Discipleship

          

         “Discipling is a relational process in which a more experienced follower of Christ shares with a newer believer the commitment, understanding, and basic skills necessary to know and obey Jesus Christ as Lord.”  (Connecting: The Mentoring Relationships You Need to Succeed, p. 48). I totally agree with Stanley and Clinton, I think from all the Biblical data we can gather that Jesus left us with a basis and methodology for disipling. The primary aspect of Jesus’ discipleship with the twelve was relational, this composes the basis, and giving of the self on the part of the discipler, this composes the methodology. For further support of this matrix of seeing Discipleship observe what Robert E. Coleman had to say on the topic, “Having called his men, Jesus made it a practice to be with them. This was the essence of His training program—just letting His disciples follow Him” (p. 38).

            First of all, as to the basis of discipleship, it is important know that God is a relational God; this statement needs little refutation, but for those who need convincing there are a few key passages that demonstrates this fact. God established relationship with His people through an ancient of form of connection called a Covenant. What a covenant created was a permanent and binding relationship between the Suzerain and a Vassal based on the Vassals adherence to certain stipulations, based on the Vassals obedience or disobedience there would be blessings or cursings (Deut. 28). We can see a primary example of this in the Mosaic covenant (Ex. 19:3-6, 20:1-6). God created a relationship with the Chosen people, the Israelites, in this way so that they would understand. It was an accommodation on God’s part to work in such a way that humans would understand, therefore His reason for using a human convention. But we must understand that before this formal and conditional relationship started as we can see in Exodus, there was a more intimate and personal foundation laid between God and Abraham.

            In Genesis 12:1-3 God made a permanent, unchanging and unconditional promise to Abraham, that He would give him land, nation and blessing. And that this blessing would be a blessing for the whole world. This relationship was not determined by obedience or merit, God chose simply because He chose. God loves simply because He loves. God chose, loved and acted in this relational way simply because it is His character to do so, and because of that we can always always trust Him. We need not be afraid that God will one day abandon us or desert us based on our actions or failings. If that were the case, then God would have checked out long ago, but He hasn’t, and we can be confident of that because of His character and ongoing work in human history. This relational foundation of love was the basis for the Mosaic, Davidic and New covenants and everything else God affected in the lives of humans and our history. It also provides us with a basis discipleship as I said before. We are to reflect God in the way we disciple others, and we have the best example of that in Jesus Christ. Jesus came to earth and manifested in human form what God had been doing since creation, which was being loving and relational.

Second, Jesus’ methodology with the twelve was unique simply because He didn’t use a methodology.  His methodology what Himself, He lived out God’s will and let the disciples experience Him as lived and endured various circumstances. This provides for us a methodology of allowing others to be with us as we follow God, for others to see how we experience hardship and turn to God, and for others to learn as we obey God. Essentially, letting others do life with us as we follow God. I love this because it adheres with the truth that God has uniquely and wonderfully made each one of us. That is to say, in the diversity of our beings we reflect the glory of God. Consider the scene in Revelation of people from all over the world, coming various cultures and languages all giving glory and praise to God.

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God,

who sits on the throne,

and to the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9-10).

I think the picture shows us that we glorify God best in our composite diversity, displaying the magnificent creativity of God and His love for all kinds of people. We individually and collectively reflect something of our Creator; this concept in the Bible is called the Imago Dei. Therefore it would stand to reason, within the bounds of Scriptural truth, that our own beings communicate something of God to others, in what He has done in our lives, the truths He has revealed to us experientially, our intellects, personalities and ways we live obediently to God. So it wouldn’t make sense then to have one standard model that everyone had to conform to. If that were the case, we would have one bland representation of a disciple and discipleship. Many would not be able to be a disciple because they would have to cleave off certain aspects of themselves in order to follow Christ.

            Now, do not confuse what I’m saying in terms of standards of obedience, those are not transitory or relative. We are all conforming ourselves to Christ in the way He obeyed and submitted Himself to the Father, but I would argue that submission and obedience will look differently person to person. As an example, for some it may be easy to tithe, money is not an object of worship for them, but for another it is a huge struggle. For the person who doesn’t struggle with tithing, their obedience t God in that regard requires little submission of their will, even though he ought to do it. However, for the one who does struggle, if he submitted to God through his tithing, that would be cause for celebration and praising him as a disciple, because he submitted his will to the Father even when He did not want to, thus showing that obedience is far better and important than personal comfort.

            In our culture, believers are uncomfortable saying, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (I Cor. 11:1). However, the Bible has no problems establishing the discipler as the one to be followed by the disciple. When submit our wills to the Father and obey Him, we are essentially being “little” Christs to each other. Because of this Paul can said with confidence, “Be imitators of me”, this would be by our standards arrogant. But in the logic of the Bible, this makes absolute sense, for when believers are assembled we are then called the body of Christ. Individually and collectively we reflect Jesus when we obey and we are to follow each other as they follow Christ (I Thess. 1:6, 2:14, I Cor. 4:16, Eph. 4:32, 5:1-2). This assemblage we would call the church, and it suggest something more than a one-to-one relational model of discipleship, but one of mutuality, where each member is concern and actively working to take care of the needs of others. A body that grows and supports itself, which means the job of discipling is not up to a select few, but of the many. In other words, disciples are to be discipled and then disciple others. “The form of discipleship Jesus intended for his disciples was unique, and it was not intended only for the time when they could follow him physically; it was also intended for the time when they would gather as the church” (Wilkins, p. 309).      

            In summary, the basis for discipleship ought to be relationships, and the method ought to be the discipler gives themselves to the disciple. If one can do this they are following the pattern God has set since the foundation of the world with His chosen people, and living out the example that Jesus has set for us. Discipleship can only truly be done in the presence of others. A key principle of discipleship is mutuality. And so the standard ought to be a disciple who is discipled in turn disciples others, in other words an organism where the whole provides for the needs of the parts. This is the living dynamic body that Jesus and the Apostles spoke of as the church.