Redefining Discipleship

It is curious to me how messed up our ideas of things can get. I'm sure the inadequacies of language are partly to blame. Most definitely our bad theologies can also be at fault. Take discipleship for instance. Just the mention of the word can either befuddle or shame any genuine follower of Jesus.

I have been reading Dallas Willard's book, "the Divine Conspiracy," and he has an interesting take on discipleship. To him, discipleship is simply living life and following Jesus. It is becoming his apprentice or student. It isn't something that should be all that mysterious or difficult to grasp. It is much more natural of a way to look at it...and probably more true to the original situation.

To Jesus, discipleship has as much to do with our careers, family life, conversations with our neighbors, the way we celebrate holidays, and the rest of our lives as it does with prayer and worship. Jesus gave us instruction on how to live life in the real world. He was concerned with anger, lust, making oaths, prayer, and the poor. Jesus intersected all of life with the spiritual and the spiritual with all of life.

To many of us practictioners of faith, discipleship is a complicated religious education that primarily involves filling our minds with important religious information. This information is supposed to bring about transformation (life change), but often times only brings about guilt about what we aren't doing...i.e. reading, praying, talking to people about Jesus. Jesus' approach was more of doing life in the manner of the Kingdom of God...or the way of Jesus. It is emulating the way he lived in our environment. It is treating people with the respect, honor and love that he did. It is dealing with people in honesty, integrity and purity. These are the ways of the Kingdom. This is the way of discipleship. When signing people up for his discipleship class, Jesus simply says, "Follow me."