H2O college ministries

I have been musing over discipleship.  what does that look like?  what does it feel like?  how does it start?  what all goes into it?  i mean, christians flippantly use that word time and time again without understanding its deep implications.  at least that is what i observe from the gospels and how discipleship looked like there.  not just in the gospels, but also in all of the bible.  this has lead me to some unrest and a thirst to learn what it means to follow Jesus, to be where He is (John 12), to feel what he feels, and to think how God thinks.  to imitate our Master, for that is what discipleship is.

i found a good starting point for understanding discipleship.  it can be seen in the Shema.  “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…” (Mark 12:29-30).

that is alot of alls. all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.  sounds like that should be one’s whole life.  but when this is unpacked, you can see a holistic picture of discipleship, at least from a Hebraic stand point. 

it is contained within 3 ortho’s…orthopathy, orthopraxy, & orthodoxy.  in other words, the way of the heart, the way of action, and right thinking.  all three need to be evident in our lives as we follow Jesus.  real religion lies at the seat of our affections.  when the bible uses the word ‘heart’ it includes not only the source of feelings but of will and loyalty.  Jesus tells us that eternal life is knowing God, but this is more than just knowing things about God.  it is knowing God like a man knows his wife and a wife knows her husband.  it is initmate and drives home not only all emotion but also loyalty.  If the heart is left unmoved by God, no action can follow.  Jonathan Edwards writes, “I am bold in saying this, but I believe that no one is ever changed, either by doctrine, by hearing the word, or by the preaching or teaching of another, unless the affections are moved by these things…in a word, there is never any great achievement by the things of religion without a heart deeply affected by those things…true religion is placed in the affections.”

Prosper of Aquitaine stated it this way::lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi–how we worship reflects what we believe and determines how we will live.  As we worship, so will we live, and as we worship, so will we become.

our discipleship can not just sit there though, but if our heart is affected by Jesus, then that should move us into action.  into deeds.  into service.  Jesus says in John 12, that if we call ourselves his servants, then we will be where he is.  that indicates following and movement (i wrote about this before).  in the Bible, the real test of what we know is how we live.  You don’t see Jesus in the Gospels asking people to worship him, but you do see him calling for obedience, in fact it is radical obedience.  in Hebraic thinking, obedience is equated as worship.  that is a higher task, than just affirming that we agree with simply what Jesus said.

which is where i think our culture is suffering.  it is here that we are the best.  it is here where we sum up discipleship.  in orthodoxy.  in right thinking.  don’t get me wrong.  thinking about God is crucial, in fact I believe that if we don’t think rightly about God, we could never get the other two ortho’s right either.  but the reason why i left this one last is because, we, in the west, tend to be better thinkers, or opinion givers, then actual doers.  it is like a delusion.  we can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are disciples of Jesus by just learing more and more about God without it really affecting our hearts, loyalty, and ultimately how we live.

Our minds are important, and Jesus calls us to love him with all our mind.  Paul writes in Romans 12 that we need to renew our minds.  but withhout orthopathy and orthodoxy, we are unbalanced and we really aren’t following him.  we are just thinking about God like how we think about any other subject that we want to learn.  but getting to know God is complex, because it is a relationship.  you can’t just study God like we study history or math.  it must affect our lives, wholly and completely.

love with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength.