Jesus' Awesome Charge

So anyway, one time Jesus was talking to his closest 11 friends and was giving them a charge of sorts. He’d been with these guys for like 3 years day in and day out teaching them how to live like he lived and do what he did. That’s what the whole rabbi-disciple relationship was about, becoming like your rabbi. So, he says to them this one time, he says, “Go out and make disciples of every nation…and teach them to do everything I’ve told you.”

That’s a pretty sweet job to have, but here’s my point; I don’t think we read that the right way. I think we look at that and see Jesus saying two different things. Maybe I could say it like this, we think he’s saying, “Go out and make Christians of every nation…and teach them to do everything I’ve told you.” Do you see the difference between this and what Jesus actually said? If not, I’ll try and explain.

I think when we read it the way I just mentioned it leads us to having a 4 hour Christian concert where you say a prayer to dedicate your life to God and get saved in the middle of it. That’s an attempt at making a bunch of “Christians.” From there, we can just point people in the right direction and hope someone else does the painstaking work of teaching them to do everything Jesus taught.

But Jesus didn’t call those 11 young guys to make Christians but rather disciples. I don’t think Jesus was saying two different things(1. Go make disciples and 2. teach them to do everything I’ve told you), but rather (in a very Jewish way) saying one thing in two different ways. Making a disciple is far different than making a Christian. "Making disciples" boils down to the second half of Jesus’ charge to his friends, teaching people to do everything He taught those original guys. That is how you make disciples (not thru a Christian concert or an alter call or some such thing - although those might be important steps along the way).

When we talk about “Christians” we’re just talking about someone who’s sins have been forgiven. That’s great and all, but a “disciple” is way more than that. Back in Jesus’ day (and still today in modern Judaism), a disciple was someone who the rabbi had faith in. No matter how much faith the boy had in the rabbi, he would never become a disciple unless the rabbi had faith in him. The rabbi would never chose a disciple unless he knew that the boy could do what he did and teach what he taught. And so the rabbi would invest his time, energy, and talents into training the disciple to become just like the rabbi.

In making disciples people will naturally become Christians, it’s all in where we focus. Making Christians is easy, especially if you go for the whole say a prayer and be saved theology. To that end you could make several thousand Christians at a nice sized concert. But making disciples is hard. I won’t act like I know what it takes to make disciples but I think it involves a lot of time with someone and probably a lot of love and maybe patience and lots of other hard stuff. And you can’t do that at a Christian concert.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what might happen if we flipped the whole thing on its head? Instead of trying to make a whole bunch of Christians and hoping some of them, by shear odds, will become disciples, what if we tried to make as many disciples as we could and hope that, by shear odds, some would become Christians?

How Important is our “Personal Relationship w/ God”?

We’re supposed to have a “Quiet Time” everyday. A Quiet Time basically breaks down to reading the Bible for 5-30 minutes and then praying for 2-15 minutes. Sometimes we’re given “Accountability Partners” (which go by various names) to help us be consistent with our Quiet Times (or QT’s for short).

All this because the most important thing in Evangelical Protestant Christianity is your “Personal Relationship with God.” A question like, "How are you doing spiritually?" is usually code for, are you having consistant Bible studies and prayer times?

But, is it the most important thing? Is it worth the weight we attribute it?

Some of you may have asked yourselves these questions before, others may feel that they are blasphemous and it is one of those “off limit” types of questions you just aren’t allowed to ask.

Well I was talking to my wife last night, who has a great knack for being able to sum up large portions of the Bible into a sentence or two. She’d been reading through Galatians and 1 John or 1 Timothy and said that she’d realized that basically what Paul was saying was that “whatever it is you’re arguing about doesn’t matter, just love people and do good.”

Isn’t that what so much of Paul’s letters are about? Just love people and do good. Isn’t that what Jesus was so often about? Love people and do good.

What really struck me after she said that is how neither Jesus nor Paul really made the focus on having a personal relationship with God. To look at our contemporary church, though, wouldn’t you think that this was the sole focus of the Bible? What I’m not saying here is that a personal relationship with God isn’t important, it certainly is. It’s just that maybe it shouldn’t be our focus.

Think about this, when Jesus talks about specifically about Hell it’s always in reference to people who didn’t love or do good. It’s never about someone who didn’t have a personal relationship with God in the sense we often mean it today.

What about the vast majority of Christian (not to mention Jewish) history when people didn't have access to a Bible. For centuries church was even performed in Latin. Of the thousands of years of history, only within the past few hundred has the Bible been available to the common man.

Maybe the question we should ask ourselves then is, why do we need to be held accountable for reading our Bible and praying everyday, but no one ever asks us if we loved someone today? Reading the Bible is great, we need to read the Bible more. Praying is great, we need to pray more. But who will you love today?

Love wins.