A blog by Adam W. Christman

Tag: discipleship

  • On the Need for Discipleship, Part 2

    For part 1, click here.

    On the Need for Discipleship, Part 2

    Today’s post covers three areas. It has a relatively broad introduction on how you can disciple another person, different and more specific than last week’s post. The next area is on how to select a person to work with. The third area is how we help people on their discipleship journey, returning to some items we discussed last week. In all, last week’s post and this week’s post collect a general introduction to our need for discipleship. Next week, we’ll pick up with a different subject.

    People really do change. Pessimists will try to deny it, but people really do change over time.

    Where do you get your hair cut? Why do you go there? Did your friend tell you about it? Did a family member start a job there, or did he or she open that business?

    Where’s your favorite place for Mexican food? Why do you go there?

    My favorite coffee shop is called Lazy Eye coffee, located in my neighborhood. It has no seating and keeps very limited hours. But they have more business there because I tell people, “Go try their coffee. Try the peanut butter latte.” My favorite Mexican food place is called La Palapa, within walking distance of my house. I love their food, especially their breakfast burritos and, if I’m willing to go nuts on calories, the Crazy Fries. I frequently recommend it to people.

    You influence people, and people influence you. That’s not a question. The question is, how will you use your influence? You may not think of yourself as a powerful person, but God has put power in you to influence people.

    A disciple of Christ disciples others by helping them to follow Christ. Is that how you’re using your influence?

    A disciple is others-oriented.

    We strategically plan to bless others in our getting up, our going out and about, how we go to church and engage the church in worship and service, etc.

    Colossians 1:28-29, “We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.”

    This is what “others-oriented” looks like. We do not dominate people through overt demands, guilt trips, or manipulation. We work by way of self-sacrificial labor, and we do so with as much wisdom as we can get from God’s Word. In so doing, we look to please our God and our King. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” He will tell us.

    Discipleship is when we help one another prepare for eternity.

    Here are steps we take to help people follow Jesus.

    • Initiating. We take a step to start the conversation with a fellow believer about starting an intentional process of discipleship.
    • We need to remember that efforts to help those “outside the church” is evangelism, not discipleship. We don’t serve unbelievers well if we help them behave morally but never share with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ so they might believe and be saved. Jesus warned the Pharisees in Matthew 23:15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to make one convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are!” Let me urge you, Christian, FOCUS! Share the Gospel and love them. Leave the discipleship for later. Discpleship is for those “inside the church.”
    • Teaching. This piece is key! How will they believe unless they hear (Romans 10), but also how will Christians obey unless they are taught? Remember the Great Commission, which, in part, says “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” You don’t have to have the spiritual gift of teaching. You don’t even have to be comfortable teaching! But you do have to take that which has been entrusted to you (Jude 3) and pass it along to the Christians you are privileged to invest in. You (probably) won’t use a whiteboard or a laser pointer, but you do need to communicate whatever you have learned. Attributed in many places to D.T. Niles, though I am unsure of its origin, is a saying that should help the hesitant to understand you don’t need to be David Jeremiah or John Piper in order to fulfill the Great Commission of teaching God’s Word to the person you disciple. The saying is that you are one beggar telling other beggars where to find bread. The best teachers are the humble ones who know this truth. I have no doubt that God has and can and will equip you to communicate however much you have learned, even if it is only a little!
    • Correcting. I can’t tell you how many times Google Maps has put me at the wrong place. Similar names, mislabeled businesses, user error have all put me in a place I didn’t want to go. I had to get back into the app, or I had to look at my surroundings, or I needed to go to the nearest gas station and ask for directions. I needed correction! This may come as a shock, but the person you disciple is a sinner. All have sinned (Rom 3:23), and we will continue to fight the spiritual fight against our old sin nature (Eph 4:22-24) to our last day on this earth. As we sin or even as we commit amoral foolishness, we stray. We go off the path God wants to lead us down. So, we need correction to get back on track. As the discipler, you will need to speak into the life of the person you disciple, to correct when you see them stray. Be gracious. Don’t swing the hammer! Use the scalpel. Precise, intentional, only the needed cuts. And only the cuts necessary for healing. Proverbs 27:6a, “The wounds of a friend are trustworthy.” Don’t rush into this; ask the one(s) discipling you what they think you should do.
    • Modeling. The proof is in the pudding, and the visible model of Christian living is YOU! Show them how to do things! You might be surprised how encouraging it is to someone to read Scripture with you, pray with you, etc., to see and hear how you do it. When Jesus said “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,” you’ll notice He did not tell us to “teach them all the Bible trivia I have taught you.” Discipleship is far more than head knowledge. Pray with them, show care for them and for others in a way they can see, sacrifice, patience, offer godly counsel on the things you can speak to, and refrain from commenting on the things you don’t know about. (“I don’t know” is a powerful and honest thing to say!)
    • Mutual love. Your love for them will grow, as will their love for you. Both people benefit from the discipleship! You must truly love the person you disciple. They aren’t a project, but a person.
    • Humility. We aren’t the experts. Again, each of us is a beggar, pointing another beggar to bread. Share what you do know. Be prepared to take responsibility, even when you are not at fault. You are in that discipleship relationship to serve them.

