RABBONI...which is to say, Master

The Biblical concept of discipleship has for the most part become a foreign term that we don’t understand as it was lived out before us in the sacred text. We don’t use the term in our normal conversation. We refer to ourselves as “members of the church”.  As I was growing up we seemed to focus on three major things, attendance, right doctrine, and don’t do anything to embarrass the Body. That last one we cloaked in the Biblical phrase, “do all things decently and in order”. That pretty much was our concept of discipleship.

Becoming a disciple is no minor decision. The purpose of discipleship is not just to learn what Jesus knew, it is to become what Jesus is. It is not only about being right; it is about being real and authentic in the world. Having all the doctrinal answers to all of our questions is useless, if it does not change how we love God and our fellow man.

Discipleship is not only a process to change us into the likeness of the Master, it is intended to make us “disciple makers”. His mission then is our mission now. But sadly we seem to be looking for ways to carry out that mission from within our church buildings and not out in the world where we are to be salt and light. We are becoming more “seeker” service oriented. It is interested to note that the “seekers” in the Bible were disciples who like Jesus were “seeking” to save the lost.

For many years we had an aquarium in our home or in my office. One thing I learned about tropical fish is that the size to which a fish can grow is dependent upon how large the aquarium is. Larger water volume allows for larger growth. A fish that will only grow to a few inches in a small tank could in fact grow to be a number of feet long in the ocean. I see an analogy here. Christian that function as disciples in their little religious world of Church and home will never mature into disciple makers until they get into the deep water of the world. Disciples are made through the interaction between the saltiness of a Christian and the one that does not know Jesus. Limiting our discipleship to our buildings and our homes is the same thing as putting a fish in a small tank of water and limiting its growth potential. You really learn scripture when you share it with someone else.

I recently heard Rick Atchley say that, “A silent Christian is an Oxymoron.” Do you think Jesus could have kept silent about His Father? What would your mate think if ever time you left your house he/she put her wedding ring in their pocket? “No need to make a big thing out of being married, we know we are married, right”? Yeah, right!

Being a disciple of Jesus will cause you and me to go into the world as He went into the world. “…as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” John 20:21

We talk a lot about Grace, Mercy, change and freedom on this Blog. Those are negative terms, if you can image, to some folks. Many, but not all, of those who have a problem with these terms are themselves steeped in bondage to a legalistic form of justification by law to which they can not attain. As a result they have to “bite and devour” others in order to lift themselves up. They are often “Parrots” of others, not having looked at why they believe what they believe. And when someone has a differing opinion or conclusion, they can only respond like a scared animal backed into a corner. While professing to “defend the truth” they often manifest an attitude that is completely un-Christ like. Character assignation is often their aim.  From the shadows they send their fiery barbs in hopes of bringing their enemy down.

This is the way a denomination is begins, and is perpetuated.

My heart goes out to those in bondage, for I was there once too. So now, I don’t respond in anger, I pray. I hope that doesn’t sound pious, because I sure don’t mean it to be. I know how it feels to have what you have considered as sacred truth challenged. I know how it feels to be challenged to think for myself and come to my own conclusions. Knowing what I know now about the freedom that is in Christ, I would not go back to that bondage for all the tea in China, as my daddy used to say. Paul said, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Gal. 5:1. Paul’s challenge to “stand firm” is for grace and freedom, and not a system of justification based on law. I love the way the NLT puts it, “So Christ has really set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.”

My tribe is not the first, and I am sure not the last, to think they have a corner on truth. But the fate of those who are so closed is all the same. They continue to grow smaller and smaller until they become apart of history as a distant memory. Jesus said He would build His church and not even the gates of Hell could destroy it. Seems to me we are in pretty good hands with Him.

