Discipleship
Our pastor recently asked me to write an article on discipleship for the church newsletter. I found that to be at once both very simple and very difficult--simple, because the Scripture texts are unmistakably clear; and difficult, because the same texts are uncomfortably clear. Few of us, I imagine, have fully faced (much less gladly embraced) what the Bible teaches about discipleship. Let's look at just one key passage from Jesus's own teaching in Luke 14:25-35:
25. Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:
26. "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple.
27. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28. "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?
29. For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him,
30. saying, `This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
31. "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
32. If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.
33. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
34. "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
35. It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Jesus apparently intended to dislodge from His would-be followers any sentimental misconceptions they might have had regarding the cost of discipleship. I've italicized a word, repeated in verses 26, 27, and 33, which pierces my own heart each time I read it--cannot. "Anyone who does not ...hate his own life...carry his cross...give up everything...," Jesus says, "cannot be my disciple." Do I consider myself a disciple? Before answering, I must look again at the conditions. "Hate his own life" (...well, I might love mine a little too much, but who doesn't?) "Carry his cross" (...you mean choose to suffer for someone else's benefit?) "Give up everything he has" (...He doesn't really mean everything, does He?) And so we tend to justify a comfortable, diluted version of Christianity far removed from the joyful abandonment to Christ that His amazing love for me should evoke.
In reality, every true Christian is a follower of Jesus, a disciple. And if I'm following Him, that means I must go where He goes and do what He does. Knowing full well what it will cost me, I move outside the four walls of my safe, predictable Christian friendships and expend myself for Him. I love the unlovely, knowing (like Him) that some will take advantage of me. I give to those in need, knowing (like Him) that some won't even thank me for my generosity. I invest all that I am and all that I have in His Kingdom. His love richly deserves and rightly demands no less. It is costly--just like hating my own life, carrying my cross, and giving up everything I have.
It's easy for me to fool myself and say that I'm a disciple, when in fact I've never met the costly conditions set forth in these verses. I, like everyone else, have an enormous capacity for deceiving myself (Jer 17:9). We sometimes sing 'I Surrender All', but have we? The answer must be an unequivocal yes if we're ever to be anything more than mere disciple "wannabes".
The Dissuasiveness of Jesus (Discipleship, Part 2)
Most of us have been led to believe that one of our primary duties as a Christian is to persuade others to make a "decision" to follow Christ. In fact, there are several passages of Scripture that support that idea. However, in this article I'm going to make what some of you may consider an outrageous observation. When I read the gospels, I get the distinct feeling that Jesus's words were carefully designed to dissuade many of His admirers from following Him. Think for a moment about His response to some of them. Look first at Luke 9:57-62:
57. As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."
58. Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
59. He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."
60. Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
61. Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family."
62. Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
There's no doubt in my mind. Jesus wanted these aspiring disciples to know that following him would mean a radical reordering of their world. That it was going to cost them dearly. Put yourself in the place of the man who first wanted to go back and bury his father. "Let the dead bury their own dead," Jesus says. What a potentially offensive remark. What do you suppose your reaction to His words would have been? Is Jesus trying to persuade, or dissuade, this man from following Him?
Or how about this one: "...go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Mat 19:21) If Jesus had said that to you when you initially came to him, would you still have followed Him? This concept of giving up all your possessions is not an isolated feature of Jesus' teaching; rather it appears frequently (Lk 12:33-34, Mat 6:19-21), and was taken seriously by the early church (read Acts 4:34-35). F.F. Bruce, in The Hard Sayings of Jesus, concludes that "Jesus's words were not intended for him alone; they remain as a challenge, a challenge not to be evaded, for all who wish to be his disciples."
And so it seems that Jesus warns his followers repeatedly, and in a variety of ways, to count the cost of discipleship. We saw a little of this in my previous article on discipleship, which was based on Luke 14:25-33. In that chapter, Jesus actually gives two practical examples of the danger of beginning any major enterprise without first counting the cost. In those two examples commentator Matthew Henry sees "the former showing that we must consider the expenses of our religion; the latter, that we must consider the perils of it. Sit down and count the cost."
