What Is Discipleship and How Is It Done?
Chapters
0:01:50 Is the word discipleship in the Bible?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - A new week begins, a very sweet week,
00:00:07.240 | and a very full one as well in Minneapolis
00:00:10.120 | as we welcome many friends in town
00:00:11.780 | for the annual Pastors Conference,
00:00:14.200 | the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors and Church Leaders
00:00:17.320 | in partnership with DesiringGod.org,
00:00:19.880 | once again, it's downtown
00:00:21.560 | at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
00:00:23.640 | This year's theme is this, Joy Set Before Us,
00:00:27.960 | Perseverance and Hope in the Day of Opposition.
00:00:31.320 | For these first three days of the week,
00:00:33.240 | we'll be talking at the conference
00:00:34.920 | about the reality of cultural opposition to the gospel
00:00:38.080 | and learning how to spiritually flourish
00:00:40.080 | and faithfully minister in the face of cultural persecution,
00:00:43.960 | however subtle or severe that persecution is.
00:00:47.360 | It is, of course, a leaders' conference,
00:00:49.440 | but this one, I think, of all years,
00:00:51.600 | will be especially relevant for any attentive Christian
00:00:54.040 | who wants to engage our culture with the gospel
00:00:57.160 | thoughtfully and humbly.
00:00:59.320 | The speakers include you, Pastor John, of course,
00:01:01.240 | and I know you're prepared and ready to go.
00:01:03.240 | Also, Don Carson is in town,
00:01:05.160 | and of course, Jason Meyer and Leonce Crump,
00:01:08.040 | and missionary Tim Kazee from the Dispatches
00:01:11.280 | from the front DVDs you may have seen.
00:01:13.520 | He's in town along with us,
00:01:15.800 | as is Oz Guinness and many other speakers.
00:01:18.760 | You can follow the schedule and the livestream
00:01:21.600 | at DesiringGod.org/live for more.
00:01:26.200 | Well, on to the inbox.
00:01:28.760 | Many questions have come in this month, Pastor John,
00:01:31.360 | and they have had to do with the theme of discipleship.
00:01:34.680 | So maybe I'll just ask this.
00:01:37.120 | What is discipleship?
00:01:39.560 | What is the aim of discipleship?
00:01:41.520 | How is it done typically?
00:01:43.560 | Pastor John, what would you say in sort of the macro context
00:01:46.160 | to sort of orient us to this work,
00:01:48.560 | this discipline of discipleship?
00:01:51.640 | Couple of observations about the word.
00:01:55.880 | The word discipleship never occurs in the Bible,
00:02:00.200 | the English word discipleship.
00:02:01.680 | It's not in the Bible.
00:02:02.800 | The term is ambiguous in English.
00:02:07.000 | It can mean my discipleship in the sense of
00:02:12.000 | my own pattern of following Jesus
00:02:16.120 | and trusting Him and learning from Him.
00:02:18.360 | That's my discipleship, could mean that.
00:02:21.160 | Or it can mean my activity of helping others be disciples
00:02:26.160 | in that sense of learning from Him, growing in Him.
00:02:33.500 | The second meaning, you know, there's helping others,
00:02:38.640 | does have a verb in New Testament Greek, mathe teuo,
00:02:43.640 | to make disciples.
00:02:46.480 | It can mean preach the gospel
00:02:49.480 | so that people get converted to Christ
00:02:51.920 | and become Christians and thus disciples.
00:02:54.140 | For example, Acts 14.21,
00:02:56.840 | when they had preached the gospel to that city
00:03:00.360 | and made many disciples,
00:03:02.100 | they returned to Lystra and to Iconium.
00:03:04.440 | So make disciples is one Greek word there,
00:03:08.560 | and it means get them converted to Jesus.
00:03:11.880 | That's what it means.
00:03:13.040 | Or it can mean the whole process of conversion,
00:03:19.440 | baptism, and teaching the ways of Jesus
00:03:23.640 | as it's used in Matthew 28.19.
00:03:26.440 | Go therefore and make disciples.
00:03:29.920 | And here's what he means,
00:03:31.240 | baptizing them in the name of the Father,
00:03:34.120 | the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
00:03:35.360 | and teaching them to observe everything I commanded you.
00:03:39.400 | That's a very long process.
00:03:40.760 | That's like a lifetime of process.
00:03:43.020 | So get them converted, baptize them,
00:03:45.820 | and then spend a lifetime teaching them
00:03:47.560 | to obey all that Jesus said.
00:03:49.640 | That is what the verb disciple
00:03:53.680 | in the New Testament would include.
00:03:56.400 | The word disciple in the New Testament
00:04:01.400 | does not mean a second-stage Christian.
00:04:05.880 | - Yes.
00:04:07.400 | - There's some ministries that are built
00:04:08.900 | around this distinction that's just so unbiblical.
00:04:12.360 | As if there were converts,
00:04:14.560 | then there are disciples who are a little stage two
00:04:17.560 | Christians who've learned more,
00:04:19.320 | and then there are disciple makers.
00:04:21.560 | Now all those groupings are linguistically foreign
00:04:26.200 | to the New Testament.
