Discipleship

[ByTheSpirit]

At times it seems the church gets so carried away with its "mission" to Preach to the nations, that it seems to forget the other very important command of Jesus:

make disciples

I loved the recent thread started about discipleship quotes, now I would like to ask this:

1. How can we make disciples?
2. What personal examples do you have of such?

Witnessing is important and by no means am I diminishing the need to evangelize. I am trying to elevate the need to disciple.

 

[ByTheSpirit]

I personally think church attendance is very important to discipleship, but not discipleship itself.

I very much view Jesus relationship with the DISCIPLES as the key.

Not necessarily living 24/7 with a leader, but constant training, teaching, mentor ship. The reason why churches (most at least) do not fit this bill is you will meet two days of the week mainly and no real interaction other than handshakes and the occasional church dinner.

 

[KevinC1129]

To be involved in discipleship means to be involved in each others lives. As you said above, church attendance 1-2 times a week doesn't fit the need; that's why small groups are so important as they allow you to get to know people on a personal level. One-on-one personal discipleship (relationships) can easily be formed out of these groups.
The group I'm involved in just started as one guy wanting to lead a Saturday morning Bible study; it was nothing church sponsored or initiated, just something the Lord put on his heart to do. Every other Saturday morning, there are 6-10 of us that get together for study, and then we go out for breakfast afterwards as a time of fellowship and to get to know one another. From the 6-7 who consistently come, numerous one on one relationships have developed and individuals get together at other times during the week.
We never outgrow the need to be mentored, and we should also be looking for someone to pass along what we have learned. To me, that is discipleship.

 

[ByTheSpirit]

To be involved in discipleship means to be involved in each others lives. As you said above, church attendance 1-2 times a week doesn't fit the need; that's why small groups are so important as they allow you to get to know people on a personal level. One-on-one personal discipleship (relationships) can easily be formed out of these groups.
The group I'm involved in just started as one guy wanting to lead a Saturday morning Bible study; it was nothing church sponsored or initiated, just something the Lord put on his heart to do. Every other Saturday morning, there are 6-10 of us that get together for study, and then we go out for breakfast afterwards as a time of fellowship and to get to know one another. From the 6-7 who consistently come, numerous one on one relationships have developed and individuals get together at other times during the week.
We never outgrow the need to be mentored, and we should also be looking for someone to pass along what we have learned. To me, that is discipleship.

That is awesome! Exactly what I think of when I think of discipleship.

Do you guys still meet every other Saturday or do you meet more frequently now? Has the group grown any?

 

[KevinC1129]

That is awesome! Exactly what I think of when I think of discipleship.

Do you guys still meet every other Saturday or do you meet more frequently now? Has the group grown any?

Yes, we still get together every other Saturday. We've only been doing it for less than 6 months now, so it's still a new group, but we are already growing very close as a group and as individuals.
We have been pretty consistent with attendance at about 6-10 guys from the start; we would welcome anyone who would want to attend , but don't think we would want to go over 15 or so. At that point, we would probably look to branch off and form another group. Another purpose of it is to train others to lead groups of their own, which also plays into discipleship.

 

[Tree of Life]

How can we make disciples?

By preaching, baptizing, and teaching.

What personal examples do you have of such?

A handful of folks. Most notably my kids.

 

[ByTheSpirit]

By preaching, baptizing, and teaching.



A handful of folks. Most notably my kids.

Very good insight here, so to you discipleship includes evangelism? Usually I think we get that backwards and view discipleship as part of evangelism. I think they are pretty mutually inclusive, but tit for tat. They are both important.

I like how you equate your children to being your disciples and that is a major area often overlooked. I hear from many that say they have no one to disciple and yet they have kids. They are the most important souls we should seek to teach and disciple. God grant us the ability to disciple our children in the grace of the Lord!

 

[Tree of Life]

Very good insight here, so to you discipleship includes evangelism?

If by "discipleship" you're referring to the process of making disciples then, yes, it certainly includes preaching. Have you ever heard the speech about the Greek participles and imperatives found in Matthew 28:18-20?

