Being a Disciple

What does it really mean to be a disciple of Christ? In Matthew 28 Jesus commissions His followers to make disciples. He gives tells them to baptize and to teach these new disciples, but he does not define what it means to be a disciple. After living with them and modeling the discipleship process for 3 years it would have been superfluous and redundant to explain the core concept. In our day the concept of discipleship has been overlain with multiple layers of culture and tradition. I believe that reclamation of this core concept is in order.

To be a disciple is to be a learner. To make disciples is to create learners. We are called to be learners and to draw other people to be learners of Christ. Making disciples is about much more than just communicating content. Content can be memorized and repeated. There is no need for the Spirit of God to be involved in the communication of information. Humans are quite adept at that. But only the Spirit of God can make disciples. Only the Spirit of God can take out the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh that is tender and responsive to God. The Spirit is central to discipleship! Of course, we are to teach and to model, to baptize and practice the ordinances that serve as tangible reminders that refresh and rekindle our faith, but these things are powerless by themselves. The reason that we do these things is to create learners, and we must be cooperating with the Spirit in this process. The goal is to draw others into a relationship with the living Christ where He is the master and we are the students. To do this requires that we remain humble learners ourselves who are submitted to the Spirit. We cannot draw others into an experiential relationship with Christ that we do not have. We will undoubtedly recreate ourselves in the lives of those we lead, but we must take care lest we fail to model true discipleship in our own lives.

True discipleship is to tune our hearts to the voice of the Shepherd. We should be ever inclining our ear to hear and obey His commands. The problem is that we often would rather not hear what He has to say. We would rather do our own thing, devise our own plans, or just go with the flow. Rather than be filled and controlled by the Spirit of God, we often train ourselves to tune out His voice, to grieve His Spirit. The Christian life begins with, and must continue in, the Spirit. The disciple of Christ is one who, like his Master before him, is attentive to the movements and the will of the Father. We will most likely never attain the kind of natural fluidity and constant connection with the Father that Jesus modeled on earth, but the life of the disciple is marked by the desire and discipline of learning from Him.

I am daily faced with struggles and temptation from within and without. I often refuse to name these temptations and struggles aright; instead I entertain them and start to drift along with them. The Spirit of God tugs at my heart and reminds me of the right decision, the right choice, the choice that will sow to the Spirit and will produce the sweet fruit of righteousness, renewal and peace, but I have become adept at tuning out that voice. I am so good at dismissing and ignoring the voice of the Spirit! But, I do not lose hope, for I know that like Peter, even after grieving Him, I will be restored again. Sometimes there will be weariness, weeping and other consequences for sowing to the flesh, but I know that He holds me safely in His hands and that He will not lose me. So, I confess and repent, and reorient myself to Him. Then, we begin the ascent again. The most fundamental aspect of this is the Spirit empowered choice to exercise my will to submit my will to His. (Oh the mystery! I must work out my salvation with fear and trembling but it is He who is at work within me, and He will be faithful to complete the work.) I must choose to be a learner. Only then am I truly a disciple and fit to make disciples of Christ.

Engaging God With Our Emotions

I was raised in an environment where emotions and religion were intertwined, but not talked about. I remember my dad crying at Easter services or almost anytime that the passion of Christ was re-enacted. I remember him getting teary eyed as he was singing some of his favorite hymns. But I never remember being taught that our emotions were markers or indicators of our spiritual status. I do not remember being encouraged to deal with the heart or to seek to understand where emotions were coming from. On the contrary I was often warned about the dangers of introspection. I was encouraged to obey and to focus on outward signs of obedience rather than the inner workings of my own heart.

Over the years I have grown in both my respect and value for the way that I was raised and also for the ways in which my upbringing led me astray. I am so grateful for the emphasis on the Word of God and on submission and obedience. On the other hand I have had to learn to listen to my heart and to bring the workings of my heart to the Lord. It is true that the heart is desperately wicked and that we can scarcely understand our own inner drivers, but there is One who does understand and He is not mute like the idols. He loves us and wants to speak with us.

He walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden, and He wants that kind of relationship with us. When we go astray as Adam and Eve did we find that He pursues us and asks me questions like He did with them. When they sinned, something went wrong, and it showed up in their emotions. They were afraid and ashamed. God gently pursued them with questions that surfaced the problem and allowed Him to start the process of reconciliation. He knew needs of their heart and He met them there in their pain. He is still reconciling us to Himself. He is still probing and questioning, gently but persistently applying the pressure to reveal our hearts to us and to bring healing to the innermost parts.

