By Dr. Matt Friedeman, John M. Case Chair of Evangelical Studies; Professor of Evangelism and Discipleship, and FAS Board Member
Years ago in The Wall Street Journal Martin Marty wrote an article on evangelicalism. These were the headlines:
An Evangelical Revival is Sweeping the Country, But with Little Effect
Shunning the Sinful World
Effect Has Been Small
Shying from Involvement
Ouch! I tell my seminary students that “If you make disciples by sitting around and talking, don’t be surprised if your disciples sit around and talk.” The truth of the matter is that active service outside the four walls of our local churches is part and parcel of the discipleship strategy of Jesus and the greatest missing element of modern discipleship.
We prefer to make disciples in small groups, hunkered over our Bibles and our lattes, asking each other provocative questions about the biblical text. A really good study leader might encourage us to go and apply the truths in our lives this week. But one thing we don’t do—we don’t serve together regularly.
Do you suppose Jesus, after demonstrating for us His discipleship model, might wonder, Why not?
The gospel of Matthew, the most “rabbinic” of the accounts of Jesus, tells us that Jesus began to call his disciples to Himself (4:18–22). A few sentences later, chapters five through seven unfold the great Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus adds fresh perspective to everything the disciples probably already thought they knew.
But something needs to be noted as Matthew moves us from the calling to the Sermon. The Sermon is not what comes directly after the disciples’ call. This is what follows:
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people…. [P]eople brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. (Matthew 4:23–25)
After the Sermon on the Mount, this sort of thing happens throughout the Gospels. Jesus calls His disciples together and He teaches them, to be sure. But He does it in the context of touching the untouchables of their culture and asking His disciples to do the same. He teaches them in “Bible study” moments, but He is downloading Kingdom content amidst service to the desperate in His community.
This is so basic a truth, it is astonishing that Sunday school classes, small group Bible studies, families, and whole churches miss it. If Jesus made disciples with service, for service, then how can we possibly emulate His method with biblical content minus activity together?
The problem is particularly acute, I suspect, with our families. God has called us to make disciples—primarily, I feel, with our own children. Two different experts in youth ministry years ago were interviewed on my radio show and cited research indicating that if you want to keep your kids interested in church long after they have left your home, it is essential to serve with them, and not just now and then. “Go do something regularly heroic,” said one researcher, “and bring your kids along.”
Teaching your children a biblical worldview is important, as so many Christian ministries remind us today. But inculcate that world-view without some kind of concomitant world-do and you might have inadvertently conveyed how irrelevant the Bible and church can be to the prevailing culture. One can almost sense the disdain that pours forth from the pen of Luke as he writes of those ready to dismiss the message of Paul: “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas” (Acts 17:21).
A sure recipe for discipleship disaster is if it ends with a mouth and ears instead of hands and feet. The Hebrews, one might surmise from their language, were way ahead of our modern methods. Their word for “know” (yada) meant something far beyond intellectual bolstering. It meant “to experience, to encounter.”
The educator who has been around the “business” a while will be able to verify that these stats are roughly true—We remember, it is said:
10 percent of what we hear;
50 percent of what we say;
70 percent of what we see;
90 percent of what we do.
All this was not lost on John Wesley. He promoted, as Methodists know, the “means of grace”—those habits that opened up believers to the grace God wanted to pour into our lives. But he had two categories for these “means.” First, works of piety: prayer, Scripture study, fasting, the Lord’s supper, getting together with other believers. But then, works of mercy: a long list of activities that included feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison or the sick, awakening the sinner, etc. Both of these categories of “means” were essential.
But one category was more important than the other. Said Wesley,
Thus should [the disciple] show his zeal for works of piety; but much more for works of mercy…Whenever, therefore one interferes with the other, works of mercy are to be preferred. Even reading, hearing, prayer, are to be omitted, or to be posted, “at charity’s almighty call,” when we are called to relieve the distress of our neighbor, whether in body or soul.
From Wesley’s sermon “On Zeal”
Want your class, your family, your church to be truly formed into Christlikeness? Stand up and go do something about the life of Jesus we keep talking about—and invite a few of them along.
That is what Jesus did.
That is what John Wesley and the best of the Methodists did.
We would do well to take some hints.
What is discipleship? It is hearing and then doing the Word, together.
Dr. Friedeman has a new book, The 5Q Method of Discipleship, directly related to this topic, which you can read more about here.