Here the Lord Jesus says that “whoever does not hate father or mother. The second exception, where disciple is more aspirational than merely a term for a follower, is in Luke 14:27-33. This is, perhaps, why none of the epistles ever appeal to the Great Commission, even though James and Peter were there to hear Jesus speak the words. It is not then, a mission strategy for recruitment as we have so often been told. This part of Matthew 28 is the eschatological fulfillment of the Lord of the nations who governs by his Word. Instead Our Lord evokes Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 to call the apostles to instruct the nations in the ways of the Lord. Based on the most familiar prophecies, the disciples could have expected the resurrected Messiah to say, “Go therefore and conquer the nations,” or “subdue the nations,” or “take their silver and gold,” or “get the nations to return the Ten Lost Tribes.”
#DANIEL MEETER FULL#
The literal translation is the verb-object “disciple-nations.” Nations, not individuals.įor the full force of this, remember that the theme of Matthew’s Gospel is Our Lord’s fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. ”īut this common translation, with “make-disciples” as verb-object, is inaccurate and misleading. The first exception is of course Matthew 28, the Great Commission, where the Lord Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me go therefore, and make disciples of every nation, teaching them to observe. And as I mentioned, this aspirational use of disciple - that this is what we are called to be - is almost totally absent from the New Testament. This idea, that our primary aim is to be a disciple - I’m going to call it the “aspirational” meaning - is not found in Calvin (he uses “piety”), nor in the Heidelberg Catechism (it uses “prophet, priest, and ruler”). None of those nine marks and five characteristics does the Bible actually connect to the word “disciple.” That’s when I found that “disciple” never appears in the epistles of Paul, nor Hebrews, nor James, Peter, John, or Jude.
I discovered, to my surprise, that discipleship is not a paradigm in the Bible.
Nonetheless, for theological reasons I doubted that God was calling us to this. The leadership of the RCA is telling us that God is calling our denomination to “ make disciples who grow disciples.” This, apparently, is our main purpose. It’s the main theme of the great Dallas Willard. We should aspire to be disciples, not just go to church. Online you can find the “nine marks” of discipleship and the “five characteristics” of a disciple. My own denomination, the Reformed Church in America (RCA), has discipleship programs and curricula.
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