Every human since Adam and Eve has been thirsty for God. God does not condemn us for this thirst. We are all meant to be dependent on Him and to drink deeply from Him. But every human since Adam and Eve has been foolish. Since Adam and Eve marred the image of God in us, we have had imperfect access to the Fountain of Living Water ever sense. Our approach to the fountain is obstructed. We are no longer perfectly fit for it. Now we have to labor for our food, and we have to labor for the intimacy that once was so effortlessly available to us. It is still a gift, but now we have to get it by the toil of our brow.

It is hard work to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We grow weary in doing good, and so we often turn aside from the fountain and settle for other sources of water. These other sources are feeble imitations that will slowly poison our souls, but we are drawn to them again and again. We return to them and we seek to drink from them. When the cisterns dry up, we angrily demand that the cisterns act like springs and give us what we so desperately need.

God is gracious and kind to reveal these cisterns to us, but the process is rarely pleasant. We find the water for our souls, the source for our identity, in so many illegitimate places: people, power, pleasure, position, fame or fortune. Often we don’t realize that we have been drinking from a cistern at all until it either runs dry, or someone or something comes between it and us. It is in times like this that our emotions are rapidly and forcefully engaged. These strong emotional responses are like warning lights on our spiritual dashboard. It is good and right that we should explore where these emotions come from. It is good and right that we should ask the Lord to reveal the true source of our responses. Often I find that I am lashing out in a futile effort to defend my cistern. The Lord is gracious and kind to reveal this to me when I seek Him. He reminds me where my true identity lies. Only He knows who I really am. He is the only true and legitimate source for my identity and well being. He meets me and draws me back to Him and I drink from the refreshing Fountain again.

A Feast for Our Souls

The written Word of God is one of the greatest gifts that the Creator has bestowed upon His creatures. Only the gift of Himself in all His triune glory surpasses this gift. Even the gift of Himself would be poorly discerned and little understood if it were not for the Scriptures. For it is in and through the Scriptures that we find the record of His dealings with man and with man’s responses over time. The Bible is filled with stories that trace the handiwork of God from before the beginning of time right through to the end of the world. What a wonderful gift to know the past and future history of the world and to be able to witness His involvement and interactions with His people both individually and corporately.

The Word of God is so rich a varied. No other purported holy book has the wealth of literary styles or the scope of history and perspective contained in the Canon of Scripture. The many colored hues highlight various aspects of God’s nature and character as well as revealing the bright spots and dark blotches of the human soul in relation to Him. The Bible is simple enough to be read and understood by a child, but deep enough to perplex even the most educated scholar. What work of human hands or even demonic revelation can compare to the Word? Even a cursory look at other options reveals that nothing is worthy of compare.

The Word is like a banquet with many courses prepared by a master chef, each course different from the others but somehow complimenting one another. The opening courses set the stage and draw you in. They whet your appetite with subtle flavors that tantalize and intrigue. They draw you in with their aroma and texture and prepare you for what is to come. Some courses are so hot and spicy that they are hard to swallow. They shock our senses with their pungent spices and earthy aftertaste. They surprise us and are not altogether pleasant, but here too is the familiar flavor that piques our interest and makes us wonder what the next course will be. Some of the courses are meaty and dense. Like a roast that you must cut into with a sharp knife but the work of carving is rewarded as you savor the scent as the meat is revealed. They take longer to chew and digest, but there is a satisfaction as they go down into your innermost parts. They only yield their rewards to those who are willing to take the time to chew them and tease out the full flavor. No fast food this; this is a rich meal to be slowly devoured. Other portions are light and sweet they fill us with joy as we taste them. They remind us of happier times in the past, or lift our eyes up to those yet to come. These light courses fill us with hope for the journey ahead. The banquet is so rich and the chef so masterful that there is something perfect for us in each portion. If we will only come to the table, we will find the food that we so desperately need.

