4th March 2026 Question box

OK, tonight’s question is short and sweet

What makes good discipleship?

OK, so the word “disciple” means something like “student.” And in Jesus’ time it was paired with word “rabbi” which meant something like teacher. I mean, our culture and their culture have a slightly different approach to teachers and teaching: In western culture, the enlightenment taught us think of humans as if we are basically brains on legs. And so our teaching is often about information transfer. In western culture it might even be considered unprofessional for a teacher to have too close a relationship with his students. Whereas in Jesus’ culture, a rabbi was teaching his disciple how to live. And so discipleship included information transfer, but always in the context of relationship and shared life.

Near the beginning of the gospels, when Jesus approached a group of fishermen and said: “Come and follow me” (Matthew 4:19) they understood this to mean that he was their rabbi and they were now his disciples. And then at the end of the gospel, when Jesus said: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:18) they knew what this meant because they had been discipled by Jesus for three years. And so what makes good discipleship? Well, it’s everything that Jesus did with his disciples.

Perhaps we can summarise this under what MTS calls the three “c”s:

• Character: Jesus was concerned not just for what they knew, but about what sort of people they were. He wanted them to be like him.
• However he also paid attention to conviction. That is, Jesus sat them down and taught them to think like him.
• And then there’s competence: he sent them out on short term mission, he wanted them to learn how to serve like him.

And so, good discipleship will address each of these areas. But one last thing: There’s an important difference between how Jesus made disciples, and how we make disciples. Jesus said: “follow me”; we say: “follow him.” See, after Jesus left, people didn’t become disciples of Peter, or John, they became “the Lord’s disciples.” (Acts 9:1)

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This question was originally answered in our evening service on 26 October 2025. I’ll aim to post another question and answer next week. You can read about how our question box works here.