Some where along the line as I was growing up I got the impression that knowing the scripture was the same thing as knowing God. I made it my goal in life to answer my questions and the questions of others with a “scriptural” answer. Before long I had developed a “ready reference” to all the questions I might be asked. And it will not come as a surprise to most that I was also quite legalistic, and narrow in my interpretations and applications of the scripture to those questions. What followed next was a very judgmental attitude of those who might hold a different opinion or understanding from my own. I felt that what kept them from coming to the same conclusions was just their prejudice, pre-conceived ideas and error that someone had taught them. I knew a lot of scripture, but I did not know God, that is, know Him in relationship.

Jesus said to a group of folks in His day, with very similar attitudes as my own, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39,40). It is so easy to confuse knowledge of Scripture with knowledge of God. We can learn His attributes, the commands and directives. We can even learn to tell the same stories He told and still not KNOW Him in relationship.

“The Scriptures are many things—letters, parables, sermons, poems, histories, biographies, liturgies, songs. But behind all these multiple literary genres, the backdrop of everything is the greatest love story ever told. What if God means for all of Scripture to be God’s love story to us? What if God never intended the Bible to be strip-minded for propositions, or dissected and analyzed like a stiff leopard frog pulled from a bottle of formaldehyde? What if God never wanted the Bible to be turned into an interesting library of varied and profound literature or a stringent code of conduct?”

“What if the Bible instead is our shoebox full of love letters, our living library of family scrapbooks and diaries that connect us to our ancestors, helping us know them so we can know ourselves and understand what our family name stands for? What if its’ our storyboard of relationships from which we learn how to form friendships and deal with the people and problems we encounter?” (Into the Mystery…Out of the Question” by Leonard Sweet).

One of the most perplexing scriptures for me for many years was a statement from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. “Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (Matt. 7:22-23). These were obviously works for God! They were done in the name of God! But those who performed them were not KNOWN by God! How can you be a prophesying, demon casting, miracle performer and not be known by God? There was no relationship.

The angels of heaven are perfect in there obedience, but they were not created for relationship. They were created to obey. You and I, first and foremost, were created for relationship. If you don’t get everything else right—get that right!

In yesterday’s post I talked about being made in the image of God and that it is more about "why" rather than "how" we are made in the image of God. One of my favorite passages of scripture from the Old Testament is Gen. 5:24 "Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." I once heard someone say that Enoch’s relationship with God became so close that one day He just said to Enoch, "Let’s go home."

Our being made in the Image of God makes us capable of fellowship with the Creator of the universe. Having so created us, He draws us to Himself with the powerful story of the Cross. We come to realize that we are broken, helpless and dead in sin. We cry out in faith and trust and He reaches down and lifts us up. Now the "walk’ begins. The longer we are with Him, the more like Him we become. He never leaves us, He holds the forces of darkness at bay and only allow us to be tried within our own personal ability. He takes those periods of challenge, hardship and stress, that come our way, and uses them to mold us and to form us into the image of His Son.

And then one day we are walking and talking, and He looks our way and says, "Let’s go home!"

Scientific text books tell us man is just evolved like all the rest of living things. They would have us believe that we are just a step ahead in the evolution process from our ancestors the Apes. The story of creation tells another story. It tells the story of all things being created by God, but only one thing created for God. Man was created in the image of God. We have wrestled with what this means and untold books have been written to explain what it is to be created in the image of God. We are the crowning glory of all of creation.

Think of your life as a daily “conversation” with the Father. Everything you do, you invite Him to join you. Work, shopping, running the kids here and their, what ever your daily schedule entails, share it with Him. If something happens that makes you happy, share it with Him. If something concerns you, share it with Him. Picture the Father as your “unseen” yet ever present guess everywhere you go and in everything you do. That is relationship. I think that is what it means to be created in the image of God. More emphasis on what He was doing and less on what He was making of me.