God has lavished us with His love. He has given us this world over which to be stewards. He has given us all good things to enjoy. He has given us each other to care for and learn from. He has given us the Word made flesh in Jesus. He has given us His Spirit to indwell us. He has given Himself to us as our Father and our King. He has given us His written Word to make us aware of His extraordinary generosity and to serve as an unchanging reminder. All other sources of revelation are more subjective and personal, more open to interpretation. But in the Bible we have the stories of God authored by God through the pens of His prophets and apostles. This is the immutable standard by which we can measure all other supposed revelations. As we develop familiarity with the flavors of this magnificent banquet our palates are trained. The more we dine on this sumptuous fare, the more we hunger for it even as we are satisfied by the now recognizable flavors. The more we eat of the delicacies that He has stored up for us the more easily we can discern subtle rot of the spoiled fare that the enemy would feed us. Let us tuck in to the table of God and sate ourselves on this feast for our souls.

Embracing the King of Mystery

As I read scripture, particularly the Psalms, I impressed by the immensity of God. He is the creator. He is the Holy One. He is the giver and sustainer of life. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The mountains melt like wax before Him. He wraps Himself in light as a garment. He is great beyond imagining. As high as the heavens are above the earth so are His thoughts higher than ours and His ways higher than ours. There is no one who knows the mind of God. There is no one who can lay a hand on Him and bring Him to court. He is exalted and majestic. He is the uncreated one, eternally existent and entirely self-sufficient in Himself. He is the one and only possessor of all wisdom, knowledge, power, and glory. We are like dust before Him. We are all together like dust on the scales before the greatness of God.

When I am struck by this, I am in awe of Him. I am impressed not only by His greatness, but by my smallness. I am moved to wonder that we understand anything at all. I am dumbstruck by the mysteries that He has revealed and by those that remain hidden. Those that have been revealed are somewhat clear to us, but no less impressive or mind numbing in their enormity. Jesus Christ is such a mystery. The reality of Christ was shrouded in mystery and those saints who went before us longed to look into the mystery of Christ. God, in His perfect timing revealed the mystery and we now look back on it as staggering, overwhelming, too crazy to have been imagined by the mind of man, but fact. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the implications of these for mankind are so obvious to us now. We look back and wonder at how clear are the prophecies and how marvelous their fulfillment. But no one at the time understood it. Not one school of thought or group of believers among the people of God rightly understood. Some of them knew where He would be born. Some understood some elements of His ministry. Even Satan understood some of the prophecies related to His life and work. But no one understood the mystery of Christ. The Pharisees and Sadducees studied the scriptures and were confident in their assertions. They were scholars of the Word, but even they missed it. Although they diligently studied the scriptures they missed the mystery of Christ, even when He was standing right in front of them.

When I reflect on this I have to stop and wonder at what mysteries remain hidden from us today. We have our own schools of thought, our own theological systems, but what are we missing? What mysteries have we reduced, what paradoxes have we confidently straightened out, only to miss the Christ standing among us? We create systems of thought and teach our systems to others with such confidence that soon the systems have trumped the reality. Our studies can actually become sources of pride. Knowledge puffs up. We construct and defend our systems and find our identity in the church, organization, denomination, or theological system to which we adhere, but isn’t all this misplaced and prideful?

Diligent study of the scriptures is not the problem. I believe in the Scriptures and that we should, nay must, diligently study them. The problem is that we forget that the purpose of the Scriptures is to testify about, and lead us to, Christ, yet we refuse to come to Him to have life. Christ is still a mystery. He is a person not a system. He is free and terrifyingly powerful. His ways are still higher than ours. We need not understand or explain the mysteries, but rather to embrace our mysterious and loving Lord. We have to allow the paradoxes to stand and to allow God to reveal His mysteries in His time. So often we are distracted from the real work of knowing and doing His will by petty infighting about our systems and structures. We ought rather to allow the tension of the paradoxes to drive us to Christ and to allow Him to be our Savior and Lord. We ought to be about the Kings business. Some of us will be scientists and scholars, but the work of those is not to detract from the mysteries, but rather to more clearly lay them before us so that we might all marvel at the glory of our King. The mysteries we understand or the answers we theorize about should compel us to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our King.

A Forehead of Stone

My parents had always told me that I was somewhat hardheaded, and it wasn’t generally a compliment. Imagine my surprise when my wife told me that she was praying that God would give me a forehead of stone! Many years ago my wife came to me excited to share what she had been reading in Scripture and what she had been praying for me. I remember my wife reading to me from Ezekiel chapter 3 as God encouraged the prophet for his work. In both chapter 2 and chapter 3 Ezekiel is instructed not be afraid although the path ahead of him is hard and the people to whom he will minister are rebellious. It is in this context that God encourages him with the promise that he will make him hard enough to stand up against those who are hardened against him; he will give him a forehead of the hardest stone.

