What is a Disciple?
(excerpt from http://preservingbibletimes.org/images/stories/pdfs/Reflection.TwoWorldsIII.pdf)
By Doug Greenwold
Senior Teaching Fellow at Preserving Bible Times, Inc.
In reading the Gospels, it’s hard to miss the word “disciples.” Jesus begins His ministry by calling a few observant Jews to become His disciples. Roughly three years later, He goes to Jerusalem with His band of disciples and dies on a Cross. Between those two events, He walks the land remaking these disciples in what Luke characterized as Jesus’ “do and teach” pedagogy (Acts 1:1). To more fully understand the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim, we need to understand what it meant to be a disciple in the First Century so we can know what it is we are to make, as well as how to go about making them today.
By Doug Greenwold
Senior Teaching Fellow at Preserving Bible Times, Inc.
In reading the Gospels, it’s hard to miss the word “disciples.” Jesus begins His ministry by calling a few observant Jews to become His disciples. Roughly three years later, He goes to Jerusalem with His band of disciples and dies on a Cross. Between those two events, He walks the land remaking these disciples in what Luke characterized as Jesus’ “do and teach” pedagogy (Acts 1:1). To more fully understand the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim, we need to understand what it meant to be a disciple in the First Century so we can know what it is we are to make, as well as how to go about making them today.
When Jesus said in Matthew 28:19 go and make disciples…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, He was a Jew speaking to other Jews in a Semitic dialect. As such, those words had a very specific (and timeless) meaning that embodied a common paradigm that first-century Jewish listeners well understood. For us to better understand what Jesus said, we first need to disconnect from our traditional Hellenistic understanding of those words – easier said than done – and then ask how the Jews who first heard those words would have understood them. This process will give us clarity about how the key words – make, disciples, teach, obey, everything, commanded – should fit into our disciplemaking efforts of today.
The Role of the Rabbi
Every first-century Jew knew that the Scriptures had authority over all aspects of life. God may have been a mystery to them, but behavior was not. Furthermore, it was scrupulous behavior that defined a “righteous” person. Thus, observant Jews had a deep desire to honor God by doing all the right things. In the world of Pharisaism, rabbis were the teachers who were given the authoritative role to interpret God’s Word for living a righteous life – that is defining for their disciples what behavior would or would not honor God.
Choose Your Rabbi Carefully
A first-century disciple (talmid) was a student/learner, and the process of making disciples (talmidim) was a learning community (yeshiva) of adherents. Since a rabbi’s interpretation of God’s Word wasforever binding on his disciples, choosing to enter into religious training with a rabbi was a lifeshaping decision.
If a first-century rabbi ultimately agreed to a would-be-disciple’s request and uttered those cherished follow me” words of invitation, the disciple-to-be agreed to totally surrender to the rabbi’s authority inall areas of interpreting the Scriptures for his life. In fact this first-century Jewish idiom “follow me” means: come and be with me and submit to my authoritative teaching. It is hard for us in the West to identify with this extreme desire to surrender, but that degree of submission was a cultural given for all observant Jewish young men – something each dreamed of and aspired to.
Emulation
While not overtly required, disciples intrinsically had a deep desire to imitate their rabbi. As we say in our contemporary culture, that’s just something that “comes with the territory.” This often included emulating how their rabbi ate, observed Sabbath, his likes and dislikes, mannerisms, prejudices and even preferences. Some disciples would go to extreme lengths to try to imitate their rabbi. The story is told of one disciple who so wanted to emulate his rabbi that he hid in the rabbi’s bedchamber. That way he would be better able to emulate with his own future wife how the rabbi was intimate with his wife. Extreme to be sure! But illustrative of the deep, deep desire disciples had to emulate their rabbi in all ways.
Born to Mimic
Part of our extended family includes a two-year old grandson and two, fifteen-month old twin granddaughters (from different daughters!) Both are in various stages of being mimics. Our grandson is repeating the last few words of every sentence we speak. It’s like having your own personal echo chamber following you around. Lacking a working vocabulary, our twin granddaughters are doing the same, only with gestures. If my wife or I pat our head, guess what they will do? The same thing. If we sneeze, they do their best to imitate a sneeze! Observing this consistent pattern of toddler behavior, brought to mind that mimicking might be part of what Jesus was thinking when He said unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 18:3).Emulating Him would be one of those obvious things Jesus would expect His disciples to do in His Kingdom!
As another example, back to baseball for a moment. While I was recently watching some of the Little League Baseball World Series on television, I saw 11- and 12-year old boys emulating all kinds of behaviors that we find in major league baseball players. This included the baggy pants piled up around their ankles as well as their spitting all over the field (from bubble gum?) as if they were seasoned tobacco chewers! They know how to emulate their idols!
Being an intentional emulator is not just limited to children. Observe how we develop board certified surgeons, nurses, licensed electricians, schoolteachers, biochemists, counselors, and golf pros today. Common to each are long periods of study, training, technique emulation, internship experiences, as well as continuing education. We are accustomed to the practice of placing ourselves under the watchful “discipling” oversight of others as we mimic those who have established proficiency in our professional areas of interest. Ironically, we seem to put far more passion, commitment, and dedication into becoming a disciple of someone, or some thing, than we seem to do in developing and nurturing our piety as committed disciples of Jesus Christ. Thus, we all become disciples of someone or some thing - be it hedonism, career, self-absorption, baseball, our favorite cause, or Jesus Christ.
