Time To Shake Our Traditions?

During this series of blog posts, we’ve been looking at various aspects of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and the need for each disciple to be trained to make disciples who will, in turn, make more disciples.  But does this go far enough?  Will it get the job of completing the Great Commission during this generation, or any generation?  Is it time to shake up our traditional methods and see if we’re truly using the Biblical model.

The Proven Strategy

When Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commission (to go and make disciples of all nations), He was making the most important assignment ever given to His followers.  The success of this urgent task was being placed into the hands of a few fallible and fragile human beings, and He was about to leave them.  The spiritual destiny of the whole world rested on their shoulders.  How was it physically possible for these few men to get the story of Jesus out to the whole world, and even if they could, how long would it take?

Who Are Jesus’ Disciples Today?

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, the word disciple is used so many times in the Scriptures that it is important to know what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  So far, we’ve seen that a disciple is defined simply as a learner and follower of another’s teachings.  To become a disciple of Jesus, however, there is a very real cost in self denial that must be counted and accepted first.  The next question that naturally arises is:  Who are the ones that are called to become disciples?

Jesus First

In focusing on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, we have seen from Luke 14:25-33 that He expects loyalty to Himself above even that found in the closest human relationships.  He must be the disciple’s first love.  But that isn’t all.  He also expects disciples to put Him above themselves.