Introduction
As a continuous learner of the Holy Texts within the Christ-following tradition, it becomes apparent that to understand the importance of carrying the legacy and ministry of Jesus Christ into the future; one must understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. The words disciple and Apostle are often used throughout the New Testament. Is there a difference? Scholars have debated the distinction between the two: A disciple is a follower and student of Jesus Christ, while the Apostles carried the mission forward. Disciples were also sent out to do Christ's ministry before his death and resurrection. For this paper, I will use Disciple and Apostle synonymously while outlining important characteristics or marks of what a disciple should emulate.
Sacrificial Conformity
To process and break down what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, it is important to look at the qualities of Jesus we are to imitate. The biggest aspect of Jesus as the Son of God is he was sent to this earth to sacrifice himself for the forgiveness of sins. This is known as it is written in the Gospel according to John chapter three verse sixteen: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (NIV). Jesus of Nazareth redefined sacrifice as he allowed God to send him to earth to be sacrificed for the sins of mankind. Until Christ’s death, sacrifice rituals were practiced through slaughtering and dismembering animals and spreading blood on the altar. Christ became the perfect sacrificial lamb, beaten and hung on the cross, shedding his blood for our sins.
To become a disciple, one must practice sacrificial conformity. To sacrifice means giving up or surrendering to God, while conformity means complying with laws or rules.
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:1-2) 2
In these two verses, Paul addresses the church in Rome with a reminder of what becoming a transformed believer and a disciple means. God sent his son to us to die on our behalf, paying a price that humanity can never repay. Instead of trying to pay it back, we are called to pay it forward by offering ourselves as a living sacrifice. When Paul speaks about our body, he wants the understanding of the body to be our life, plans, and dreams. Through our bodies, one acts out one’s thoughts. Through our bodies, one demonstrates what one has (i.e., material possessions, knowledge, etc.). Through our bodies, one demonstrates how one chooses to live. To practice sacrificial conformity, one must be open to a change of mind, heart, and purpose. “This renewing is an internal process, a reorientation of our world view as we seek to live as Christ lived and to think as he thought.”1 One must be willing to hand over the entirety of one’s life to be a disciple. God needs control to withstand the risks of conforming to the world instead of conforming to God’s will. “Our attempts to govern our lives by our own reason or design always leads us down the path of ambition, pride and arrogance.”2
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age…” (Titus 2:11-12). The calling to be sacrificial can sound and feel unbearable. This is why when writing the letter to his friend and converted Gentile, Titus; he wanted to provide reassurance that the burden of choosing to live sacrificially conformed is taken about through the grace provided through Jesus’ sacrifice. Paul urges that Jesus wiped away sin and made mankind his own people. Since we are part of the family of God, following his example through leaving behind our former self and living the godly life we were given through the sacrifice of Christ. “Discipleship required a break with one’s former life and livelihood, and the paradox that the disciple can only save his or her life by losing it.”3
Testify
Evangelism has received a bad name for itself, which is why ‘testify’ is crucial. Whether there is a preference for evangelism or testimony/testify, one thing is clear: there is a need to serve as a witness to the existence of something. In the case of discipleship, the point of providing testimony is to bear witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Looking to Jesus and his ministry, Jesus spent the better part of his final three years on Earth traveling and teaching about the kingdom of heaven. Jesus chose to teach in the ancient way of wisdom teachings or parables, using imagery people could relate to, such as farming, being a merchant, being a builder, etc., to explain the kingdom of heaven. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, Jesus appeared to his disciples. Before ascending to his place at the right hand of his Father, he provided the Great Commission:
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 28:19-20)
“Every follower of Christ needs to own the Great Commission. They cannot outsource it and depend on others to complete it. It is not only the pastor’s job to evangelize.”4 Throughout my ministry experience, I have witnessed many congregations or gatherings of Christ-followers who come to church on Sunday Morning only to receive the invisible check mark by their ‘Christian Duty’ box for their weekly to-do list. Being a disciple doesn’t work that way. Whether it be the good times or the trials during life journeys, God has been present. As a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, through the Great Commission, there is a requirement to go out and teach the Good News. In doing so, there is a mandatory characteristic to be vulnerable enough to share spiritual journeys with those we encounter.