    How do we start?

    You do ultimately have to choose someone. Here are some factors to consider. Please do NOT consider this list “the checklist.” These items are simply factors that may play into your choice. You are just like me: you only have 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. So you have to do what I do and make the best and wisest choices you can make.

    • Family member, if possible. 1 Tim 5:8 is primarily about material provision for family members, but if our greatest need is spiritual, then spiritual provision must be accounted for, too. Maybe you have a sibling or cousin willing to work with you in a discipling relationship.
    • Spiritual state. Don’t teach non-Christians to obey God’s commands. GASP! A pastor said that??? Let me explain a little. You waste your time & might confuse non-Christians about the Gospel if you teach them obedience before they believe. Share the Gospel with them, explaining it as clearly as you can. Once they believe, their obedience begins. If you’re working with a non-Christian, stay focused. Teaching a non-Christian to obey God before they put their faith in Jesus can create a very moral spiritual corpse. This is not your call to discipleship.
    • Church membership. You have a greater responsibility for members of your own church just like a person has more responsibility for their own siblings. If you don’t have a church where you are a member, join a healthy one.
    • Gender. It is wise for men to disciple men and women to disciple women. Inappropriate intimacies can come around if you spend a lot of private time with the opposite sex. It’s not that one cannot disciple the other (e.g., Priscilla & Aquila discipled Apollos; Paul discipled Lydia). It’s about wisdom navigating it.
    • Age. Don’t let someone despise you for your youth, but respect older men and women; this is biblical teaching. You certainly can and may need to disciple someone older than you. (Pastors do this every week.) However, you will typically disciple someone your age or younger.
    • Different from you. Consider what you might learn by spending time discipling someone in a different slice of life than yourself. Someone in a different mode of life, for example, like a college student, in a trade school, married or single, with kids or without, ethnicity, background, etc. Remember, both persons benefit in a discipleship relationship!
    • Teachability. You can’t teach someone who refuses to be taught. If they think they have nothing to learn, they are not ready to be discipled by you. If you think you have nothing to learn, you need to repent and become ready to learn. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Pet 5:5).
    • Faithfulness to teach others. Is this someone you can see taking what they’ve learned and multiplying it out to more people? It might be hard to see right now, but it is worth considering.
    • Proximity and schedules. It is hard to disciple someone if you have no opportunity to spend time with them. Online discipleship is only worth so much. Live, in-person discipleship will carry the ball MUCH further down the field than anything else.

    In the end, there may be no best answer on who to disciple. Maybe you have two options and you can only disciple one of those people due to time constraints. Pray, ask for wisdom, get council from an older Christian, then get to work.

    The goal of discipleship is to follow Jesus better. There are two rails the help the train of discipleship move down the track.

    1. Help people understand more. As we grow in the knowledge of God in Christ, our faith and obedience can grow. Christians can’t obey what they haven’t been taught. You need to get to know God and understand more in your own life. You then teach the truth that truth. Their life is impacted by your teaching.
    2. Help people to live better. We want to live like Jesus lived. Paul said, “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your  eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us” (Phil 3:17). Spend time with your person. Be transparent with him or her. Invite them to learn from your mistakes and your successes. Don’t know where to start? Discuss last week’s sermon with them and its implications for your lives.