Wrestling with the Word of God
Yeshivas, or groups of disciples intensely dialoging over Scripture’s claim on an aspect of life, was a standard part of rabbinic disciplemaking methodology. Yeshivas would discuss the Torah (the Pentateuch), the Ketuvim (The Writings), and the Neviim (The Prophets) which comprised the whole of their Scripture (The Tanakh) as they knew it. To this they would overlay the various interpretations of the ages through the ages. Debate was commonplace in the yeshiva experience as the rabbi and his band walked the trails. Those disciples who could best argue and defend their interpretive position regarding some aspect of wrestling with God’s Word to comprehend “who God is and how God does things,” were meeting the objectives of the rabbi and the yeshiva experience.
Since all disciples had memorized most, if not all of their Scripture, the issue was not the content of God’s Word, but rather how it was to be lived out. As part of that process, the disciples would debate various sage interpretations of the texts pertaining to a real life issue. Because of their love of learning, that might involve weeks of dialogue and debate, for the rabbis were in no hurry to resolve these issues and questions. However, when the rabbi ultimately did declare his authoritative interpretation on an issue, all further debate ceased. His declared interpretation was now binding on his disciples’ lives. It was not optional from the disciple’s perspective whether he would embrace that understanding or not. It was a done deal. From that point forward, he would be committed to living out his rabbi’s understanding in every aspect of his life. That contextual perspective does beg the question: Do we embrace Jesus’ teaching in that same submitted, passionate way, e.g., the Sermon on the Mount?
Transparency
Unlike many of our contemporary “discipleship” programs or notions, there was no curriculum or agenda for this multi-year discipling experience. Rather it was a continual, daily, relational living experience where either the rabbi would ask questions of a disciple as he closely observed the disciple’s daily behavior, or the disciple would initiate a discussion by asking a question based on some aspect of his daily life. In the dynamics of this intimate discipling community, all of a disciple’s daily life was observable by the rabbi. A disciple always expected the rabbi’s consistent and persistent question, “Why did you do that?” The rabbi’s emphasis was always on behavior formation, not just the imparting of wisdom and related interpretive information. In this interactive manner, the rabbis functioned to clear up gray areas of understanding and difficult areas of textual interpretation for their disciples. By always asking questions, the rabbis were concentrating ondeveloping discernment in the mind of the disciple, not the imparting of “how to” formulas or “tips for living.” Notions of four steps to piety, or three steps to effective prayer would be abhorrent to the first-century disciplemaking process.
Believe is a Verb
As developed in last month’s Reflection, the Semitic understanding of “believe” was not based on an intellectual assent to a creed, doctrinal statement, or series of faith propositions. Rather, believe, faith, truth were active (often imperative) verbs in which a disciple willingly submitted to his rabbi’s interpretive authority regarding scripture in every area of life. Thus, to say you were a disciple in the name of Gamaliel, meant that you not only totally surrendered your life to Gamaliel’s way of interpreting Scripture, but also willingly conformed all of your life’s behavior to his interpretations.
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Our rabbi is Jesus. “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) Jesus encourages us to a transcendent level of spirituality. – Christopher
Jesus is our rabbi.
But clearly for discipleship to take hold among Christians there must be those who like Paul insist: 'So imitate me, watch my ways, follow my example, just as I, too, always seek to imitate' Christ (see I Corinthians 11:1 - the Voice)
In other words we who are called to lead others must be living lives worth imitating.
Heady stuff - especially when you consider who our lives are to imitate.
Some have prayer lives worth replicating. Were others to imitate their prayer lives great advances were occur in them and in the church as a whole. For growth even in just a few benefits many.
Others live lives so out there among the hurting that to follow them for even a couple of hours is transformative - reshaping one's understanding of mercy, community and life style.
Others still are such students in life - both life as the current headline and life as found in Christ. When others imitate them, kingdom advances are made.
I think as pastors the challenge - at least initially - is to delineate what of our lives is worth imitating. In short, what is it we do that were someone else to replicate, would make them more and more like Christ?
There is a story that Philip Yancey tells about an eager Christian disciple who wrote each of 3 profound Christian writers on spirituality - Richard Foster, Philip Yancey and Henri Nouwen - as to how he might become a more authentic disciple of Jesus Christ.
The first 2 authors referred the inquirer to books about discipleship, the third, Henri Nouwen, suggested the inquirer come live with him for 2 weeks. The first 2 responses were typical, the third so atypical that it clearly stands out as the way Jesus made disciples.
Jesus trained his disciples by having them follow him so closely that the dust from his sandals was the dust on their sandals. He made visible what they were to replicate. They had to be with him to learn.
In my case, there is all too little in the way I live for others to replicate. But I do have something.
I have many street friends, many of whom are homeless. Attending a suburban church in a neighbourhood where homelessness, drug addiction, and trafficking are less visible than in the downtown core I work, I get requests from fellow church members asking me about homelessness and what we as Christians and as a society can do about it.
For years I would tell about them it, or write about it (see www.homelessguide.com), but recently my tune has changed.
What I do now is invite them to spend a couple of hours with me visiting some of the street people I know.
Without exception, the experience is transformational.
What touches them isn't my approach or my compassion or my understanding - it's the experience of their meeting 'the least of these' face to face. They are the catalysts for change.
As Jesus said they would be. 'Theirs,' he said, 'is the kingdom of God.' and elsewhere: 'inasmuch you have done for the least of these, you have done so for me.'