Rediscovering Discipleship

Robby Gallaty

• Editorial: Zondervan
• Año: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780310521297
• Categoría: Teología y religión
• Categoría: Ministerio cristiano

Discipleship is the buzzword today. Many believers are contemplating in a fresh way what it means to take the Great Commission seriously. Rediscovering Discipleship takes the guesswork out of Christian maturity.

Based on insights gained from a decade of personally making disciples, author and pastor Robby Gallaty tackles the two hindrances that keep believers from getting involved in making disciples: ignorance and uncertainty. Since many believers have never been personally disciple, they have no model to guide them in discipling others. Their ignorance of the process fuels their uncertainty, which leaves them crippled from the start. With simple principles that are easy to apply, Rediscovering Discipleship provides readers with the tools to follow the Great Commission—to go and actually make disciples who multiply and make disciples.

Gallaty begins with a brief historical overview of the discipleship ministries of influential theologians, preachers, and pastors from years past, and then identifies roadblocks that hinder believers from becoming disciples before offering a step-by-step process for readers to immediately get started on the path to effective disciple making.

PART I

Know the Man Before You Go on the Mission

CHAPTER 1

The Master’s Model for Making Disciples

YOU WOULD LIKELY AGREE WITH me when I tell you that knowing of someone and knowing someone are two entirely different concepts. You may have heard of Winston Churchill, known as one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century. He was resolute and immovable during a time when “the most powerful and influential men in Britain were determined not to offend Hitler”¹ by burying their heads in the sand and blindly following his lead. Yet despite his influence on the world, only a few people knew Churchill personally while he was alive. And among those few who personally knew him, only a handful could likely identify his place of birth, where he was raised, or what schools he attended.

I’m willing to bet you are unaware of the fact that Churchill plotted a map of the Middle East and established the country of Jordan.² Only a handful of people who lived at the time were privy to his personal life and were able to hear him speak about his personal pleasures, passions, or the principles that shaped his leadership style.

There is a difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone or something. I want to start by reminding you of this because in the midst of renewed attention on the topic of disciple-making there is also a significant level of confusion and noise. And before we talk about methods and strategies for discipling others, we need to get back to the basics. Knowing the term discipleship and understanding it in the way Jesus meant it are two different things. They can be chasms apart. Sadly today, some are throwing around the term discipleship, but they are speaking an entirely different language.

Before we dive into the principles and practices for obeying the Great Commission, we must learn to speak the same language. One of the most valuable principles I learned in studying hermeneutics — a theological term for the art and science of biblical interpretation — is that you cannot apply a text differently today from how it was applied in the context in which it was written. In other words, a text interpreted today cannot mean something entirely different from what it meant back then. Texts must be understood in their context. We can drift, albeit unintentionally at times, into heresy when we remove a text from its context. It might be helpful to remember it by this simple axiom: a text without a context is a pretext for a proof text. This applies to reading and studying a translation, but it also applies to Hebrew and Greek words, Hebraic concepts, and cultural practices.

Before we set out to obey Jesus’ command to make disciples, journey with me back two thousand years to hear how he spoke the words of the Great Commission to the eleven men on the mountainside with him that day. The challenge in doing this is that we need to reprogram our Western ears to listen to that Galilean accent. Jesus was a Jewish man living in a Jewish land, observing Jewish customs and investing his life into Jewish men. Before we try to understand his message or mission, we must first learn to understand Jesus.

Know the Man

Jesus was a Jewish man, born to a Jewish mother, raised according to Jewish customs, speaking to a Jewish audience, and surrounded by Jewish disciples. The Bible is a Jewish book written by Jewish people, for a mostly Jewish audience, and is about a Jewish Savior who came to redeem both Jews and Gentiles. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not asking you to walk around with uncut corners of your hair, donning a yarmulke on your crown and frontlets on your forehead if you want to be a disciple of this Jewish rabbi. Still, if you want to be a true disciple of Jesus, you must learn to know the Man. We must know the man before we can go on the mission to which we have been called.

Jesus was raised by exceptionally devout Jewish parents. They traveled to Jerusalem for Passover each year. He was circumcised on the eighth day of his life and was dedicated and given a Hebrew name. As he grew up, he regularly attended synagogue on the Sabbath, participated in every biblical Feast, studied and memorized the Scriptures, learned a trade from his father, and started his rabbinic ministry at age thirty — all of this according to Jewish customs at the time.

The fact that Jesus was a rabbi is validated by several places in the Bible where he is addressed this way. The word rabbi (pronounced like “Robby”) literally means “my master.” It was used to address a learned teacher or sage. A rabbi in Jesus’ day was quite different from a modern-day rabbi. Jesus was an itinerant preacher, similar to a prophet of the Old Testament, and as such he either relied on the benevolence of others or had another occupation from which he derived his livelihood. In an age that lacked the highly developed, sophisticated methods of mass communication that we have today, a rabbi traveled from place to place to communicate his teachings and his interpretations of Scripture to the masses.

The late Rabbi Shmuel Safrai, a teacher at the Hebrew University, suggested that

The traveling rabbi was the norm, rather than the exception. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of such rabbis circulating in the land of Israel in Jesus’ day. These rabbis did not hesitate to travel to the smallest of the villages or the most remote parts of the land. They would often conduct their classes in the village or out under a tree.³

In some instances, classes would even be conducted in someone’s home, similar to the small groups we have today.

