Discipleship: Christianity and Jesus

While both books of Mark and Matthew portray Peter as one of the most important followers of Jesus, Mark seems to emphasize Jesus' spiritual career unlike the broad, more in-depth pursuit of Jesus' life that Matthew embellishes on. As both Jesus' student and friend, Peter is the one disciple most commonly referred to in the stories. Yet the two passages seem to draw different pictures of Jesus' distinguished disciple. In Matthew, Peter seems to play a larger role in Jesus' teachings and seems more significant to Jesus throughout the book. In Mark, he is still important, but to a lesser extent in the eyes of the author. Mark leaves Peter out of a few of the stories altogether and only touches

Discipleship is about engaging in the Word, following and obeying Jesus and going out to make disciples. An essential element in being a disciple is to be open to learning, to be teachable. It is a mindset to be continuously adopted and cultivated. For us to disciple others, we must be a better disciple ourselves. When making disciples, we are instructing others to be willing to be a discoverer. It applies to both spiritual growth as well as personal development, openness to new techniques, ideas and methods in all aspects of life. Our spiritual learning comes from delving into His

Jesus then goes from speaking to His disciples specifically, to calling out to the whole crowd, in which He goes from speaking plainly to once again speaking in metaphors and riddles. Within this passage Mark uses the words of Jesus to reveal the true cost of discipleship. He tells the crowd that if anyone chooses to come after Him then the condition of that decision is that they must take up their cross and follow Him. So one must ask: What does it mean to deny yourself? What does it mean to take up your cross? And when you follow Him where are you going? So then one must put this into context by looking at what has not yet happened in Mark. When Jesus denies Himself, He is essentially denying the human instinct to self preserve through a fight or flight response. When Jesus picked up His cross, He was deciding to be rejected, tortured, mocked and falsely accused on His way to Calvary where He died for the sins of all. Therefore, if you want to go after Jesus, you must be willing to commit to sharing the gospel with others at all costs, you must be willing to tortured, mocked, and falsely accused and you must also be willing to die, not necessarily for anything that you have done, but so that others can reach salvation. Historically, during this time period, the cross was a well known style of execution in Rome, and so although one reading this might see this as simply a metaphor, it is actually a foreshadowing of reality, which can be seen in the fact that all the

grown strong in the Lord. These are reliable disciples who are qualified to teach others.14 2

But in Matthew, and most of all Mark, the Disciples are, in Dr. Rick Beaton’s words, “dumb as boards.” … So when you read through the Gospels, especially Mark, and if you have any ounce of irreverence in you, you can’t help but agree with Holden. The Disciples really don’t get it. They’re pretty useless. And it’s pretty surprising that Jesus spent all his energy with them. … My favorite example of the Disciples’ stupidity is in Mark 8, right after Jesus fed the 4,000. And I mean literally right after they fed the people, Jesus and the Twelve got on a boat, and this happened: … Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” They said to one another, “It is because we have no bread.” (Mark 8:14-16, NRSV) … And the Disciples, filled with anything but wisdom, assumed that Jesus was making some obscure reference to the lack of bread in the boat. Not, “Hey, guys, I’m using this as an opportunity to teach you a lesson about life.” But rather, the Disciples yet again think that their present circumstances are all that matter. They have forgotten

Today, as I attend school with the major heading as “Missions,” I hear a lot of talk about different methods in creating disciples. However, “Paul’s modus operandi for training was time on task” (pp. 59). In other words, disciples were made through time spent rather than strictly content. It sounds like relationship was a key aspect. Paul also focused on transferring these converts into true believers. It seems a lot in churches today, individuals are more focused on content rather than time. Therefore, they spend more time in the church “learning” than spending time with those that need “discipled.” With that, people in the church tend to “convert” others or brag about increased attendance, but have no plan to turn these individuals into true believers.

order of the instructions is what is important here. Jesus told them to make disciples, which

Disciples are true followers of Jesus Christ to share and spread the message of the almighty God. We don’t just get point out by fingers on who is going to be the disciples however, it’s someone’s faith, courage and devotion that what matters. I’ll say that being a disciple is hard and challenging because you have to be committed and devoted your life and understand the word of God. Jesus often stated that his goal was to teach his disciples about his father. Anyway, in order for us to understand God’s message we have to be a true follower of Jesus Christ. Although there are two types of followers, casual followers and committed followers and they both can be found here in Pohnpei. I mention the complains above. Here in Pohnpei I mostly heard