I like how you equate your children to being your disciples and that is a major area often overlooked. I hear from many that say they have no one to disciple and yet they have kids. They are the most important souls we should seek to teach and disciple. God grant us the ability to disciple our children in the grace of the Lord!

Elders are often those who have successfully discipled their kids (Titus 1:6). Then they get to disciple the church (1 Timothy 3:5).

 

[Hidden In Him]

now I would like to ask this:

1. How can we make disciples?
2. What personal examples do you have of such?

Witnessing is important and by no means am I diminishing the need to evangelize. I am trying to elevate the need to disciple.

Following the secular definition of "discipling" others brings you, in my opinion, a lot closer to understanding the actual New Testament meaning. Disciple: a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher. Such as "a disciple of Rousseau." This is same sense implied in 1 Corinthians 1:12-13.

Following that definition, I think your answer to "how can we make disciples" would be you have to have been taught plenty from the Lord to start with. The measure of a disciple will never exceed that of his master (Matthew 10:24).

My examples of making disciples would go back primarily to my times of holding in-house Bible studies, although I fully believe the same can be done online. I fully intend on making it my primary means of ministry in the future.

 

[Arsenios]

Have you ever heard the speech about the Greek participles and imperatives found in Matthew 28:18-20?

If the Greek used English words, it would sound something like this:
_____________________________________________________
Mat 28:18-20
και προσελθων ο ιησους ελαλησεν αυτοις λεγων
And drawing near Jesus spoke to them saying:

εδοθη μοι πασα εξουσια εν ουρανω και επι γης
"It has been given to me all authority in heaven and upon earth

πορευθεντες ουν
Having gone forth accordingly (eg according to Christ's total exousia)

μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη
Disciple ye all the peoples

βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα
Baptizing them into the Name

του πατρος και του υιου και του αγιου πνευματος
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

διδασκοντες αυτους τηρειν παντα
teaching them to be carefully attending to everything

οσα ενετειλαμην υμιν
as much as (whatsoever) I have commanded to you

και ιδου εγω μεθ υμων ειμι πασας τας ημερας
And behold I with you I AM all the days

εως της συντελειας του αιωνος
Unto the completion of the Age

αμην
Amen"
____________________________________________
The above qualifies as a literal, if wooden, translation of the Greek text.

The first time I read it, I was astonished at the use of the word disciple as a verb.

And likewise, the two component participles of that verb, "to disciple":
1: Baptizing,
and
2: Teaching
Both in the ongoing present tense...

I was likewise dismayed at WHAT was to be taught - eg ALL that Christ had commanded them... And beyond that, the little word τηρειν, meaning "to be carefully guarding with precision" ALL these things...

For I knew not ALL that Christ had commanded, nor did I know what it meant "to observe", as the KJV translates...

So I put it all on a back burner, to slowly simmer, and kept reading...

The "accordingly" also was thrown whole into that slowly simmering pot...

A daunting task indeed to my then recently converted understanding...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Following the secular definition of "discipling" others brings you, in my opinion, a lot closer to understanding the actual New Testament meaning. Disciple: a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher. Such as "a disciple of Rousseau." This is same sense implied in 1 Corinthians 1:12-13.

Following that definition, I think your answer to "how can we make disciples" would be you have to have been taught plenty from the Lord to start with. The measure of a disciple will never exceed that of his master (Matthew 10:24).

My examples of making disciples would go back primarily to my times of holding in-house Bible studies, although I fully believe the same can be done online. I fully intend on making it my primary means of ministry in the future.

To disciple someone means to teach them to be doing something according to a discipline...
On the idea that one becomes that which one is doing...

My tuppence on the second...
The first is fairly understood as the English meaning of disciple, I should think...

Arsenios

 

[Hidden In Him]

μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη
Discipling all the peoples

βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα
Baptizing them into the Name

Isn't the order interesting here. Not baptizing them first but discipling them first. And isn't that what Jesus did with His own disciples? Their true baptism into newness of life came at Pentecost, but only after three years of being discipled by walking with the Master.