    You might still be confused. I encourage you to ask your person questions. So much of discipleship depends on the specific person. Interests, background, hurts, fears, hopes, etc., are unique person to person. Ask them questions like how did you become a Christian; where are you from; were your parents (and grandparents) Christians; why do you have the job that you have; what do you plan to do with your degree (if they are a college student), etc.?

    Let me share a little more sober truth with you.

    There is a cost you will have to pay. Mark 8:34 reports Jesus’ words, which we discussed in the previous post, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

    1. Discipleship will cost you time. You will need to spend time with them. You can’t disciple a person you don’t meet with. The primary focus of your time should be on God’s Word, but not necessarily the bulk of your time. You have to incorporate them into your life somehow. Meet for coffee or a meal. Invite them to eat dinner with your family. Incorporate them into a larger group, like if you regularly play disc golf or bowling or something. I once heard a quote I cannot find; I believe it is from Tim Keller. I’m going to restate it here in my own words. The strength of your friendship with this person is a bridge that will determine the weight of truth they will allow over it. In other words, the better a friendship you have with them, the better you will be able to share truth with them (and them with you!).
    2. Discipleship will cost you study. You will need to spend time studying God’s Word and other things to help you better help your person. If you’re going to share God’s Word, you have to have read it and studied it for yourself first. A starving man won’t do very well as a chef. You can do this! “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do,” Ephesians 2:10. God has already prepared you to study so you can better help others! Isn’t that amazing?
    3. Discipleship will cost you prayer. In other words, discipling others will cost you time and emotion spent in prayer for them. 1 Thess 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.” We need supernatural change. God gives us power through prayer. He isn’t witholding good things when we don’t pray. Rather, He wants us to pray so we can better know Him.
    4. Discipleship will cost you love. Love makes us deny ourselves and serve others. Love initiates a discipling relationship and perseveres in that discipling relationship. Love humbly receives the criticism that comes our way. Love humbly gives of itself in a discipling relationship. Love allows us to end discipling relationships when needed. After all, what they need is not us, but God Himself. Circumstances will change, like schedules. Or they will reveal an issue in their lives that is better served by a different disciple who has experience in that area.

    In closing, if you aren’t in a discipleship relationship with an older Christian, get one! If you’re not in a church where you think that can happen, join a healthy church!

    I have been so rewarded in my discipling relationships, both by my mentors and those who allow me to disciple them. I know you will experience the same!

  • On the Need for Discipleship, Part 1

    There are no Christians who are not disciples. To be a Christian means to be a disciple.

    “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” — Matthew 28:19-20 (CSB; emphasis added)

    A disciple is a follower of Jesus Christ who is in the active, intentional process of learning to think, feel, and act like a Christian. (Reminder: the term “Christian” means “follower of Christ”.)

    What we’re talking about in this post is that we have basic needs with regards to discipleship. This is big picture stuff to introduce to you our needs as Christians. We need to pay the cost of discipleship daily. We also need to live in light of the reality of our connection!

    We need to follow Jesus as His disciples. He calls us to do exactly that. And it really does meaning something!

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor up through World War II. In his act of Christian rebellion against the Third Reich in Nazi Germany, he was arrested by the authorities and ultimately martyred by the Nazis. He wrote this lengthy quote in The Cost of Discipleship:

    “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

    Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘you were bought at a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

    Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘you were bought at a price,’ and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.

    The apostle Peter received two calls from Jesus to follow him. His first call was at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, to give up his vocation and travel (which required departing from his family for long periods of time). That call is not cheap or easy.

    Peter was called a second time after Jesus’ resurrection, on the morning that Jesus fed the disciples fish. John 21 records that morning’s events. In that account, Jesus cooked the fish the disciples had caught, He restored Peter, and concluded His remarks in John 21:22 with “follow me.” Peter’s obedience to the call would result in giving all, again. Jesus said this in John 21:18-19, “‘Truly I tell you, when you were younger, you would tie your belt and walk wherever you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go.’ He said this to indicate by what kind of death Peter would glorify God. After saying this, he told him, ‘Follow me‘” (emphasis added). Peter’s call would result in his death.1

    Jesus’ whole-life call is not limited to Peter, but extends to all believers! Mark 8:34-38,

    Calling the crowd along with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it. For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life? What can anyone give in exchange for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

    “Take up your cross” is a BIG call. Trusting Jesus is nothing as limited as a Sunday morning worship time, nor is it as simple and easy as registering for a political party. It is a call for all His followers to give all of themselves to all of Who He is and what He does. Jesus calls you to give 100% of yourself to Him; your time, your talents, your treasure.