What would have happened if the disciples had stayed where they were after the ascension of Christ? The disciples, and the Apostle Paul, went out to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. “Jesus’ death on the cross to pay for our sins and open the way for us to get to God is good news. It’s the best news. But having such information does others no good unless, or until, we share it. We must proclaim the good news.”5 The message of salvation for those that do not know Jesus comes from one’s willingness to spread the good news and how the Triune God has worked in one’s life. “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
In the twenty-second chapter of Acts, Paul shares his testimony after establishing his credentials as a Jewish man. Paul recounts his story as written in the ninth chapter of Acts. One key difference is how he refers to the voice calling to him, the voice of Jesus of Nazareth. He recalls being blind, having his sight restored by Ananias, and his willingness to receive instructions from the Lord. God didn’t tell him his mission was to be the minister to Gentiles at the time of his blindness. He used others along the path of Paul’s conversion. God was calling Paul to become a witness to everyone, to testify about what he had experienced, what he had seen and heard. What would have happened if Saul had just stayed in Damascus after he was converted? This is why it is important as a disciple to not rely on the pastor or other leaders to do the work of testifying. “A dying world will never be won to Christ if only our church staff members are God doing the work.”6
Pray Unceasingly
To be an effective disciple and to be a true disciple, communication with God in a consistent manner is necessary. Unlike our ancestors, there are fewer encounters where the voice of Christ is heard out loud.
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” (Eph. 1:18-21 NIV)
Without prayer, there is a risk of losing light, the light that allows one to see the path that has been placed in front of each person. Prayer prevents a type of spiritual blindness that can cause us to not trust in our calling, can cause us to miss out on the riches of our inheritance, and forget the power that came with the resurrection. Knowledge in the mind and understanding of the heart are two different concepts. As a believer, I know (mind) that Christ died for my sins, and through his death and resurrection, I have an inheritance that cannot be matched. If I stick to the mind, things of the world have a way of blurring the knowledge. As a disciple, I understand (heart) that all knowledge must be put into practice. We can only move from knowledge to understanding through a prayerful life. “God dwells far from us, but prayer brings Him down to our earth and links His power with our efforts.”7
In our calling to be a disciple, it is important not to forget teachings from the Old Testament. The prophet Jeremiah was young, often questioning his calling as a prophet. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:11-13 NIV). God reminded Jeremiah that he had plans for the land of Judah, a plan for Judah to be in peace. Especially in times of trials, God wants to hear from us. Each moment we can breathe proves that God promises not to leave us in despair. God works to make things new. In a relationship with God, God tells us we can come before Him, and He will listen. We must seek God in the manner God wants and is pleasing. “The passivity into which the Lord eventually leads us in prayer is so contrary to our natures, and the world into which we enter is so ‘upside down’ that it seems the same lesson needs to be learned a thousand times over before it becomes truly our own.”8
Although the people of Judah were exiled, the words of the Lord provided strength, allowing them to continue toward his goal of peace for the people. As disciples, enduring trials is highly likely as the prince of darkness fights those who serve the Lord. To overcome trials, to maintain a heart of understanding, we must seek God in all we do. Praying without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) must be a mark as a disciple. To live a holy life, prayer and communion with the Spirit are necessary, and the Spirit of God will help teach us how to continue to pray appropriately so we are pleasing to God, working to follow the plan God has for our lives, and allowing continued growth and understanding of our missions on earth.
Jesus demonstrated the importance of prayer as a faithful follower and disciple of God. Jesus was both fully divine and fully human. He had a connection to God that mankind did not have. Yet, after feeding the five thousand, he sent his disciples to the boats. While the disciples headed towards the boats, Jesus went to pray on his own: “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray” (Matthew 14:22-23 NIV). The four gospels demonstrate Jesus to be a person of prayer. If the Son of God consistently takes the time for prayer when he has a connection with God that mere mortal man does not, why do modern-day disciples think that ministering can be done without a prayerful life?
