What is Discipleship

WHAT IS DISCIPLESHIP?
It is Training in Righteousness
What is a disciple? “A mathetes (disciple, student, pupil) is not above his teacher but everyone who is fully trained will become like his teacher” (Lk 6:40). Simply put, a disciple is someone being trained to become like someone else; someone like Jesus. Paul writes in 1Cor 9:24-27, “Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training… Therefore I do not run… aimlessly… No I beat my body and make it my slave.” If discipleship training were anything like physical training, then our traditional efforts to become like Christ would be like defining walks to the bathroom as training for a marathon. “It’s still exercise,” I might say, though you’d likely retort, “Yeah, but you’ll never finish the race with that sort of training.” When someone says, “I’m training for [fill in the blank],” they typically mean that they have rearranged their lives, made some sacrifices, and committed themselves to a program designed to help them attain their goal. A marathon runner will inevitably run because he wants to win the race. A disciple of Christ will inevitably do what Jesus did because he wants to win a crown. Many today train by osmosis by gaggling around the buffest guy or fittest gal they can find and hoping that the healthy person’s strenuous flexing will lead to their physical growth. “I’m training to be a disciple of Jesus by listening to [insert favorite speaker] preach God’s word.” If we’d scoff at the notion of qualifying our workout through another’s physical training, then isn’t it obvious that something more than listening from the pews is required for those training to become like Christ?

It is Training by His Word
Jesus’ first criterion for His disciples is; “If you hold [Greek meno-to remain or abide] to my teaching you are really my disciples” (John 8:31). To abide in His teaching means that the presence of His word must be a consistent influence in my life just as hunger for food daily drives me to eat. “I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread” (Job 23:12). Do I study the word to the detriment of my belly or do I ignore the word in favor of my fleshly hungers? “Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2Tim 3:16,17). Are you a disciple? Then the plan is to be taught God’s word. To be rebuked by God’s word. To be corrected by God’s word. To be trained by God’s word so that you might do God’s work. “By this time you ought to be teachers… who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Heb 5:12-14). Are you a disciple? Then you will teach His word to know it. You will obey it by allowing its principles to find fruition in your life. You will be known by your adherence to His word. Are you studying it for yourself? “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God” (John 8:47).

It is Training with His People
Jesus’ second criterion is His only new command, “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34, 35). He explains this more explicitly later in the evening, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command” (John 15:13,14). What does He command? “Love each other as I have loved you” (15:12). We are His friends if we obey His command to love His people by “teaching them to obey everything [He] has commanded [us]” (Mt 28:19,20). We fulfill the second criterion by helping our brothers achieve the first criterion, “abide by His teaching.” Yet some will say, “My Christian friends do help me grow in Christlikeness.” If you want to train for a marathon and your friends are consistently volunteering their assistance through frequent pizza parties, late nights playing Halo 3, and encouragement to run on your own as they lounge on the couch, then will you ever achieve your goal of finishing the race, let alone running in such a way as to win the prize? Are you a disciple of Jesus? Then who is your friend training you to obey His commands? To whom are you that kind of friend? If you’ve ever lifted weights, then you know the power of your friend’s mighty finger as he guides that shaking bar from your chest to its final resting place. Who is pushing you when your flesh says “Quit?”

We will all imitate someone. We will either become a pew warmer watching others flex their spiritual muscles or we’ll take the things we have heard in the presence of many witnesses and entrust them to reliable men also qualified to train others (1Cor 4:16,17; 2Tim 2:2). Are you a disciple? Who is your Paul and who is your Timothy?

Its Training Will Yield Fruit
“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples” (John 15:8). If the first two criterions represent our discipleship, then fruit bearing is inevitable. If we do not live by His word nor love our brothers by helping them to live by His word, then we might be “like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned” (15:6). Yet someone will say, “I am not called to this ministry.” “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation… All this is from God, who… gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2Cor 5:17,18). If you are “in Christ,” then the lack of calling is no excuse for disobedience. Yet someone will complain, “My schedule will not allow it! Perhaps next semester or when I graduate.” “Listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow’… why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow… Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins” (Jas 4:13-17). Will you be any less busy tomorrow than you are today? If you know what needs to be done today and do not do it, God calls that “Sin.” My lack of time will not excuse my disobedience. Lastly, “God loves me, so why should I?” Oh, foolish question! What motivated Paul to achieve the criterion of a disciple of Christ? “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him… Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men” (2Cor 5:10,11).