    It is a call for all His followers to give all of themselves to all of Who He is and what He does.

    Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington DC said, “Christians are people who have real faith in Christ, and who show it by resting their hopes, fears, and lives entirely upon him.”

    Dever also remarks:

    “The Christian life is the discipled life and the discipling life. Yes, Christianity involves taking the road less traveled and hearing a different drummer. But not in the way that Frost and Thoreau meant. Christianity is not for loners or individualists. It is for a people traveling together down the narrow path that leads to life. You must follow and you must lead. You must be loved and you must love. And we love others best by helping them to follow Jesus down the pathway of life. … Christianity is personal, yes, always!—but not private. You need to be involved in the lives of others, and you need them in yours. God is the only one who doesn’t need to be taught!” (Emphasis added.)

    God’s plan for your involvement in the lives of others, and for others’ lives to be involved in yours, is the local church. If you are a Christian, you need to be in a local gathering of the body of Christ, aka the church. (I don’t necessarily mean a brick-and-mortar church building, though those are certainly helpful resources we can use to bless and benefit our faith community and our geographical communities, too.)

    Hebrews 10:24-25, “And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching” (emphasis added). Notice the phrasing of continuous action? “Not neglecting.” In other words, “let us continually choose to gather together” for encouragement and provoking one another to greater heights of love and broader impacts of good works.

    Let’s back up to Genesis 2:18 for a moment. That verse says, “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.’” While this verse is primarily about marriage, it also points to a truth found all over Scripture and science: human beings are communal creatures. We weren’t meant to live life isolated in our bedrooms or living rooms, relegated to doomscrolling or watching endless screens of Netflix shows or movies. We also weren’t meant to live for ourselves, perhaps doing many activities and “to heck with everybody else”! We were meant for real connection to one another in our basic humanity (Gen 2:18). As Christians, our bonds to one another in Christ give more and eternal reasons to be connected one to another.

    Some biblical pictures of who Christians are will help us think about discipleship.

    -Co-workers with God. 1 Cor 3:9, “For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building.” He has brought us into the work of His Kingdom!

    -Stewards. 2 Tim 2:2, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” I’m reminded of the Parable of the Talents from Matthew 25. We have been given something to use in God’s mission to seek and to save the lost. I won’t go over the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12, et al, here. But they aren’t simply skills we have developed or deserve praise for. God gives us everything we have and we steward all of it to His glory and for His mission.

    -Soldiers. 2 Tim 2:3-4, “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the concerns of civilian life; he seeks to please the commanding officer.” There is a cost. But there is also a great goal of seeing men & women saved, and the finish line is being in Jesus’ presence for eternity. Soldiers look out for fellow soldiers.

    -Athletes. 2 Tim 2:5, “Also, if anyone competes as an athlete, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” Athletes train, strive, and agonize over mastery of their focused area. An athlete aims for excellence. The best athletes experience and utilize humility, learning, and repetition. Ultimately, the athlete does all that so he can put himself out there and give his best, leaving it all out on the field, holding nothing back.

    -Farmers. 2 Tim 2:6, “The hardworking farmer ought to be the first to get a share of the crops.” Farmers are patient workers who rely on God to give the growth. We do the work of plowing, planting, watering, cultivating, pruning, and ultimately harvesting. The best farmers, the happiest farmers, the most productive farmers all have something in common. They work together!

    –Body. Rom 12:4-5. 1 Cor 12:12f. With Christ as the head (Eph 1:22-23), we–His body–follow. We share a common and unbreakable bond through salvation and through the Holy Spirit.

    In today’s post, we covered the need and the reality of connection, as well as the cost of following Jesus. In next week’s post, we will get into influence and discipleship more specifically.

    1. Church history tells us Peter’s martyrdom was in Rome, hung on a cross. He requested of his executioners that they hang his cross upside-down since he was unworthy to die as Jesus died. This account of the specific detail regarding an upside-down cross is from a questionable source, but multiple early writers attest to Peter’s martyrdom, including his martyrdom in Rome “with a passion like that of the Lord” (Tertullian). See Clement of Rome’s Letter to the Corinthians, Dionysius of Corinth’s writings, Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. ↩︎