with God’s design to recreate us into the image of the Son, of Jesus, … so that we look like Jesus in the way they think and live.
Every religion has disciples who are formed by the teachings of their masters: Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, etc. This is only natural. There are also political disciples, disciples of social and cultural ideologies. … We are called to make disciples who are formed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and of this mission of inaugurating God’s new creation in and through us.
This is a critical and often overlooked discipline, even in Christian training schools. I was introduced to it enroute through my encounter with a new convert, who innocently asked: “Bobby, I’m new to this Christian stuff. Could you spend some time with me?” That was the beginning of my own conscious career as a disciple-maker, and of having to comprehend what discipleship was about in authenticity. I learned it is not gimmicky. Paul would say: “Be imitators of me even as I also am of Christ. … To be continued.
