Chapter 8. ON BEING A DISCIPLE, OR STUDENT, OF JESUS
Who Is Our Teacher?
“Who teaches you? Whose disciple are you? Honestly. One thing is sure: You are somebody’s disciple. You learned how to live from somebody else. There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live.” Or as Bob Dylan wrote, “You have to serve somebody, …"
The Earthly “Society of Jesus”.
The Narrow Way and the Good Tree. At the end of the Discourse on the Hill, Jesus gives 4 images of finding the right path.
- The narrow and the wide gate.
- The god tree and the bad tree.
- Final Judgment.
- Those who hear and do and those who hear and do not.
How Are We to Be with Him? “If I am Jesus’ disciple that means I am with him to learn from him how to be like him.”
Teaching the Transition.
“Engulfment” in the Spiritual Presence. As Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit “engulfed” the disciples and other believers and that promise is still valid for today.
Life in the Spirit and the Kingdom of the Heavens. “Not that the genuine presence of the kingdom in a person can really be hidden. It cannot, nor, for that matter, can its absence. But it also cannot be canned, controlled, produced on demand, standardized, or brought to a point at which it can be dispensed by one human being to another.” “The most exalted outcome of submersion in the risen Christ is the transformation of the inner self to be like him.”
How to Be a Disciple
The Simplicity of Discipleship. “One can be a very raw and incompetent beginner and still be a disciple.”
What a Disciple Is. “a disciple, or apprentice, is simply someone who has decided to be with another person, under appropriate conditions, in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become what that person is.” “Another important way of putting this is to say that I am learning from Jesus to live my life as he would live my life if he were I. I am not necessarily learning to do everything he did, but I am learning how to do everything I do in the manner that he did all that he did.”
The Whole of My Daily Existence Is the Focus of Discipleship.
The Glory of My Job. “But how, exactly, is one to make one’s job a primary place of apprenticeship to Jesus? Not, we quickly say, by becoming the Christian nag-in-residence, the rigorous upholder of all propriety, and the dead-eye critic of everyone else’s behavior.”
Christian Ministers as Jesus’ Apprentices. Jesus’ ministry had three components: proclaiming, manifesting, and teaching. “In summary, then, the disciple or apprentice of Jesus, as recognized by the New Testament, is one who has firmly decided to learn from him how to lead his or her life, whatever that may be, as Jesus himself would do it. And, as best they know how, they are making plans—taking the necessary steps, progressively arranging and rearranging their affairs—to do this.”
How to Become a Disciple
“… a disciple of Jesus is one who is with Jesus, learning to be like him, what, we must ask, is the state of soul that would bring us to choose that condition?” What definite steps would someone who wants to be a disciple take to move towards that.
The Field and the Pearl. “These little stories perfectly express the condition of soul in one who chooses life in the kingdom with Jesus. The sense of the goodness to be achieved by that choice, of the opportunity that may be missed, the love for the value discovered, the excitement and joy over it all, is exactly the same as it was for those who were drawn to Jesus in those long-ago days when he first walked among us. It is also the condition of soul from which discipleship can be effectively chosen today.”
Clarity About the Bargain. “The point is simply that unless we clearly see the superiority of what we receive as his students over every other thing that might be valued, we cannot succeed in our discipleship to him. We will not be able to do the things required to learn his lessons and move ever deeper into a life that is his kingdom.”
Do You Love Me More Than These? The story of Jesus asking Peter that question and the subtleness of the Greek works for love.
What Should We Do? What ca we do to get there.
Ask. Tell Jesus repeatedly what our desire is.
Dwell , Reside, in His Words. Immerse in the gospels.
Now Decide: The Power of Decision and Intention. It is important to consciously decide to be a disciple.
Helping Others Find Their Way into Discipleship
How do we make disciples, as Jesus commanded us?
Be Disciples.
Against the Tide. “any Christian groups simply have no idea what discipleship is and have relegated it to para-church organizations.”
The Elephant in the Church. Non-discipleship is the elephant in the church. “There is a widespread notion that just passing through death transforms human character. Discipleship is not needed. Just believe enough to “make it.” But I have never been able to find any basis in scriptural tradition or psychological reality to think this might be so. What if death only forever fixes us as the kind of person we are at death? What would one do in heaven with a debauched character or a hate-filled heart?”
Intending to Make Disciples. The church has largely passed off this ministry to para church organizations.
Discipleship Evangelism? It is essential that the intention is to make disciples. This will change the nature of the church in a big way.
Changing People’s Real Beliefs. “you lead people to become disciples of Jesus by ravishing them with a vision of life in the kingdom of the heavens in the fellowship of Jesus. And you do this by proclaiming, manifesting, and teaching the kingdom to them in the manner learned from Jesus himself. You thereby change the belief system that governs their lives.”
A “ Glorious Accident”? “… to enable people to become disciples we must change whatever it is in their actual belief system that bars confidence in Jesus as Master of the Universe. That is fundamental and must be taken as an unshakable conscious objective by any maker of disciples.”
Changed Beliefs Change Action and Character.
Study What the People We Speak to Actually Believe. “o enable people to become disciples we must change whatever it is in their actual belief system that bars confidence in Jesus as Master of the Universe. That is fundamental and must be taken as an unshakable conscious objective by any maker of disciples.”
The Only Way Forward.
Quotes from: Dallas Willard. “The Divine Conspiracy.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-divine-conspiracy/id360632495