In my experience, discipleship does not begin when you offer to teach. Discipleship begins wen you rescue someone from a situation that they could not save themselves from but needed saving. The person rescued feels relief, excitement, happiness over you. They also have a little bit of awe, you have power, ability, grace that they don’t. So they want to know what you know, get strong like you are, stay rescued like you stay. When you offer to teach someone they might take you up and gain knowledge from you. When you offer to save someone you are offering your power to change their situation.
For repetition’s sake, let us look at the baptism of John. John, the cousin of Jesus came baptizing. In 27 AD, John came offering a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3). For a people who were struggling with sin and used to God cursing and killing them for their failures. John came offering a sort of salvation and Jewish people of the first century came, accepting his offer. They respected him as a prophet. Men and women of Judea believed that God was offering a simple way of getting right with him. They asked “What then shall we do?” (3:10). He answered them (3:14). The salvation the offered was so real people wanted to know if he was the Christ (3:15). John offered to act and then completed actions that caused people to know that their sins were forgiven by God. He taught them to stay right with God (3:11-19). John had disciples two of them are mentioned in John 1:35, another in Acts 18:25 and twelve more in Acts 19:3. These were men and women who had been baptized by John, became right with God, and believed what John taught to stay right with God.
In my experience, I have been discipled by the men and women who acted first. These men and women offered me a salvation and then followed through with their offer when took up them at their word. These men and women offered me salvation, to bring me closer to God, to align my actions with God and they followed through. My life was changed in a way that did not correspond with my faith or actions. Through their ministry I was surprised, overwhelmed, and blown away by the presence and work of God in my life. I, then, was happy to follow their teachings to stay close to the Jesus that I have come to know and love. Dennis Dorran, Carlos Price, Reverend Anthony Williams, Reverend Fay Acker, Elder Grace Owwuwanne, are some of the few.
You, Christian, want to start discipling? Great. Go. Do. Remember what you are offering, you are offering to bring someone closer to God by your actions. Can you do that? Will your bible study, conversation, worship leading, bible study leadinger, praying, change situation of the person, in bringing them closer to God, that you are offering it to? Can you confidently assert that you have the power to do so? I do not mean elixir’s and steps that work only if the person uses their own power to make the steps or elixir work. I mean will your action change the person’s situation whether they truly believe or not? If you can change someone’s situation, you have someone with the motivation to follow what you teach. If you cannot, do not be surprised if a person does not follow you. That’s the just the way it works.