The disciples were happy followers of Jesus in the beginning and dropped did everything for him. At the beginning of the disciples journey with Jesus they started witnessing miracles and learning many new things. Towards the middle of the disciples journey with Jesus they started doubting and wondering what there purpose was. When the Disciples journey with Jesus comes to an end they don't want him to leave and deny that he will die on the cross. The disciples understand he has a purpose and has to leave and they pray with him. When Jesus leaves the Disciples and ascended into heaven they faithfully continue to walk in christ and perform miracles. Throughout this time many people start believing and the Disciples distribute throughout the world and go on different journeys performing

The Nature of Discipleship According to Mark's Gospel Discipleship is usually thought of as following Jesus, being a preacher and a teacher. Somebody who believes in something, or who believes in someone, and leaves everything behind them to try to make others believe the same is my personal belief of a disciple. In actual fact, the Old Testament word 'Talmid' is a 'learner', and more obviously in the New Testament, a 'Diskipolos' is a 'follower'. The other important area of discipleship is serving others. When a disciple is healing a person, they are serving them, as he serving Jesus and God.

The principles of discipleship can be found throughout the Bible. One of the ultimate goals of discipleship is to become more Christ like which makes Jesus's life and grace an excellent basis for discipleship. Jesus invested in twelve men, the first Disciples, and entrusted them to continue the process. Peter, James, and John were a part of Christ's inner circle and he fostered and encouraged an exalted spiritual life and growth in these three. Paul was a Pharisee who was murdering Christians and then his life was transformed and he became an apostle. He gave his life over to God's purpose not only in a broad perspective, bringing the Gospel to the Gentiles, but also personal. Timothy was a disciple of Paul; Paul was personally involved in Timothy's life. The Great Commission commands the Disciples, in Matthew 28:19, 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". The Disciples followed the Great Commission and Christianity spread. Believers are meant to follow the

Just what is theology? This question can have a wide variety of answers, from irrelevant facts about God thought up by men centuries ago, to complicated theories discussed by scholars. Typically, the average 21st century man does not consider theology as relevant. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Theology by definition has the characteristics of both expounding the truth, and impacting the believer with that truth (Himes, 2011). Therefore, theology and the church are intricately combined, in that the church embodies the revelation of God, and is reality, not theory (Himes, 2011). A personal practical theology must begin with revelation, not the individual (Himes, 2011), and proclaim

The concept of ‘seeing’ the ways of Jesus and that He is the Messiah, is to truly understand the message being portrayed throughout the Gospel, and not the surface meaning that is being represented literally. This concept was very significant to Jesus and his followers as to interpret the meaning without being said, most parables being related to the Kingdom of God and Jesus’ miracle stories. Times were harsh and difficult to spread and teach the words of Jesus, as Mark’s community would face persecution. The disciples of Jesus could ‘see’ more than other believers could perceive, from being apart of Jesus’ life with close relationships, as they were taught the fundamentals from Jesus himself to understand his teachings in much more depth and fluency than others. There were many similarities among Jesus’ twelve disciples and Mark’s community, as both groups share the strong faith in Jesus and God’s power by spreading the good news to others as well as experiencing hardships caused by arrogant hierarchy and society. According to Mark, Jesus was known for his parables and

Matthew 9:35-38 (NIV) reads, Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Through the lens of this text God reveals to us the heart He has for His people in a lost and suffering world. Jesus points out to his disciples what we should find significant today, and that is

This five-step process begins by creating a definition for what it is we are addressing as disciples. It’s important to ask the question “what is…” because it helps us distinguish from other topics that are closely related. For example, if we are talking about what discipline is, we would want to distinguish if we are speaking about the punishment of a child, the act of training in a habitual manner, or a branch of knowledge. Our world is a very complicated, intricate, and interwoven place. Though people often want things to be straightforward, they’re not always that simple. It’s important to define exactly what we’re talking about in order to understand the topic as clearly as possible.