Looking Back in Order to See Ahead
Big Picture of Discipleship
As followers of Jesus, we tend to focus our attention primarily on the writing within the New Testament. This focus, however, is a mistake that leaves us with less than a whole view of God’s intentions. An incomplete view is a distorted view.
This is certainly true when considering what a genuine disciple of Jesus looks like.
We’ve previously noted the New Testament uses the Greek term μαθητής (mathētēs) when referring to disciples. While this term is neither used nor found within the Old Testament, we do find evidence within the Old Testament of how God created the concept and the development of disciples.
Consider, for example, the text from Isaiah 8:16, “Preserve the teaching of God; entrust his instructions to those who follow me.”
The word for “follow” is לִמֻּד lim·mǔḏ, meaning “taught, trained; pupil”
Isaiah seemingly “discipled” a collection of individuals who sought to follow God on God’s terms.
We read, in Isaiah 50:4, “The Sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will.”
Here, Isaiah shines the light on his own personal discipleship by highlighting his willingness to learn from and imitate the Lord.
It is certainly true we can only give away that which we personally possess.
Discipleship began in the Old Testament, not the day Jesus launched His ministry. This is all important to understand as we begin seeing discipleship gaining significant popularity as the New Testament unfolds.
Within the Jewish culture at the time if the first century church, Jewish boys no longer received formal education once reaching the age of thirteen (13). As a result, boys would seek out a respected leader who would select him to “disciple” in his desired profession.
This discipling “relationship” would be personal in nature as the the young teen would live with, follow, learn from, and imitate his teacher. The intended outcome is for the “teacher” to pour out both his knowledge and his life into the student. Upon “graduation,” the student would then reflect the teacher through the beliefs he carried, information he gave others, and the way he lived his life.
One such example of this was the apostle Paul. As a young Jewish boy, Paul left parents and his home in Tarsus for Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel, a famous Jewish Rabbi (Acts 5:34; 22:3).
Another example is one of Jesus’ disciples named Levi. Given his name and background, we and surmise his parents intended for their son to become a rabbi. His profession, however, indicated no rabbi selected Levi to become a disciple, resulting in Levi becoming a hated tax collector. Well, until Jesus walked by and said, “Follow me and be my disciple.” Levi got up and left everything behind to follow Jesus, becoming Jesus’ disciple. (Mark 2:14)
God established discipleship in the Old Testament and brought it forward into the New Testament. The disciple gave up everything, leaving it all behind to walk in a new life following their teacher. By recognizing what God began before the Christ ever established His church, helps us recognize a disciple’s main focus and center of his attention was imitating his teacher’s life, imprinting the teacher’s values and duplicating the teacher’s teachings in such a way that the disciple perfectly reflected his teacher.
The disciple then became the teacher and produced more disciples.
This is exactly how we obediently answer Jesus’ call to follow Him (Luke 9:23). We are to be Jesus’ disciple, one who sits under, learns from, and imitates the teacher. We are then to go out and make new disciples (Matthew 28:18-20).
MAKING IT PERSONAL
- Have you given up “everything” to follow Jesus?
- What is something you are “quietly” holding onto that Jesus is expecting you to give up?
- Are you learning to reflect the Teacher or merely gaining knowledge from the Teacher?
- When considering being a disciple of Jesus, what aspect means the most to you? What aspect are you most hesitant to follow?
- Who are three people you can begin praying for right now?
- How could God use you to disciple these folks, helping them to fall in love with Jesus and living a life of obedience to Him??