What is Discipleship? A Bible Study

What is Discipleship? A Bible Study

June 5, 2017 by Jack Wellman

Most believers say they are Christian, when asked, but few will say, “I’m a follower” or “disciple of Jesus Christ.”
Seeking Disciples

God doesn’t want any more religious people (remember the Pharisees?). He wants disciples after His own heart, with the express purpose of being more like Christ. Jesus Christ said, “any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). That’s a very radical thing to say, Jesus! What does that look like? “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23), so what is a disciple, and how do we deny ourselves? The word disciple comes from the Old English word, “discipul” which originated from the Latin “discipulus,” and means, “pupil, student, follower.” It comes from the word discere, meaning, “to learn” (from which we get the word “discern”), and from the root word, “dek” which means, “to take, accept.” The word disciple is also a compound word, “discipere,” which means “to grasp intellectually,” “analyze thoroughly,” and comes from “dis” for apart and “capere” “to take, take hold of.”

What does it mean to “renounce all” for Jesus Christ?

In what ways do we deny ourselves?

Have you thought of yourself as a student or disciple of the Word?
What is a Disciple?

Jesus said, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40), so what is a disciple? A disciple is someone called to live “in” Christ, equipped to live “like” Christ, and sent to live “for” Christ, and to share in the sufferings “of” Christ. The Bible describes a person who’s trusted in Christ as abiding in Him (John 15:1-5; 8:31–32), and if you are abiding in Him, you are becoming more like Him, so discipling is being in the Word and living under the word, and allowing the Word to equip us, to send us, and to make disciples of others, and in our lives, bear fruit, love our neighbors (Matthew 28:18–20, John 15:, and loving one another so others will know we are His disciples (John 13:34–35).

What are all the components of this “training” (Luke 6:40)?

What then is discipleship?

Why does loving one another show evidence we’re Jesus’ disciples?

Who are the “others” John is writing about in John 13:34-35?

A-disciple-is-not-above
Discipleship and Evangelism

God calls us and equips us to live in Christ, to live like Christ, to “Go!” for Christ, and to suffering for Christ, not to sit back and wait for the kingdom, so I do not believe there be discipleship without evangelism, and you cannot evangelize until you can state the gospel clearly so that others would understand it. Hiding God’s Word in your heart can help you avoid sin (Psalm 119:11), but it can also help you state the gospel in such verses like 2nd Corinthians 5:21, where Paul writes, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,” and “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Verses like these (John 3:16, 3:36; Rom 10:9-13) equip us to share the gospel without having to wait and show it to them in the Bible. You might not always carry a Bible with you, but you can always carry God’s Word in your heart.

What Bible verses have you memorized?

Do you remember using Bible verses when you shared the gospel? Which ones?

Do you think it’s true that you can’t be a true disciple without evangelizing? Explain.
The Cost of Discipleship

“Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24), because “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40), so those who are like Christ will suffer persecution like Christ, although not to the same extent. Jesus said it comes down to this; “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26), so if you can’t bear that cross, Jesus said, they “cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). The Bible teaches that there is only a narrow path to eternal life and that’s why so few find it; it’s difficult (Matt 7:13-14). If it were that easy, the paths would have to be switched, and the path to destruction would have to be narrow and the path to eternal life would need to be wide, but that’s not the way it is.

What will be the greatest cost in following Christ?

How can we encourage others to forsake all for Him?

In what ways can you reflect Christ before others?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Jesus sought out and choose the twelve disciples, not the other way around (John 15:16), and then He told them to “follow Me” and He will make them “fishers of men” (Mark 1:17), so they weren’t the first ones God called (John 6:44). In fact, He choose us before the earth even existed (Eph 1; Rom 8:29-30), and after we were called, He tells us to follow Him, but if we truly want to be His disciple, it means that we must deny ourselves and take up our cross (Matt 16:24) and study and grow in the grace and knowledge of God. The truth is we are a disciple of whoever or whatever it is we follow. Whatever we spend the most time and money on (not counting work), is what we worship.

To be a disciple of Christ’s you must study His textbook, the Bible. It’s like enlisting a man or woman in the Army and issuing them a rifle that they never learn how to clean and shoot. The risk of not making disciples of Christ is that they will almost always become lukewarm in faith, worldly in behavior, and hypocritical in witness. I know. I am proof of that! For this reason alone, anything less than a plan to disciple every willing person is going to be a catastrophic moral failure. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book on the cost of being a disciple of Jesus, and then almost prophetically lived it out. Ultimately, the cost of being a disciple of Christ was his death in a Nazi prison camp. He said if you want to be a disciple, look to Jesus! Dietrich Bonhoeffer desired to be a disciple of Christ so much that God allowed him to enter into the sufferings of Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote of a passionate desire, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Phil 3:10), and that’s exactly what he found too. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was spot on when he said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

In what ways does Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s example affect us?

How do you discipline yourself in life?

What price do you pay for being a disciple of Jesus?
Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is host of Spiritual Fitness and also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.