Discipleship & The Great Commission

The great commission found in Matthew 28 is widely used as a mission statement in evangelical churches in the United States. As I think about this it seems that to understand this scripture correctly one must understand what is meant by discipleship in an eastern context. What does it mean to become a disciple? How does one go about doing that? At what point does one go from being a disciple to making other disciples?

Perhaps the most common understanding is that any one who believes in Jesus is a disciple and is therefore qualified to make more disciples. Ray Vander Laan (of www.followtherabbi.com , one of my favorite sites) points to a difference between a student and a disciple that I think is helpful here. He says that a student simply wants to know what his master knows. A disciple wants to be like his master and do what his master does. A disciple is consumed by a passion to do this. We have a lot of students in our churches (even in the pulpits) today but probably very few disciples.

Perhaps today we are converting people to students and not disciples. This would be expected if the ones doing the witnessing are actually just students and explain why their seems to be little difference in our society in spite of vast numbers of convert claims. The question isn't how many converts do we have but how many disciples have we made.

Adopting an eastern understanding of discipleship probably also means adopting a similar timetable. We seem to emphasize getting new converts into the converting business as soon as possible, a favorite topic in the youth group movement. This is interesting because Jesus' disciples were probably similar in age - in their teens or very early 20's. Jesus' did send them out to preach about the kingdom but it was very much in a training environment. They weren't actually commissioned until after they had spent considerable time with Jesus.

Most of Jesus' disciple making took place in the context of life. It wasn't in the classroom. It took place in everyday activities. This allowed the his disciples to see how his yoke (interpretation of scripture) in action rather than simply hearing about it. I learned more about my wife from experiencing life with her while we dated than I ever would have had she given me an essay about who she was.

The conclusion. We need to become true disciples rather than students. We need to learn what it means to be a disciple in the eastern sense. We need to adopt an eastern timetable for discipleship. We need to focus on making disciples and quit counting converts. (One could argue that a convert is one who becomes a disciple but that definition is lost in our current understanding. I believe that most converts that are reported are not really disciples.)