Discipleship is for the Benefit of Others

Discipleship means...


In a previous post I pointed suggested we define discipleship according to Jesus' call to follow in Mark 1:17. I drew attention to four points:

1. Discipleship means we stop trying to be followed.
2. Discipleship is two-sided: following and fishing.
3. Discipleship is fishing as part of God's rescue mission.
4. Discipleship is about group fishing.

This post focuses on the two-sided nature of discipleship. Following and fishing.


So back to the "discipleship means" prompt. How do you answer this? What do people in your congregation think? How do their lives reflect an answer to this? Popular ways to complete or answer the "discipleship means" statement might be: Becoming more like Jesus. Or maybe it's growing closer to God/Jesus. Perhaps it's "spiritual growth" (whatever that might mean).


I wonder...how often do we think of discipleship as other focused, rather than focused on our own personal development?


I wonder if we should.



Think about the passage in Mark 1:17 (also Matthew 4:19 and Luke 5:10) where Jesus invites these blue-collar fishermen to follow him. Jesus doesn't invite would-be disciples to follow him so that...


...they can grow closer to God
...they might know forgiveness
...they might live eternally


Each of these ends up being a result of following Jesus, but these are not directly connected to the following. They are not the goal of the call. The call to follow is this:


...and I will make you fishers for people.


Fishing for people is what discipleship is about. Discipleship, or following Jesus, is discipleship for evangelism.

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Think of the congregation in which you are a leader in ministry. Many of our churches have an "Evangelism committee." These typically are committees formed with the special tack of "evangelism," which often amounts to "reaching out." These committees are just one of many others: building and grounds committee, finance committee, education committee, and so on.


This reflects, it seems, a problem in thinking. It seems to reflect a sectioning off of "evangelism" into one of many ways Christians in congregations can contribute to the church.


What we end up communicating is that Evangelism is an optional thing that church members can participate in as a leader for a couple years if they choose or are elected to do so. Other than that, evangelism is something on the margins, other than the occasional reminder to invite someone to church.


If being made into fishers for people is what discipleship is all about, then it seems that we might want to think about evangelism a little more seriously as fundamental to our identity as disciples.

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Discipleship is following Jesus. It is imitating Jesus. Well, Jesus came for the sake of pulling people into the kingdom. We don't become disciples of Jesus so that we can rest content that we're saved. We are invited to be disciples for the sake of drawing others into the net.


The last post focused on discipleship as leaving behind, not being followed or following anything other than Jesus. This aligns with what Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said: "When Christ calls a person, he bids that person to come and die."


When we're looking at discipleship as a way of Christian self-improvement, we're not dying. We're trying to squeeze discipleship to Jesus into the mold of self. I wonder if our views of discipleship as a form of Christian self-improvement only reflect that we're still wanting to follow something besides Jesus. We're in reality following our own self-interest, the need to save ourselves.


The radical nature of following Jesus is that we leave behind ourselves -- we die to our own future -- and follow Jesus not for our own gain and benefit, but for the gain of those who don't know God, for their future.


Discipleship is death and entrance into a new life, from self-preservation and self-growth and trying to save ourselves, to living for others and their salvation. The call to discipleship is a call into a life of active evangelism, of active good news sharing with our lives. The call to discipleship is a call to live to bring about the salvation, reconciliation, and righteousness of others.