00:04:27.880 | A disciple in the New Testament is simply a Christian,
00:04:32.600 | Acts 11.26.
00:04:34.440 | And in Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians.
00:04:38.960 | Everybody that was converted to Jesus was a disciple.
00:04:42.520 | Everybody that was converted to Jesus was a Christian.
00:04:45.920 | Disciple was, in fact, not a favorite term for Christian.
00:04:50.920 | As time went by, it seems, Paul never uses the noun
00:04:57.880 | or the verb disciple.
00:05:00.040 | In fact, neither the noun disciple
00:05:02.880 | or the verb make disciples occurs anywhere
00:05:05.400 | in the New Testament outside the Gospels and Acts.
00:05:08.840 | So I think what is important is not the terminology,
00:05:13.840 | but the reality.
00:05:17.880 | People need to become Christians,
00:05:21.200 | and people need to be taught how to think and feel
00:05:26.200 | and act as a Christian, that is, a disciple,
00:05:30.440 | a follower of Jesus, one who embraces him as Lord
00:05:36.480 | and Savior and treasure.
00:05:39.600 | Now, where and how should that happen?
00:05:43.400 | I mean, that's what I think all the talk
00:05:45.560 | about discipleship is.
00:05:47.560 | It's just a fresh concern about how to bring people
00:05:52.260 | to Christ and grow them up into being what they ought to be
00:05:56.800 | as Christians or as followers of Jesus or as disciples.
00:06:00.520 | There's a lot of different words that people are using
00:06:03.360 | these days to describe Christian.
00:06:06.280 | So how does that happen?
00:06:08.600 | Well, the conversion of people from unbelievers to believers,
00:06:13.040 | Christians, disciples, should be happening
00:06:15.940 | in any and every situation, okay?
00:06:19.120 | So no single strategy.
00:06:22.040 | There is no limit to the ways a person can be told
00:06:26.000 | the good news of Jesus.
00:06:27.680 | And so, quote, "Discipling," unquote, in that sense,
00:06:32.120 | is as varied as there are ways of saying the gospel
00:06:36.280 | or living the gospel in front of people to draw them in.
00:06:39.160 | As far as training Christians how to think and feel
00:06:45.200 | and act as a Christian, that is, discipling in the sense
00:06:50.420 | of growing them into more and more maturity
00:06:53.800 | that happens in so many ways in the New Testament.
00:06:58.000 | Here's just a grocery list of possibilities.
00:07:02.240 | Titus 2.4, "Older women are to train younger women."
00:07:05.560 | 2 Timothy 2.2, "Paul trained Timothy to train others
00:07:08.920 | "to train others."
00:07:10.400 | Ephesians 6.4, "Fathers are to train their children."
00:07:13.680 | Matthew 28.20, "Missionaries are to teach the nations
00:07:16.860 | "everything Jesus commanded."
00:07:18.240 | Hebrews 3.13, "All Christians are to exhort each other
00:07:21.880 | "every day to avoid sin and to stir each other up
00:07:24.840 | "to love and good works."
00:07:26.720 | Chapter 10, 1 Peter 4.10, "All Christians are to use
00:07:30.160 | "their gifts to serve others."
00:07:31.920 | Acts 18.24, "Priscilla and Aquila, on the spur of the moment
00:07:35.640 | "it seems, explained the way of God more accurately
00:07:38.480 | "to Apollos."
00:07:39.760 | And we could go on and on.
00:07:41.680 | Every Christian should be helping unbelievers become
00:07:45.720 | believers by showing them Christ, that is, making a disciple,
00:07:50.720 | and every Christian should be helping other believers
00:07:55.360 | grow to more and more maturity, that's making a disciple.
00:08:00.120 | And every Christian should be seeking to get help
00:08:03.840 | for themselves from others to keep on growing,
00:08:08.520 | and that is also His, their, our discipleship.
00:08:13.520 | And every church should think through how all of these kinds
00:08:19.000 | of biblical disciple-making find expression
00:08:24.080 | in their corporate life.
00:08:26.000 | - Huge entailments, thank you, Pastor John,
00:08:29.040 | and thank you for this survey of disciple-making,
00:08:32.320 | and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:08:34.000 | I hope to see a number of you today at the conference.
00:08:37.800 | If you're there, come over and say hi.
00:08:40.040 | And tomorrow we're actually gonna talk about conferences
00:08:43.280 | on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:08:44.800 | We're gonna hear from a listener who wants to know
00:08:46.160 | how you, Pastor John, square your wartime lifestyle
00:08:50.120 | of simplicity with the expensive conference venues
00:08:53.640 | that you often speak at.
00:08:56.240 | That should be interesting.
00:08:57.800 | Until then, for more information about the podcast
00:09:00.080 | or to find our most recent or our most popular episodes,
00:09:03.800 | go to our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:09:08.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke,
00:09:09.360 | and I need to get off to the conference.
00:09:11.240 | Thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:09:13.400 | with John Piper.
00:09:14.640 | We'll see you tomorrow.
00:09:15.760 | (upbeat music)
00:09:18.340 | (upbeat music)
00:09:20.920 | [BLANK_AUDIO]