Get Up and Go
Get up and go may seem like going and providing testimony. This section will demonstrate the importance of it being its separate characteristic. Providing a testimony to how Jesus has worked within one’s life can happen anywhere. Yes, often, it means being in different locations or situations where the testimony takes place. Being willing to get up and go means leaving the comfort of the settings one would usually minister in and going and meeting the people where they are, not where the one ministering wants them to be.
God often calls his chosen leaders to go into uncomfortable places. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah tried hard to not only run from God’s wishes but also got angry that God would even want to forgive the people of Nineveh and give them another chance. He ended up being swallowed by the big fish to wake him up. After being expelled from the whale, Jonah reluctantly went to Nineveh. “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” (Luke 9:1-5 NIV)
These disciples had not been traveling with Jesus for an extended period where their comfort was set in stone enough to go and do the work they had witnessed their teacher doing. Yet, Jesus equipped them with what they needed, telling them to go and not take all these material possessions with them. God would provide what they needed. “While Jesus desires our deep and personal satisfaction, he also intends for our lives to influence those around us.”9 How can one be a disciple if they say to God, “I do not wish to go to this place. I will stay here?”
Jesus knew what it meant to do the work of God. He never stayed in one place long before continuing to travel, ministering in several regions. After the conversion of Paul, Paul also did the same thing. The travels of Paul are great. Had Paul and the other disciples not traveled and taken the message of the cross to all nations, where would our faith system be today? “But now I have finished my work in these regions, and after all these long years of waiting, I am eager to visit you. I am planning to go to Spain, and when I do, I will stop off in Rome. And after I have enjoyed your fellowship for a little while, you can provide for my journey. But before I come, I must go to Jerusalem to take a gift to the believers there.For you see, the believers in Macedonia and Achaia have eagerly taken up an offering for the poor among the believers in Jerusalem.” (Romans 15:23-26 NIV)
Paul took followers and assistants with him on his ventures, training them of the ministry he was performing as churches were developing in regions. When Paul was imprisoned, he wrote letters, sending them with aides to the churches and having them instruct the congregations of what he expected of them. “He recognized that life was not about him; it was about doing to the work God had given him to do.”10 The quote is in reference to Christ and his ministry. When I read the quote, it is really going hand in hand with Paul’s ministry.
When one is called to ministry, one must get up and go. Sometimes the places that one may be called to will be uncomfortable; a place one has never been to, a place far away from friends and family, sometimes a place where the culture is opposite to what one knows. There are places across the planet where people are secluded from mankind and have not had the opportunity to hear the word of God. If God calls one to go to that place, a disciple has a choice: the disciple can be like the Prophet Jonah and flee, refusing to go and making life harder for themselves, or one can go and do the works of God in all the comfortability that comes with being a disciple. One cannot call themself a disciple if one only wants to stay in one place. Ministry is not stationary; the ministry is revolutionary: travel is involved.
Servanthood
Serving one another as Christ served his followers is a mandatory mark of a disciple. Christ demonstrates the need to serve others through healing, love, washing of feet, feeding the masses, etc. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20: 26-28 NIV)
A disciple will not measure their success by their accomplishments. A disciple is a leader called to help others succeed and achieve an understanding of God as the triune God. Jesus came to earth as the Messiah, a long-awaited warrior that would save his people from the world's sins. This warrior and king were not typical as he did not look royal, nor did he ever hold himself as one of prestige authority. He merely spent his time serving others. “The biblical concept of servanthood defines the nature of the pastoral relationship and dignifies the personhood of the care recipient…”11 It has been noticed that some in ministry do it for what they can materially or emotionally earn from their titles. The Pharisees were scholars of the Judaic law. They and the Sadducees used their status to sit at the best tables to wear outstanding garments. Jesus came to change what true ministry through discipleship looked like. A scholar called C.H. Spurgeon wrote: “He received nothing from others; his was a life of giving and the giving of a life…No service is greater than to redeem sinners by his own death, no ministry is lowlier than to die in the stead of sinners.”