It is interesting to me that Ezekiel was specifically called to be a prophet to the people of God. He was not called to a foreign people who would listen but to God’s own people who would not listen. (Ez. 3:4-7) At that time in my life, when my wife began praying this for me, I was undergoing trials and attacks from within the Body of Christ. I was being assailed and labeled and generally maligned. By God’s grace I came through that period of ministry and then spent several years ministering to people of obscure language and generally did find them more open to listen to the Words of God. It is ironic that those with most access to the Word of God are often least hungry for it, and those with least access are sometimes the most open to receive it.

A friend of mine recently joked that I have the spiritual gift of blowing people off. I had to laugh, but I wonder if that is not part of the answer to my wife’s prayer for me. I see in Moses, Joshua, and Ezekiel men who were not strong and courageous naturally, but whom the Lord instructed and encouraged to be strong and courageous and to walk the path that He laid before them. He gave them the toughness that they needed to do the work to which He called them. Each of them were called to lead and serve God’s people. Each of them experienced great opposition. He promised to be with them and to guide them as they ministered. He promised never to forsake them. Jesus promises us the same thing. He promises us that He will be with us always and He has sent His spirit to dwell in us, comfort and guide us. Jesus also modeled for us the art of “blowing people off”.

In Mark 1 Jesus is engaged in powerful and fruitful ministry. One morning He went out early to find some solitude and silence to pray. His disciples are somewhat anxious as the crowds begin to gather and they sent out a search party to literally “hunt down” Jesus. They knew that they couldn’t do the things that Jesus could do and the people had expectations. When they finally found Jesus and told Him that He needed to return to the people, Jesus responded by telling them that they were not going back to the village, but rather were going to skip town and go somewhere else. Imagine the disciples surprise! Jesus did exactly and only what the Father had for Him to do. He did not allow the expectations of man to dictate His response, nor did He allow the needs around Him to set His agenda. He sought His Father and did His Father’s will not His own. He also fearlessly confronted those that the Lord directed Him to confront and in the case of cleansing temple even used physical violence to do so. He was so committed to doing His Father’s will that He submitted even to the humiliation and ignominy of the crucifixion.

Jesus had a forehead of stone. He sought His Father’s direction and was obedient to God’s will even at great pain to Himself. I have often heard it taught that Jesus loved people and sacrificially served people. I know that Jesus loved people, but He sacrificially served God. He served because His life was not His own. He did so, not for the sake of the people, but in humble service to God. His ministry was God-centric, not man-centric. Sometimes in serving God we have to have a forehead of stone like Jesus.

Sola Scriptura

The Reformers loved pithy sayings to sum up complex doctrines. They boiled down theological truths to simple slogans. One of the key slogans of the Reformation was “sola scriptura”. It literally means “scripture alone”. By this they meant that scripture alone was self-authenticating, clear to the average reader, and the only reliable and sufficient authority and source for all matters of doctrine and faith. They specifically proclaimed this doctrinal position in contrast to the Catholic Church which held that scripture could only be rightly interpreted through the traditions and authority of the Church.

This emphasis on the written Word of God has been a hallmark of Protestant Christianity ever since. However, I have recently read some articles in which I was surprised to find that men that I respect, and have learned much from, have moved away from the primacy and authority of Scripture. In an effort to be culturally sensitive there is a danger that we can place culture over Scripture or strip Scripture of it’s authority by reading it as the product of a different cultural perspective. This can lead us to set aside the clear commands of God as mere traditions of men from another time, or set them aside in favor of our own new traditions. I don’t know that Christians ever set out to do that, but like the Pharisees of old, we start out be interpreting scripture and trying to clarify it and make it “relevant”, but in the process our “clarifications” become traditions and then get fossilized in our sub-cultures and the Bible is slowly superseded by these cultural forms and understandings.

Even more disturbing than the article were a few e-mails I have received lately from friends in the ministry. Several of them are looking for good ministry materials so that they will be able to lead people to Christ, make disciples, and train leaders. They are looking for materials that they can translate, adapt, or use to teach people the critical doctrines of the Faith. I confess that I have done many years of ministry this way, but I am scratching my head now and wondering what this approach says about the sufficiency of Scripture. Is Scripture alone enough for life and ministry? Do we need extra biblical lessons to be translated and books to be written? Certainly I have learned a lot from books and I appreciate resources and materials, but I have to wonder what our reliance upon these tools and techniques says about our underlying beliefs about the Word and the Spirit.

