Discipleship : Discipleship And Discipleship

Evangelism must be led with a holy passion. In a book edited by James Berkley, one will find the words of Carl Rantz, who said, “If we don 't live it, we can 't preach it with conviction,” (Berkley). Evangelism begins and ends with Jesus. The desired outcome of this paper is to birth a growing passion to make life count for eternity through the work of evangelism and discipleship of others for Christ. There is no higher calling in life than to embrace the divine directive to ‘make disciples of all nations,” (Matthew 28:18-20). This paper will establish a brief theological basis for evangelism as a way of life, the power of one 's personal

The parent or mature Christian is fully engaged in the mission of Jesus Christ. People who are in this stage are those who are witnessing and discipling others, in the same manner that he or she was discipled. They are looking out for the immature Christians, and taking them “under their wing” to encourage, listen to, and strengthen them to maturity in Christ.

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

The mandate of the Body of Christ to make disciples has been established. The Church needs to embody in physical structuring and deeds what is necessary to make this happen. It is obvious we need to do whatever it takes to make that a reality.

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

The definition of a disciple is “One who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another, as one of the twelve in the inner circle of Christ 's followers according to the Gospel accounts.”

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

sacrificed his life for the man. He had a lot of faith in Jesus that

The most important aspect of the missions is to contextualization. Before the author talks about this issue, this book provides a definition of the two words: leadership and missionary. First of all, the author defines the term ‘leadership’ as three different roles: 1) the one who set the direction; 2) shares a purpose of the missions; and 3) cultivated a culture by leading them. Second, the author’s definition of missions is, “a missionary is anyone, from any country, who leaves home in order to proclaim the gospel, usually in another culture” (13). Furthermore, according to the book, the missions is not merely proclaiming the good news of Jesus to all over the world, but it should move to church planting, discipleship, biblical education, leadership development, and participate with the world vision, because that is how you fulfill God’s ultimate purpose.

The first area D.A. went into detail with was that “Discipleship is not a continual experience.” Throughout the beginning of D.A’s Christian life he believed discipleship was continually experiencing God, but he later learned different. He learned that there are skills and things to develop. Once you develop in studying scripture and spiritual disciplines you begin growing in Christ and ultimately in discipleship.

The Gospel of Matthew 28:16-20 is what has been coined as the Great Commission where Jesus gave a command to the eleven disciples to take up his work that he had been teaching them and go make disciples of men as they traveled. “After Jesus Christ 's death on the cross, he was buried and resurrected on the third day. Before he ascended into heaven, he appeared to his disciples in Galilee and gave them these instructions: Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore 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. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." -Matthew 28:16-20 NIV (1)

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.

was owed a great sum of money by one of his servants. The king let the

Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down

No matter what path God calls a missionary to, the initial goals are the same. These goals are: 1) Build and edify the church, 2) Meeting needs, and 3) Spread the Gospel. The task of utmost importance is that of building the church, a community of believers. It is through evangelizing that men come to hear, know, and accept the redemptive plan of God through Jesus Christ. This is done by preaching and teaching this message when opportunity arises. It is also done by living out your faith in the day to day of mission life. We are to make the book of Acts our living example in growing and edifying a body of believers (Warren 26-31) (Hodges 61-62)