BLOG 8/20/14. MY ATTEMPT TO CLARIFY THE TERMS: DISCIPLESHIP & DISCIPLE MAKING

The other evening at a congregational gathering, one chap asked the presenter why we didn’t have a congregational program on disciple making. The answers given were necessarily a bit abbreviated, given the context of a large gathering. In his ensuing attempt to answer the questioner, I realized that I use the terms frequently and that in the minds of many (most?) they are fuzzy designations that lack strong Biblical substance. More likely, they are severely trivialized.

The term: disciple, comes to us as a translation of a Greek word that, in simplest definition, means: a learner. It emerges into the life and vocabulary of the Christian church with great importance since it is how Jesus designates those who are truly his followers. It is the one thing that he bequeaths to his followers at the end of his earthly life, namely, that they are to go into every nation and make disciples.

So … what are his followers to be ‘making’? And, why, maybe, is it a discipline that is so easily marginalized? The answer to that is: It is probably too strong and demanding and all-consuming concept for those who are more spiritually timid, and inclined to some kind of religious experience that rather allows them to retain their autonomy, even while being somewhat religious. But to such folk, Jesus gives the parable of the house built on the sand, and interprets it as those who use all of the orthodox (evangelical?) words, and engage in good works in the name of Jesus, but just don’t get it (cf. Matthew 7:21 in loc.). He gives to them the horrifying response: “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

Or maybe his word: “So, therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciples” (Luke 14:13). The broad way that leads to destruction is so much more congenial to us than the narrow gate that leads to eternal life. Yet, the calling of Jesus is precisely that: to be delivered out of our captivity to the dominion of darkness, and into the dominion of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13). Paul always speaks of our calling by Jesus as one in which we die to our self-entered, autonomous existence, and rise to a whole new life by the Spirit, and as servants of righteousness. (You don’t recruit many ‘church members’ with this kind of requirement).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer made the classic statement: “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Am I getting your intention? OK, so disciple making is not something you can learn in a class, or read about in a book. It is a living and life-giving and transformational encounter with the living Lord Jesus Christ, who has come to inaugurate a whole New Creation. Bonhoeffer’s alternative to this authentic discipleship is: “Cheap grace”, i.e., faith without repentance. (But true freedom and joy come as we die to self and live into Christ.)

I am fascinated by a more ultimate description of what discipleship entails, and it is found in one of the most misquoted and out-of-context quoted passages in the New Testament: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, …” (Romans 8 28-29). Ah! but this is a radical calling and demanding.

A disciple is one who is being literally conformed to the image of God’s Son in all that he came to do, to teach, and to inaugurate as they live in communion with him. This is his thrilling mission and message. And any who is going to be identified with him is going to be contagious with that calling. Such are disciples. Every disciple of Jesus is to be a disciple maker. We become disciples by knowing, practicing, and deliberately engaging in the stuff of daily life and so being practitioners of Christ’s New Humanity among our colleagues. This is not learned in a church class, but in the 24/7 realities of this broken and spiritually confused society.