[The Church and Discipleship] The Big Three
The Church and Discipleship: a 1st Century Artifact
By Louie Rudin (used with permission)
The Church and discipleship: two of the most misunderstood and disassociated words in the American Christian culture today. In the midst of a consumerist driven mentality that has slowly infected the church, the role of disciple-making has all but left the scene. We have become dependent on charismatic speakers, slick technology, entertainment-style performances and dynamic programs that have superseded a biblical approach to Kingdom building. Meanwhile the average pew-sitter has very little engagement in anything related to theKingdomofGodother than attendance at a service once a week for an hour or two. Let’s unwrap this a bit more.
The Big Three
Jesus left us with basically three instructions to carry on after his time here on earth; love God (Mt 22), love people (Mt 22) and make disciples (Mt 28). He told his followers that all the Law and Prophets hang on the first two. In other words, everything else is pretty much secondary. And I’m fairly confident that this includes a significantly large percentage of what we do in the name of “ministry” today.
We have an account of this maligned understanding directly from Jesus when He warned his disciples that “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Mt 7:21-23) This statement should send shock waves through all of us who claim to be followers of Jesus. All of the activities mentioned in v22 are just that- activities that in and of themselves do not “guarantee” any sort of “membership” in the Kingdom. We falsely presume that these (and other) great things that we do for Jesus and the Kingdom give us some sort of advantage. Well, apparently not according to Jesus. It would serve us well to critically think about this.
2 Responses
haha, what is this? why do you need permission? Louie came to speak at CBS once this past semester and I liked it a lot.
haha that’s because this is part of a 11 page document titled the church and discipleship that he typed up. just giving credit where it is due 😀
there’s also another document of his that i’ll be putting up later haha
Comments are closed.