During the time of Jesus walking on earth, it was expected that the lowest among the servants would wash the feet of guests as they entered an establishment. On the night Judas betrayed Jesus, he gathered with his disciples for a final meal together. He grabs a bowl, wraps a towel around his waist, and kneels to wash his disciples’ feet. Even when they are shocked and tell him no, as they do not see him as a servant, in their minds, Jesus’ kneeling to wash their feet made him lose his standing in what they perceived to be their group’s hierarchy. He gives them a lesson to remember: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (John 13:15-16 NIV). “No one could argue that they would lose status if they washed others’ feet if Jesus, their Master, and Lord, had done the same.”12
As previously mentioned, the Apostle Paul traveled throughout his ministry, often writing letters to established churches. When we wrote to the church in Philippi, he reminded them to be like Christ. “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:5-8)
Much like other religious leaders of the time, Jesus could have chosen to act in a manner of power and authority. Instead, Paul reminds his listeners that Jesus took a different path. Being the very nature of God, he took the opposite way of living, taking on the nature of a servant. One hailed as a warrior, and the king of the Jews was just a lowly servant. Paul teaches that Jesus humbling himself as a servant was not a one-time thing. Jesus acted as a servant each day of his life. The worldly ways often make giving up status difficult because, in the world, status is everything. Yet, as Christ prayed for his disciples before his arrest, he reminded them they were not of the world, just as he was not of this world. When Paul is arrested and tortured, he maintains a servant's attitude. “Paul’s claim to suffer for the sake of the church is rooted at least in part in his conviction that through his life and ministry, the mission of the Isaianic servant is fulfilled.”13
As a disciple, we are called to have the same mindset of Jesus and of his servant, Paul. To help fulfill the Isaianic servant’s mission, we should continue to humble ourselves to be a servant. “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God” (1 Peter 2:16 ESV). To be a disciple, one must realize the freedom that came with the death and resurrection of Christ does not come for free. Nothing is ever truly free. Disciples are called to be servants; in all one does, do so in honor of God. “Their lives are to be such that even when they are gossiped about or falsely accused, the accusations will not stand, and they will be acquitted.”14
1 David Kasali, Africa Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary Written by 70 African Scholars (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publisher, 2006), pg. 1369.
2 Randall Zachman, “Deny Yourself and Take Up Your Cross’: John Calvin on the Christian Life,” International Journal of Systematic Theology: IJST. 11, no. 4 (2009), pg. NA.
3 Timothy A. Friedrichsen, “‘Disciple(s)’ in the New Testament,” Salesianum / 65, no. 4 (2003): 734.
4 Ernest L. Easley and Jordan Easley, Resuscitating Evangelism (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2020), pg. 40.
5 Earley, Dave, David A Wheeler, Evangelism Is-- How to Share Jesus with Passion and Confidence (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2010), pg. 53.
6 Ernest L. Easley and Jordan Easley, Resuscitating Evangelism (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2020), pg. 40.
7 Dale Salwak, The Power of Prayer, (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2011), pg. 75
8 Michael Marshall, The Transforming Power of Prayer: From Illusion to Reality (London, England: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011), pg. NA.
9 Scott R Pace and Heath Thomas, Answering God’s Call Finding, Following, and Fulfilling God’s Will for Your Life (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2020), pg. 40.
10 Edward Watson and Martin M. Culy, The Making of a Disciple Character Studies in the Gospel of John (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2021), pg. NA
11 R.H. Sunderland, “The Dignity of Servanthood in Pastoral Care,” Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling (2003), 57(3), 269–279.
12 Samuel M. Ngewa, Africa Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary Written by 70 African Scholars (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publisher, 2006), pg.1282.
13Matthew Harmon and D. A. Carson, The Servant of the Lord and His Servant People Tracing a Biblical Theme Through the Canon, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021). Pg NA
14 Sicily Mbura Muriithi, Africa Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary Written by 70 African Scholars (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publisher, 2006), pg.1520.
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