I haven't even referenced all the pertinent passages of Scripture, but I believe I've adequately established the fact that Jesus often appeared to dissuade seekers from following Him. So I come back to my original question. Should we try to persuade men to follow Christ or not? The example of Jesus leads me to believe first of all that, yes, we should invite, persuade, even command others to follow Christ. Jesus Himself used all three methods of appeal. What he discouraged was taking His call lightly. And He did so by making painstakingly clear the cost.
Christ's call to follow Him should never be received casually. Nor should it be presented casually by those of us who might encourage others to make a "decision". We all need to be as clear about this as Jesus was--following Him will cost us everything. The good news is that we gain far more than we ever give up. I can't possibly explain the deep, lasting joys and rewards of knowing and loving Jesus, but they are real. And that's something you can count on, when you're counting the cost.
The Promise No One Claims (Discipleship, Part 3)
"Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed." (Joshua to the people of Israel--Josh 23:14)
What do some people mean when they talk about 'claiming' the promises of God? The phrase itself doesn't appear in Scripture, but the idea, I think, is that God can (and must) be taken at His word. That is, His word must be believed, even in the face of seemingly contradictory evidence. Abraham provides a perfect example. "Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised." (Rom 4:19-21) Abraham was accordingly commended for his faith. I want to be cautious here. There is a fine line between faith and presumption. And in no way do I want to either encourage presumption or worse, discourage vibrant faith, because "without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb 11:6).
Unfortunately, Abraham's example of faith has often been misemployed, with the result that Christians sometimes 'claim' promises which in reality may not apply to them; they simply pluck, out of context, a particular passage of Scripture that seems relevant to their need. What concerns me most about that is that the misappropriation almost always seems to occur in the external areas of health or prosperity or other physical blessings. By listening to some folks, you'd think those were the only kind of promises the Bible contains. There are actually a variety of promises in Scripture--some conditional, some not--ranging from blessings to curses, from answered prayer to ignored prayer, from persecution to protection, and so on.
Before I move on, let me clarify a couple of things. First, I know that God does delight in lavishing His love and goodwill on His people. "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (Jer 29:11) What's often overlooked, though, is that throughout Scripture the road to "hope and a future" is paved with suffering. Even Jesus had to suffer and die before being highly exalted; no less will be required of us. And second, I know that God still speaks to His people. Sometimes He addresses specific needs through specific Scripture passages, and we should cling tenaciously to what He says. My intent is not in any way to detract from either of those truths.
When I think of all the priceless things God promises His people, one towers above all the rest, and that is the promise of His presence. What, after all, could be more desirable than the companionship of God? "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee" (Ps 73:25) "...you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand" (Ps 16:11b) If our desire for God Himself was stronger, our pathetic craving for the temporary comforts and pleasures of earth would most certainly weaken. David, described in Scripture as a man after God's own heart, knew what was supremely valuable and sought it with all his might. For him, nothing in heaven or on earth could compare to the soul-satisfying presence of God Himself.
Despite the fact that the Bible is full of promises (yes, even some of health and prosperity), there's one I don't think I've ever heard anyone 'claim': "...everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." (2 Tim 3:12) Can you imagine someone quoting that promise and praying "Oh, Lord, I thank you for this great and precious promise, and right now, in the name of Jesus, I claim it and believe that it's for me!"? Nope--that's one prayer you're not likely to hear.
The truth is, at least here in America, that we have no use for persecution--or suffering of any kind, for that matter. We have 'rights' here in America, and by golly, no one had better infringe upon them. Our embrace of persecution and suffering is much more tenuous (and far less noble) than that of the early Hebrew believers. "Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions." (Heb 10:33-34) Insult... persecution... confiscation of property... most of us know little or nothing about things like that. One possible explanation for that is that we don't meet the condition of being "one who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 3:12).
I can only shake my head when I read about those Hebrew Christians, and wonder where disciples like that are today. That carefree attitude toward suffering and persecution is one mark of a true disciple, which leaves me once again asking myself a tough question. Do I so clearly see and grasp the superiority of my eternal possessions that I could joyfully accept insult, persecution, and plunder? That takes real faith. I think most of us have a lot to learn about being a disciple.
