Being Disciples

Seeking to be an authentic community of disciples, becoming more like Jesus - walking in step with God, alongside each other and seeing lives transformed

This week we're going to look at what it means to be a disciple as we continue our weekly series of Friday posts exploring and unpacking our Vision here at CBC. If you miss any of these Friday posts you can easily access individual posts by clicking on relevant word above - or you can use the 'Vision' label at the bottom of this page to view the whole series.

Jesus' final words to his disciples in Matthew's gospel were,

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20).

There is an expectation here that part of what it means to be a disciple is that you go and make new disciples.

Bands of disciples in the first century would not have been an uncommon sight. Certainly Jesus was not alone in having disciples - we read that John the Baptist had his disciples and the Pharisees had theirs.

A disciple was a pupil, a learner and a follower. Within a first century context a disciple would have followed their teacher - listening to them teach, listening to the way they answer questions, watching them in action, with the intention of becoming like their teacher. A disciple would learn how to imitate their teacher. 

As we read the gospels we see that being a disciple of Jesus involved personal and exclusive allegiance to Jesus. It meant putting the claims of Jesus first - whatever the cost.

So what do we mean in our vision statement by the term 'disciple'? We mean that we have committed to follow Jesus, to learn from him, to spend time with him, to imitate him. Our allegiance is to Jesus - we put his claims first - he has first claim on our lives. We will be those who look to introduce others to Jesus just like the first disciples did. And we will be those who make disciples, who will then make disciples ...

Jesus' instruction to disciples is to make disciples, which involves teaching and obeying. Our vision talks about seeing lives transformed - and we'll look at this in a few week's time - but part of this transformation happens as people become disciples - responding to the call of Jesus - and then learn what that means by walking close to Jesus - which, in practice, we do by walking close to others - part of what it means to be an authentic community.

The first century gospel setting was generally hot and dry and dusty. As you walked along you threw up dust in your wake which will have covered those following behind. Whether it’s an urban myth or has any basis in fact there is the reported saying amongst disciples about ‘being covered in the dust of your rabbi’s feet’ - the closer you follow your rabbi the dustier you are going to get.

Our vision is to be covered in the dust of Jesus' feet. But what does this mean in practice? I guess that if we push this analogy a bit further, and bring in some of the thoughts from being an authentic community, then we will be those who are both being covered in the dust of one or two others who are walking slightly ahead of us - and from whom we're learning what it means to follow Jesus, and dust from our feet will be covering one or two  others who are walking just behind us who are learning what it means to follow Jesus from us.

We'll be thinking more in a couple of weeks' time about this image of walking close to Jesus as we think about what it means to walk in step with God.

[Picture credit: www.LumoProject.com]

Sunday morning poetry

During a sermon at CBC there will be some people who tweet, there will be some who take notes, there will be many who will listen (some with their eyes closed), and then there will be one or two who write poetry. 

Here's the poem that Sophie Smith wrote on Sunday as we continued our series on the Kingdom of God, looking at the Upside Down Kingdom from the Beatitudes.

Thank you Sophie for letting me share it here.


You hear my mourning
You hear my prayer
And so you keep it
From becoming despair

You hold the key
To the kingdom door
Your grace and mercy
Allow me in once more

The love of God 
Is not about me
It's all about
What you choose me to be

I don't need
To feel happiness
All I need
Is your forgiveness 

I lay down all
My fears of love
And know that you
Will love me from above

As long as I 
Have you in my heart
I know the kingdom
Will be my start 

I won't fear 
That I may be missed 
Because with your grace
Everyone will be blessed. 

Sophie Smith

It's not what you know but who you know...

If you're following the Read Scripture Bible reading programme I hope you're still enjoying it. We're now into Exodus, and the story of Moses and the escape from Egypt. And maybe with the exception of the 'bridegroom of blood' incident in chapter 4, the storyline is fairly easy to follow.

