Discipleship and the Unanswered Question

You hear a lot about discipleship today. I mean, it makes sense. Jesus said go into all the world and make disciples in every nation. It isn’t called the minor commission or the insignificant commission, it is commonly called the great commission. That would seem to say that Christianity has marked this one as one of the key instructions given by Jesus.

But what does it mean? Let’s be honest, whatever point a group thinks is most important will be what they mean by making disciples. Isn’t that true? If a group thinks memorizing the Bible is most important, then making a disciple will be making someone who has memorized the Bible. If the spiritual gifts are what is most important, then making a disciple will be making someone who has the spiritual gifts.

But is that what it was suppose to mean? I have been thinking about this a lot. “Are we helping make disciples at New Heights Church?” I sit and wonder if we are carrying out what we have been commissioned to do.

I have ended up at the place I am today. You see I carry expectations of discipleship from my personal life experience. The question that rolls in my head is, was the way discipleship was judged in my experience the actual way Jesus expected discipleship to be judged?

Tough question. Not sure about the answer yet. In my experience discipleship has been measured by how “with it” you are. How together you hold everything, or seem to hold everything. I realized that in my experience discipleship was also measured by ones time at the building and ones Bible knowledge was considered essential. Is that the correct way to measure discipleship?

When looking at our church I realized that these were the unwritten rules I used to measure discipleship success, but is that true? Are those really key indicators? How would that work with Peter? How together were any of Jesus followers? In Acts 2:7 the people question what is taking place because Jesus followers are from Galilee.

This fact doesn’t seem to instill a sense of worth in the listeners that day. Men who spent their life as fisherman and tax collectors would not have been viewed as worthy teachers at this point in history. Cicero, in On Duties, said that fishing was considered a shameful occupation.

How about time at the building? The gospel records that Jesus went to the synagogue on a regular basis. Why not more focus on what took place in those places? I don’t deny that he spent time at the synagogue, gathering with the body matters, but is it wise to use it as a primary gauge for discipleship? Maybe I am off on this one, I don’t know.

Finally, how about Bible knowledge? Those early disciples were clueless. They didn’t understand what was going on and often times found themselves totally cross with God’s plan. Would I deem someone a worthy follower who argued about who was the greatest? Is getting called Satan by Jesus a good sign of being a disciple? Not sure I would think they were a particularly valuable Christ follower. I don’t know if I would have thought they were getting anywhere.

Maybe that is a proper way to measure discipleship, but maybe it isn't. What do you think? If not, what should the criteria be?