And for that matter, I could run a parallel with the patterns set by the sequence of the Jewish Festivals. Pentecost (Mt.Sinai) was not the beginning. Passover was. Then the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which referred to receiving only uncontaminated teachings, i.e. the uncontaminated word of God, and then walking with Him until the time of Mt.Sinai, when God would manifest Himself to them in power.

Paul equated water baptism with the crossing of the Red Sea (1 Corinthians 10:1-2), which closely preceded Sinai, so no matter how you slice it, there was a clear time of walking with God before baptism came in any form.

The implication is that it is NOT about simply making "converts." Someone who has not been truly discipled in the word is someone who is not been properly prepared for the entire rest of the Christian experience.

 

[Arsenios]

Isn't the order interesting here. Not baptizing them first but discipling them first. And isn't that what Jesus did with His own disciples? Their true baptism into newness of life came at Pentecost, but only after three years of being discipled by walking with the Master.

Thank-you - I was in haste with another impingement, and hurried the translation, and wrongly translated: "Disciple ye all the peoples..." by saying "Discipling ye all the peoples"... I corrected the post...

It matters, because this is the controlling verb in the grammar of the sentence, and is a second person plural verb, and an aorist imperative, which does not mean "Be ye discipling..." at all, which would be a present active imperative... It is instead an aorist imperative, which regards the action of discipling in all its modalities as but a single event...

This means that the two present participles immediately following it are included in it, in the action of discipling...

Hence the import is:
1: GO ye
and
2: Disciple ye

Then, explaining 2:
2a: Baptizing them
and
2b: Teaching them

So that the exegetical grammar does not support your conclusion, rightly derived from my bad translation - forgive me - that discipling comes prior to Baptizing... What the text supports is that Baptism is the first step in discipling, followed by teaching them the following of the Way of Christ...

Indeed, it was not until much later that the Followers of the Way (of Christ) were even called Christians... This happened at Antioch, recorded in Acts 11:1, as I recall...

And this is the path even of the Apostle (Paul) who was called directly by the Risen Christ, who upon his calling through blindness was sent by Christ to His Servant Ananias in order to be healed from his blindness, and be given the Holy Spirit in Baptism...

It was only then that Paul went forth and proved the Faith of Christ in his own body being directly instructed by Christ Himself...

It is Baptism, you see, that prepares the Called person for the instruction unto his or her establishment in the Kingdom of Heaven, just as it was not until AFTER the Jews had crossed Jordan into the Promised Land that they THEN encountered the Giants of Opposition, the Goliaths, where the strength of Christ in the weak can be perfected - eg It was David, and not his big brawny and heavily armored brother, who killed Goliath and took his head and his armor...

It is true that in the early Church, the apprentice period amounted to 3 years of instruction and limited participation in services, but this was to prepare them for baptism into the Body of Christ - It was a period where they could make that decision... Yet the Ethiopian Eunuch was baptized immediately upon being taught some of Isaiah...

Paul equated water baptism with the crossing of the Red Sea (1 Corinthians 10:1-2), which closely preceded Sinai, so no matter how you slice it, there was a clear time of walking with God before baptism came in any form.

Yes, the Baptism of the Jews in the Red Sea did indeed save them from Pharoah and his Host... Which took them into the wilderness, to prove in themselves their worthiness to enter the Promised Land... Few of those saved entered it... Much time was spent wandering away from God... An individually determined condition... But Israel did enter...

The implication is that it is NOT about simply making "converts." Someone who has not been truly discipled in the word is someone who is not been properly prepared for the entire rest of the Christian experience.

That is exactly what the CCC [Campus Crusade for Christ] discovered... They would come on campus, have thousands upon thousands of altar calls, all becoming 'converts', and coming back the next year to find one or two or precioius few still persisting in their calling...

This some 30 years ago -
And they launched an investigation into the origins of the Faith...
And they discovered Eastern Orthodox Christianity...