Sometime after healing the servant of the Centurion, Jesus, His disciples and a multitude of people following Him journeyed southwest of Capernaum to the town of Nain. As this joyful group approaches the gate to the city they are met by a funeral procession coming out of the city. The only son of a nameless widow is being carried to his final resting place. The open casket, the lack of burial wrappings and the absence of paid mourners tells us this was a widow of meager means. She had made this trip to the cemetery at least once before to bury her husband, and now her only means of support was now dead as well.  Her tears today are not only for the loss of her son, but because of very bleak future that is in front of her. How will she make ends meet, how will she survive? Will she have to beg for the means to live?

When Jesus sees what is going on, Luke tells us, He is “moved by compassion”. Those words speak volumes about God. Jesus becomes emotionally involved with this situation and His compassion moves Him to action. He stops the procession, takes hold of the corpse, and restores life to the lifeless, and at the same time, hope to the hopeless.

About a year ago I was walking down the hall at Skyline Hospital in Nashville. I was on my way to my sleep study which was located near the Emergency Room waiting area. I passed an older couple walking away from that area and you could tell by the expressions on their faces that they were carrying a heavy load. Something inside of me said stop and see if there was anything I could do to help, but that other voice inside began to make excuses and instead of acting on the first feelings of compassion, I said nothing and walked on to my appointment. I have regretted that decision to this very day.

Jesus was compassionately spontaneous. He did not care what others thought, He was not concerned about how others might react; He simply acted out of compassion. Since that day at Skyline Hospital, I resolved to be more spontaneous. I know I am limited in what I can do, but I can do something. I can’t raise the dead or heal the sick, but I can give a word of comfort, I can pray with someone, or I can just sit in silence and be available.

After the young man was united with his mother once again Luke tells us the people were grip with fear and they began to give glory to God saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us! And, God has visited His people!” Luke 7:16. When we are moved by compassion and act, we allow God to visit His people. We through our actions of compassion let others know how God feels about their situation.

Not even Paul Harvey knows the rest of Luke’s story, but the rest of your’s is yet to be written. Let me encourage you to fill your story with acts of spontaneous compassion.

I don’t like the term disciple. Not that it isn’t a good word; it is just that it has become a “churchie” word. What is often referred to as discipleship today is so watered down that it doesn’t look anything like what took place in the first century with Jesus and His disciples. Another reason I don’t like the term disciple is that, among my tribe at least, it was tainted by the cult like activities of the International churches of Christ, led by Kip McKean. Discipleship among them became a controlling, manipulating practice that stole freedom in Christ.

Jesus called people to be his “followers” not just “believers”. Take a pole today of people in general and you will find a lot of believers in Jesus. Follow them and listen to them and you will see that few of that number are really “followers” of Jesus. That is why you often will hear Jesus say things to those following Him that are quite shocking! Take a look at Matt. 8:18-22 for example. "When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

I find myself using the word apprentice instead of disciple more and more. The disciples of Jesus’ day were his apprentices. As a Rabbi, Jesus was conducting a school of Beth-Midrash or “House of Investigation”. Only those allowed by the rabbi could go this far as his followers. Jesus did not teach His apprentices in the hallowed halls of academia, but in the context of life and the activities of His fulfilling the mission giving Him by the Father. They did not see theory, they saw practical application.

Those first apprentices started and grew the church in much the same way. The labels given to those early Christians by those who observed their life, like “Christians” and “The Way”, were descriptive of their lifestyle, not a title to be worn or placed on a sign in front of a meeting house. Listen to Diognetus as he wrote about those first followers of Jesus,

“They dwell in their country, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things as foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country and every country of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all others; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things and yet abound in all; they are dishonored and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred. (Quote on page 104 of, “The Shape of Things to Come” by Frost & Hirsch.

As I read that I can’t help but think of I Peter 3:15-16, "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander." Apprentices of Jesus should stand in stark contrast to the world’s life style, yet at the same time be that constant testimony to the saving power of Jesus. Regardless of what you call them, disciples, apprentices, etc., their life should be a testimony to having been with Jesus.