As I read scripture I see a model for discipleship consistently through the text. You can see it with the Patriarches, right through Moses, David, the Prophets, Jesus, and the Apostles. Discipleship is not a series of lessons that communicate a certain content to transfer knowledge. Discipleship is more than objective teaching or even skill development. It is a personal relational process whereby a teacher walks, talks, eats, lives, and works with his student identifying the areas of growth that are needed and then teaching to those points. He teaches through modeling as well as words. He gives assignments that will help the student to understand and apply the content that he has learned. From the early availability of the written Word it was integrated into this process of instruction and used as the primary, if not only, “textbook” for the student. This model of discipleship is the foundation of the Church. This is how the apostles were trained by Jesus. This is how the apostles trained their students, and this is how it continued for generations. It also happens to really work! It is readily transferable and adaptable. It requires the Word of God, the Spirit of God, a teacher (who is a disciple of Christ) and a student who wants to learn. That is all. There are no bottlenecks, no materials to be translated, no worries about cultural baggage, and no unhealthy dependence on foreign materials. Scripture alone was enough then, and it’s enough today!

Respect

I don’t like to be laughed at. I don’t like to be mocked. I don’t know why it cuts me to the heart, but if I am honest I have to say that I am afraid of being disrespected. Maybe this is because of something that I didn’t get from my father, or maybe there is some other reason, but I know that this is true in my heart. I don’t think that this impacts my day to day life very much, but I am beginning to wonder how much it impacts my relationship with God.

In my life I have had many opportunities to engage in dialogue with relatively learned non-believers. They have often responded that they were surprised to find a Christian who could dialogue with them about the various topics under discussion. They were intrigued that someone who understood their arguments could also believe in and worship God. I have to admit that their esteem felt good. Even as their compliments heaped disrespect on my brothers and sisters in the faith, they felt good to me. After all who wants to be thought of as a fool? Their comments fed my need for respect. I didn’t think about it like that at the time. I thought that I was showing them a path to God that wouldn’t require them to check their brains at the door.

I know that you can follow Christ and be a thinker too, but it is also true that following Christ demands a childlike humility that surrenders even our desire for clear answers to some of life’s most perplexing questions. God is not afraid of our questions, but he often doesn’t answer as we would like. My pursuit of truth leads me to ask questions and as I follow the path of inquiry I find that each winding path leads me back to God. I am after enlightenment and clear answers and God is after relationship. It’s not that I don’t ask the questions, but I am finding that I tend to discuss the questions and to seek answers from other people, rather than asking God. My honest inquiry should include consultations with His people living and dead, but I believe that the primary focus of my inquiry should be dialogue with His Spirit, which He sent to guide us into all truth, regarding His revealed Word. I really need to talk with God about my questions.

But this leads me back to my need for respect. I don’t want people to think that I am a lunatic. After all, what kind of crackpot claims to have conversations with God? I am starting to realize that my passionate pursuit of God is leading me into areas which will leave me open to charges of extremism and excess. I am coming to a place where I am really desiring and just starting to experience a conversational relationship with God. I was comfortable with the version of Christianity I was raised in where I read His Word and applied His principles to my life, but reasonable people just didn’t expect to hear the voice of God. But now I am asking Him questions and am beginning to really expect Him to answer. I have much to learn and far to go, but my ear is beginning to discern his whispered responses. I am growing in confidence in my prayer life and am starting to wonder where this will all lead me. What kind of arrogant fool claims to hear the voice of God?

I know that if I continue down this path that many in my life will not only disrespect me, but may actually start to question my sanity. Am I willing to endure that? Am I really willing to be a fool for Christ? I am willing to be His disciple during the triumphal entry. I am willing to reign and rule with Him, but am I willing to endure the scorn and shame of the cross? He was despised and rejected. I cannot expect to follow Him and receive different treatment than He did. Faced with the choice of accompanying Him to the cross I find myself wanting to deny Him like Peter. May God have mercy on me! I know that He will be faithful to complete the work that He has started in me. I also know that there are many who have walked this road before me and that they testify that it is worth it. He is both the destination and my constant companion on the journey.