They saw their fruit, and corrected their ways...

So the way I am seeing it now, Baptism into Christ is according to the preparation and need of the one(s) being baptized combined with Christ's local purposes...

Arsenios

 

[ByTheSpirit]

I have looked at it liked this: The command is to make disciples.

Baptizing them and then teaching them Christ's commands are how we disciple

 

[Arsenios]

I have look at it liked this: The command is to make disciples.

Baptizing them and then teaching them Christ's commands are how we disciple

I think so, and as I think about it, I see Baptism into the Body of Christ as the doorway/initiation to what I sometimes call "enhanced" discipleship... Or 'enhanced' repentance - It becomes something of a launching pad on this view. I know that in the EOC, Baptism is given with the warning that IF you think it has been hard to this point as a Catechumen, then NOW will come the REALLY hard part when you are actually ENTERED into the Body of Christ...

As David's brother found out...

There are instances, however, in the history of the Faith, of people who were so prepared prior to Baptism that they slipped into Life in Christ without much differerence in opposition by demonic forces at all... It all depends...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I have look at it liked this: The command is to make disciples.

Baptizing them and then teaching them Christ's commands are how we disciple

So how do you determine what ALL these Commands actually ARE?

Arsenios

 

[ByTheSpirit]

So how do you determine what ALL these Commands actually ARE?

Arsenios

I generally just leave it at the one great command expressed by John:

Love one another.

If we have love one to another we:

1. Show that we love God as well
2. Prove to be Jesus disciple
3. Will fulfill the law

Treat one another as you want to be treated. That one very simple command has so much truth and profoundness to it.

 

[Hidden In Him]

It matters, because this is the controlling verb in the grammar of the sentence, and is a second person plural verb, and an aorist imperative, which does not mean "Be ye discipling..." at all, which would be a present active imperative... It is instead an aorist imperative, which regards the action of discipling in all its modalities as but a single event...

Thanks. I had to go look at the original myself, and the lord "baptizing" is likewise aorist active in Vaticanus and few other texts as well. However, while this passage would appear to combine the process into one without distinguishing between order, I would still hold to there being one. But don't take me for being contentious. I find engaging with one educated in the scriptures to be a blessing, even if I may not completely agree right off.

And this is the path even of the Apostle (Paul) who was called directly by the Risen Christ, who upon his calling through blindness was sent by Christ to His Servant Ananias in order to be healed from his blindness, and be given the Holy Spirit in Baptism...

You could possibly include here Cornelius and his family, who were baptized in the Holy Spirit (and therefore could no longer be denied water baptism), while not yet having been instructed in the word.

However, two things come to mind here:
- With Cornelius you have a situation where the Lord was having to reveal that the Holy Spirit had now been made available to the Gentiles as well, which the leaders of the church would not have been open to unless God just did it whether they approved or not.
- With Paul, you had a man deeply educated in the word, yet whose ears were closed to hearing He who was the Word.
I would regard both of these two as having extenuating circumstances, as compared with the ordinary Christian.

It is Baptism, you see, that prepares the Called person for the instruction unto his or her establishment in the Kingdom of Heaven, just as it was not until AFTER the Jews had crossed Jordan into the Promised Land that they THEN encountered the Giants of Opposition, the Goliaths, where the strength of Christ in the weak can be perfected - eg It was David, and not his big brawny and heavily armored brother, who killed Goliath and took his head and his armor...

I would agree with you here, but with their true baptism in preparation for warfare being their experience at Mt.Sinai. This is where His power was revealed, which they would need to trust in and rely on, rather than their own strength. And again, all these experiences (Red Sea, Sinai, 40 years, and warfare) all followed the Festival of Unleavened Bread and the 50 days leading to Pentecost, which I believe most clearly represent being discipled in the word.

It is true that in the early Church, the apprentice period amounted to 3 years of instruction and limited participation in services, but this was to prepare them for baptism into the Body of Christ - It was a period where they could make that decision... Yet the Ethiopian Eunuch was baptized immediately upon being taught some of Isaiah...

