Discipleship is: a Way of Life (continued)

One of the things I have been learning is that the western minds we bring with us as we read Scripture sometimes leaves us confused and misled because we forget that the Bible was written by people with an eastern mindset.

For instance, have you ever noticed that when Jesus is asked a question He doesn’t answer it, rather He responds with another question? I don’t know about you, but when I ask my kids a question, I am not really looking to get questioned back. When I ask a question in a small group or class I am teaching I am expecting someone to say “the answer is ____.”

If you were to ask a first century rabbi a question, he would almost certainly respond with a question. The reason for answering a question with a question was not to be rude, or to question your intelligence, or to evade the answer, or stall for time, but to help you to think about what it is you are asking and to bring forward what you are thinking. It was to help you discern the answer instead of having it just handed to you.

So if we were asking Jesus, who thought and taught as a Jewish rabbi would, “What is discipleship and how do I do it?” He might well answer asking, “What part of life is not to be lived for God?” The answer of Scripture (I believe) is: all of life is to be lived for God. Discipleship is not best seen as a task or a job that a person does. It is a lifestyle that flows from love for God. The more I am living out of God’s love for me in Christ the more natural loving him, loving others, and helping others to do the same becomes.

Charlie Jones was one of the best examples of discipleship I have known. He used to tell me that He was always surprised when people asked him how or why he brought Jesus into everything. The problem isn’t how to get Jesus into anything, but how to get Him out of it; the problem isn’t relating Him to everything, it’s un-relating Him, because He is already in everything.

He would say, “Dan you may be a pastor in fulltime ministry but every Christian should be in the fulltime ministry too. If you are a Christian housewife you are a fulltime minister. If you are a Christian teenager you are a fulltime minister. If you are a baker you ought to be handling the bread of life, if you are an electrician you ought to be handling the power of God, if you are a banker you ought to be handling the unsearchable riches of Christ, if you are a farmer you should be sowing the seeds of the Word, and if you are in insurance, [like Charlie was] you should be in the Eternal Life Insurance business.”

Discipleship is not a role we play or a job we have or a task we check off. It flows from who we are. It is a way of life, not a specific something we do with a part of our life or at certain times in life. It is life.

If the question is “who should I be discipling?” the rabbinic answer would perhaps first be “You are leaving people out?” How we live, talk, do business, carry ourselves, and relate to people should all be flowing out of love for God right? There is no time we can assume we are not being watched, or that what we do will not lead people to love God and others. Isn’t that what Jesus was teaching in Matthew 5:16 (CJB)? In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they may see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven.

A follow up question Jesus might then ask is, “Who is God asking you to disciple?” If you have kids living in your house you have an answer right away. The Christian’s first priority is to be discipling their own kids. Beyond that who is God laying on your heart to be a spiritual parent to? I have talked about the importance of spiritual fatherhood and motherhood at length before so I will not go over all that again. But I do believe that God wants all of us under the care of a spiritual parent and to take particular people under our wing as spiritual parents. Jesus did not just go and pick twelve random people to be His chief disciples, nor did He pick His personal favorites, or those who showed the most promise and potential. He spent the night in prayer asking His Father who He wanted Him to be a spiritual father to.

If the question is “when should I disciple people, how much time should I give it?” the rabbinic answer might be “You mean that there are times when you are not?” Certainly there are practices and disciplines when it is clear to us that we are to be discipling one another: small group, a prayer meeting, bible study, a Sunday school class, youth group. But these are not the only times we need to be concerned about. Most of life is not lived in those times. How do we love God and love others in “the everyday?” Paul says in Colossians 3:17 (NIV) And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Is watching my wife and I work through a disagreement any less discipleship of my girls than quizzing them on the Ten Commandments? Isn’t them watching me be patient with someone or showing patience to them part of teaching them the practice of patience or teaching them that God wants us to be patient? Isn’t part of learning forgiveness seeing me give it, receive it and in experiencing forgiveness themselves? All that is discipleship.