Sometimes when I'm reading the Bible I find a particular word used over and over again. I noticed this yesterday (Exodus 7-9) - you may have noticed it too. The word was 'know'. When I looked back at the previous day's reading it occurred there several times too - and again today.

At the beginning of this part of the story, as Moses and Aaron come to request the release of God's people we find Pharaoh declaring "I do not know the Lord and I will not let the people go" (5:2).

But God promises that he will deliver the people and as a result God says, "I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God". (6:7).

Because Pharaoh refuses to let the people go, God is going to bring the plagues on Egypt, to demonstrate his power, and as a result the people of Egypt too will "know that I am the Lord" (7:5).

In these readings Moses tells Pharaoh that there is no one like their God, that he is God of the land, in fact the earth belongs to him (7:17; 8:10, 22; 9:14, 29).

For Christmas I got some iTunes vouchers and used them to buy an 'NIV Word Study Bible with GK & Strong's Numbers' to go with the Olive Tree Bible software that I use. One of the great things about this book is that you can engage with the original languages that the Bible was written in without having spent years and years learning Greek or Hebrew. You can select an English word - easily find out what that is in Hebrew - and then do a search on that Hebrew word. The value of this is that sometimes our English translations use a range of different English words to translate the same Hebrew word.

In this case, this kind of search shows that in 2:25 "So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them" the word translated 'concerned' is the same word that has been translated 'know' in the above examples. 

[At this point it is always helpful to check some alternative translations before you try and build a whole Bible study on some limited Hebrew or Greek. One of the things we were warned at college was that the only thing more dangerous than no New Testament Greek was a little New Testament Greek! This is where online tools such as Bible Gateway come in very useful.]

The ESV translates this verse - 'God saw the people of Israel - and God knew'. The ASV (American Standard Version) says - 'And God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them'. The NKJV says - '...and God acknowledged them'.

The people are known by God and God wants them to know him. We too are known by God and can know God ourselves.

Here are a few verses to take those thoughts a bit further:

• Psalm 46:10
• 1 Corinthians 2:2
• 1 Corinthians 13:12
• Philippians 3:10

The Upside Down Kingdom

When a child prays, "Dear God, please bless Mummy, please bless Daddy, please bless Auntie Joan and Uncle Bob, and please bless Buster the dog" the thought behind the prayer is usually a request that 'good' things will happen to these people (and the dog) - the sorts of things that will make them happy.

Yesterday at CBC, as a part of our series looking at the Kingdom of God, we looked at the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) - helping us to explore a bit more what life in the kingdom looks like and recognising that the kingdom Jesus is inviting us to be a part of is very much an upside down kingdom. 

That is to say, those values and people which are usually looked down on and despised suddenly find themselves at the top of the pile rather than at the bottom.

We'll have a look at the individual Beatitudes later in the week but today I want just to think about what it means to be 'blessed'.

The word used in the New Testament here is 'makarios'. In the NIV this is mostly translated 'blessed' but is also translated in a few verses as good (e.g. Matt. 24:46), fortunate (Acts 26:2) and happier (1 Cor. 7:40).

Some translations, such as the Good News, translate 'makarios' here in Matthew 5 as 'happy' - e.g. "Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them!"

In his Life Builders Bible Study notes on the Sermon on the Mount, John Stott writes, 

...it is seriously misleading to render makarios "happy". For happiness is a subjective state, whereas Jesus is making an objective judgement about these people. He is declaring not what they may feel like ("happy"), but what God thinks of them and what on that account they are ("blessed"). [page 56].

A while ago at CBC we started singing a few songs by Rend Collective, and for Christmas I got their latest CD - As Family We Go. One of the tracks on this album is 'Joy of the Lord' and the story behind this song demonstrates the Upside Down nature of the kingdom - how that even at times of great personal difficulty and pain we can still choose joy.

Listen to Ali and Gareth from Rend Collective talk about a difficult time in their marriage due to a miscarriage and how the song "Joy Of The Lord" came about.