According to the custom of the day, charging for teaching was frowned upon, so the itinerant rabbi was entirely dependent upon the hospitality and generosity of the community. Many rabbis carried their food with them — a pouch of meal and a few olives. This is how many of the teachers subsisted, not wanting to be a burden to their host. For the long-term Talmidim — those who were the rabbi’s disciples — learning from a rabbi meant constant traveling, since the rabbi was always moving from place to place. If one wanted to learn from a rabbi, he had to “follow after him.”

A rabbi was simply a teacher, and the term rabbi is interchangeable with the word we translate as “teacher” in the Gospels:

Luke 7:40: Jesus replied to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher [Rabbi],” he said, “say it.”

Luke 10:25: Just then an expert in the law stood up to test Him, saying, “Teacher [Rabbi], what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Luke 18:18: A ruler asked Him, “Good Teacher [Rabbi], what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Matthew 22:23 – 24: The same day some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came up to Him and questioned Him: “Teacher [Rabbi], Moses said, if a man dies, having no children, his brother is to marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.”

Although he was clearly a rabbi, Jesus wasn’t always referred to as rabbi. Like every other Jewish boy, he attended the religious academies at an early age to study the Torah. As a child, he grew “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and with people” (Luke 2:52). And as a humorous aside, I don’t believe Jesus was one of those know-it-alls in the classroom. When his teacher asked, “Who can recite Deuteronomy 6?” he didn’t respond, “I can. I wrote it.” Jesus wasn’t arrogant or condescending. Like any child, he grew and matured.

The Scriptures are silent about the time between Jesus’ birth and a discussion he has at age twelve with teachers in the Jerusalem temple (Luke 2:41-50), but it’s fair for us to wonder about his upbringing. Much debate has taken place about this time. What did he do? Where did he travel? Whom did he hang out with? What did he study?

We can fill in some of the blanks by assuming that Jesus was much like every other young boy in his culture at that time. As a Torah-observant Jew, Jesus would have learned the Hebrew alphabet as an infant. Parents were instructed in the Talmud, which is a commentary on the Scriptures by famous historical rabbis, to teach their children the alphabet — or “alephabet” — before they walked. Next, Jesus would have enrolled in the “house of instruction” or “school,” the local synagogue. The first use of this word is found in Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) around 180 BC. Shortly thereafter, synagogues became the epicenter of learning, with the institution of the first district school system for youths being credited to the Pharisees around 75 BC.

Rabbis communicated to their young “Talmidim” — students — the importance of rehearsing older lessons. Knowing the old was just as important as learning new teaching. Professor Shmuel Safrai supports this pedagogical model for transformation:

Individual and group study of the Bible, repetition of the passages, etc., were often done by chanting them aloud. There is the frequent expression “the chirping of children,” which was heard by people passing close by a synagogue as the children were reciting a verse. Adults too, in individual and in group study, often read aloud; for it was frequently advised not to learn in a whisper, but aloud. This was the only way to overcome the danger of forgetting.⁴

Without notebooks to write in, computers to type on, or iPads to read from, first-century students relied on repetition and recitation for understanding. The Jewish Talmud, a commentary on the Old Testament Scriptures, cites the importance of reviewing: “He who studies the Torah and does not review is like one who plants and does not harvest.”⁵ Several other common sayings during this period give you the essence of the philosophy of teaching and training in Jesus’ day:

“Your father brought you into this world, but your rabbi brings you into the life of the world to come!”

“If a man’s father and his rabbi are both taken captive, a disciple should ransom his rabbi first.”

“If his father and his master are carrying heavy burdens, he removes that of his master, and afterward removes that of his father.”⁶

Clearly, Jewish culture at the time of Jesus placed a high priority on being a faithful student of the Scriptures.

Rabbinic Discipleship

You have heard the adage, “Knowledge is power.” Historically, the Jewish people lived by this motto, with one caveat: the knowledge that leads to power must come from the sacred Scriptures. For this reason, the Jews have long been called a “people of the book.” This was clearly evident in the way children and adults in that culture were taught — an approach that is drastically different from the educational system we have today.

There were several significant differences between the Jewish (Eastern) system of education and the Greek (Western) one. Norman Snaith summarizes some of these differences:

The object and aim of the Hebrew system is da’ath elohim (knowledge of God). The object and aim of the Greek system is gnothi seauton (know thyself). . . . The Hebrew system starts with God. The only true wisdom is Knowledge of God. “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.”. . . The Greek system, on the contrary, starts from the knowledge of man, and seeks to rise to an understanding of the ways and nature of God through the knowledge of what is called “man’s higher nature.”⁷

These two systems are different all the way down to the roots.

Understanding these differences is important if we wish to understand how Jesus taught and what it means for us to call him our rabbi.

School Is in Session

Studying the Torah, according to the Jews, was the highest way of bringing glory to God. The Mishnah (or Oral Law) suggests, “If you have learned much, do not think highly of yourself for it, since for this you were created.”⁸ We continue to see the importance of regimented study today in the cultural values of orthodox Jews. Boys in Brooklyn, New York, begin studying the Torah at three years old. Steven Isaacs, in his book Hasidim of Brooklyn, writes,

For an adolescent, the Torah is all. Six days a week, boys rise at 3 or 3:30 in the morning to go to the mikveh [ritual bath], are in school from 5:30 or 6 a.m. until nearly sundown, and then return to synagogue. After supper, they return to synagogue for the nightly study session. On Saturday, the Sabbath, they are in the synagogue all day.⁹

Josephus, the well-known Jewish historian, reveals that first-century Jews valued this as well: “Above all we pride ourselves on the education of our children.”¹⁰ Schooling consisted of three stages, each advancing in progressively more difficult increments. At the age of five, boys and girls would enter the Bet Sefer (the House of the Book), where reading and writing were taught using the Torah — the first five b...