The Essence of Discipleship

In Christian circles (and especially among homeschoolers) there is a great emphasis on discipleship. What exactly does that mean? I found it interesting that according to Dictionary.com, disciple in modern use is most commonly a noun. Here is one definition:

a person who is a pupil or an adherent of the doctrines of another; follower.

On the other hand, there are two definitions in the verb form for disciple, one listed as “obsolete” and the other noted as “archaic.” Here is one:

Obsolete. to teach; train.

Do you see the difference? In its archaic (more traditional) sense, a disciple is made through teaching and training–a hands-on investment of one life into another. In the modern use, there is some sense of “teaching,” but to me the definition speaks more of one who simply agrees with the doctrines or teachings of another; it can be informational rather than transformational.

Jesus commands us to

“go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

His interest is not in making converts or intellectual adherents. His desire is that we each would take a personal interest in the life of another and show them how to live a life worthy of, and pleasing to, Christ.

This is on my mind because of a particularly good illustration today. All of our garden potatoes and tomatoes were suddenly hit with blight. My husband decided to run to town and get some spray to try to save them, but while he was gone he needed the older children to cut off the blight-affected leaves. He gave them brief instructions and showed them a few pictures on the Internet of what they should be looking for. Then, he got in the car and left.

Since he was in town he did some other shopping that needed to be done, so it was a while before he returned. He expected to see most of the lower leaves removed (as that was where the damage was localized). Instead, however, he discovered that the children had only attended to six plants–but those six plants were severely cropped, to the point that they will likely not survive. The children had cut off not only the blight but also many (if not most) of the healthy leaves and even some branches. They had worked diligently, believing that they were doing the right thing, but they had probably done more harm than good.

So what’s the lesson? It would have been better for my husband to do what he usually does: go into the garden with them and show them the areas they needed to pay attention to. Work with them for a while, see how they performed with some supervision and encouragement, then release them to work independently. Unfortunately, he was in a bit of a rush and thought that an “informational exchange” would be sufficient. In this case, it wasn’t.

My oldest son was the one who brought the discipleship analogy to my attention. When he came in after his Dad had gotten home and surveyed the disappointing damage, he commented, “Well, this is a good example of what discipleship means. Dad should have probably showed us what to do more so that we wouldn’t have messed up. I think it’s the same as making disciples for Jesus. We can’t expect people to learn just by telling them things.”

We can’t expect people to learn just by telling them things. And that is what Christian discipleship is all about.