What is discipleship?

The Church & Christian LifeIn theological review

The short answer

Discipleship is the whole process of following Jesus and learning his way: being baptised into his people, being taught to observe all he commanded, and taking up the cross daily to follow him. It begins at conversion and never graduates. Disciples also make disciples; Paul's pattern of entrusting the faith to faithful people who will teach others runs through the whole New Testament picture.

The fuller answer

A disciple, in the Gospels, is a learner attached to a teacher, and for Jesus' followers the attachment is total. His commission defines the church's work with the word itself: make disciples of all nations, baptising them and teaching them to observe all that he commanded. Note the shape. Discipleship involves belonging, marked by baptism; learning, aimed not at information but at observing, doing, what Jesus said; and duration, since Jesus promises to be with his people in this work to the end of the age. Nobody in the New Testament is a Christian instead of a disciple, or a disciple instead of a believer. The words describe one life from different angles.

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,

Matthew 28:19 (BSB)

Jesus also states the cost without softening it. Whoever does not take up his cross and follow him cannot be his disciple, and his picture of counting the cost, like a builder pricing a tower before starting, is meant to stop casual enquiries at the door. Luke adds the word daily: the cross is not one dramatic decision but a repeated one. This is why reducing discipleship to a course, a book or a season of meetings distorts it. Courses and books serve discipleship well. But the thing itself is a life being reordered, over years, around a person, in the company of his people, at real cost.

Then Jesus said to all of them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.

Luke 9:23 (BSB)

And discipleship reproduces. Paul charges Timothy to entrust what he heard to faithful men who will be able to teach others also: four generations of the faith in one sentence. In practice this means every Christian is both learning and, in some measure, teaching: newer believers by example and simple truths honestly shared, mature believers by deliberate investment in a few people over time. If you are unsure where to begin, begin where the commission begins: join his people visibly, learn his words with the intent to obey them, and attach your life to both someone further along and someone newer than you.

And the things that you have heard me say among many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be qualified to teach others as well.

2 Timothy 2:2 (BSB)

Timothy's charge also quietly defines the disciple maker's materials: what you have heard from me, Paul says, in the presence of many witnesses. Discipleship passes on a received faith, witnessed and public, not private inventions or a teacher's personality. That is why sound discipleship always leads people into the Scriptures and the church rather than into dependence on a mentor. The mentor's goal is to become unnecessary in the best sense: the disciple stands in the same faith, reads the same book, belongs to the same people, and has begun, in turn, to entrust it all to someone else.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

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Dig deeper

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