This one is interesting, but in holding to my view I'd say this may again be extenuating circumstances. The Ethiopian eunuch was going back home (Acts 8:27-28).

That is exactly what the CCC [Campus Crusade for Christ] discovered... They would come on campus, have thousands upon thousands of altar calls, all becoming 'converts', and coming back the next year to find one or two or precioius few still persisting in their calling...

Yes. This is one of my arguments against much of the methods used today. Superficiality is the biggest problem in the church, in my opinion, especially in the West. And I believe a complete correction in the teaching on how one truly becomes a Christian needs to be made.

Enjoyed your post, and your insights on the original. Thank you very much, Arsenios.

 

[Arsenios]

Thanks. I had to go look at the original myself, and the word "baptizing" is likewise aorist active in Vaticanus and few other texts as well. However, while this passage would appear to combine the process into one without distinguishing between order, I would still hold to there being one. But don't take me for being contentious. I find engaging with one educated in the scriptures to be a blessing, even if I may not completely agree right off.

I use the Byzantine Text of 1999 [I think] and it has a Present Active Participle plural...

The Biblical witness is not dogmatic on the sequencing...

You could possibly include here Cornelius and his family, who were baptized in the Holy Spirit (and therefore could no longer be denied water baptism), while not yet having been instructed in the word.

Many in the west regard the Filling of Cornelius and his party with the Holy Spirit as a "Spirit Baptism"... This view has no historical witness in the historical Church... We regard it as the means that God employed, by which Peter changed his thinking about baptizing Gentiles... Once he got it, he immediately baptized Cornelius and his party... It was the "second Pentecost" for the Gentiles...

The Holy Spirit coming upon one is not the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, but is Divine visitation... It happened with Elizabeth and the Blessed Virgin, and is well attested in the OT...

However, two things come to mind here:
- With Cornelius you have a situation where the Lord was having to reveal that the Holy Spirit had now been made available to the Gentiles as well, which the leaders of the church would not have been open to unless God just did it whether they approved or not.

Yes...

- With Paul, you had a man deeply educated in the word, yet whose ears were closed to hearing He who was the Word.

He was already blinded in his Pharisitical Judgementalism, so God blinded him properly, and upon Ananias' laying his hands upon him 'scales' came out from his eyes... Suggesting that he was restored to more than mere physical visual acuity...

I would regard both of these two as having extenuating circumstances, as compared with the ordinary Christian.

I would agree with you here, but with their true baptism in preparation for warfare being their experience at Mt.Sinai. This is where His Power was revealed, which they would need to trust in and rely on, rather than their own strength.

Are you referring to the three Apostles seeing Christ coming in Power in their vision on Mt. Tabor?

And again, all these experiences (Red Sea, Sinai, 40 years, and warfare) all preceded the Festival of Unleavened Bread and the 50 days leading to Pentecost, which I believe most clearly represent being discipled in the word.

I am unfamiliar with these lines of understanding...

This one is interesting, but in holding to my view I'd say this may again be extenuating circumstances. The Ethiopian eunuch was going back home (Acts 8:27-28).

That is how Christ evangellized Ethiopia...

Yes. This is one of my arguments against much of the methods used today. Superficiality is the biggest problem in the church, in my opinion, especially in the West. And I believe a complete correction in the teaching on how one truly becomes a Christian needs to be made.

And that is exactly why they turned East to the Church at Antioch...

We do that complete correction...

I serve with many of them...

Arsenios

Enjoyed your post, and your insights on the original. Thank you very much, Arsenios.

Thank you for your kind words...

Arsenios

 

[GandalfTheWise]

If the Greek used English words, it would sound something like this:
_____________________________________________________
πορευθεντες ουν
Go ye forth accordingly (eg according to Christ's total exousia)

A really minor point here for completeness since your post might be linked to later from other threads. Should "πορευθεντες" be "going" rather than "go ye"?

I enjoyed your exposition of the passage and other comments.