Discount Discipleship

“You lack one thing,” said the Lord Jesus to his wannabe disciple. “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Oops. Remember now, Mark says Jesus loved this fellow. Whatever we might think about the effectiveness of the Lord’s method of qualifying potential followers, we would not accuse him of making it too easy on them. Sorrowful and disheartened, the man went away without accepting the offer. He had “great possessions”, and he returned to them.

Would you have taken the Lord up on that deal if it cost you your lifestyle and status for the rest of your days? I’m not sure what I would have done. I’m glad salvation wasn’t offered me with a price tag on it.

Disciples and Believers

We often use “disciple of Christ” as a euphemism for “believer”, but a moment’s consideration reminds us they are not really synonyms. When Jesus instructed his apostles to make disciples of all nations, context makes it obvious he would not have been satisfied with them dragging souls across the threshold from death into life even in large numbers, but rather baptizing them and “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”. Discipleship involves a whole set of life changes to which the confession of Christ’s lordship and faith in the resurrection are only the doorway. Those changes and challenges continue until we go home to be with the Lord. Salvation, at least in one sense, is a moment in time. Discipleship is a career from which you never retire.

Salvation comes about by hearing and believing. It’s a very simple process. The evidence of salvation’s reality, of course, is in what happens afterward: Does the one who claims to have saving faith display its proofs in discipleship? But believing and declaring Christ as Lord does not require the checking of a whole list of boxes of things we are willing to do. We do not get saved by signing a pledge to deny ourselves daily. Not every would-be disciple is asked to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor. Not every disciple must leave father, mother, brothers, sisters, children or fields for the name of Christ. Not every disciple need take up a literal cross or forsake all he has. We do not generally present such conditions when we preach the gospel, though the potential exists such sacrifices may one day be required by everyone who takes the Lord’s name.

Genuine belief manifests itself in a willingness to do any of these things as we become aware of them and as they become necessary, but the road is not the same for all. Until the need arises, we do not generally think much about all that might lie ahead. But when the alternative is denying our professed allegiance to Christ, in word or in deed, of course all else must go. If it does not, we are not really disciples but dilettantes, and whether we are truly saved, only God himself knows. We will certainly have no confidence in it.

Life at the End of the Church Age

The point is that the preconditions to discipleship presented in the gospels do not bar salvation’s door. Yet they do not vanish simply because we are now in the Church Age and the good news is being preached beyond the streets of Jerusalem to men and women who have no connection to the Old Testament and often no idea at all about what they are getting into.

When the Lord spoke about discipleship, he was speaking to men and women who fully understood the concept of devoting yourself to the service of a teacher and doing whatever he told you. The various schools of Judaism had their disciples. John the Baptist had his. The crazy Jewish sectarian pretenders of the day and the Greek and Roman philosophers all had theirs. So the Lord explained to those who wanted to become his disciples the unique set of conditions that came with following Messiah, but he did not have to answer the question “What is a disciple?” to get to that point. No seminars were required. Discipleship presumed a teacher had truth to offer that was available nowhere else, and first century Jews were queueing up behind anyone who looked like he might be plausible.

For some today this is still the case. We have all met unbelievers who are eagerly seeking truth. Some have tried all the “broken cisterns” of false religions, cults, philosophies and ideologies. Some have adopted one or another. Others are still looking. But a significant number of secularized, somnolent, post-modernized Westerners are not looking for anything at all. To folks like these, discipleship and servanthood are meaningless syllables in a foreign language. When you present Christ to people in this state, their first question is not “What must I do?” but “What’s in it for me?” If such a person thinks about life changes at all, it is along the lines of “How might thinking this way improve my happiness?”, not “What might this cost me if I commit to it?”

Truth for Sale

The Great Commission requires we make disciples, not mere professors of faith. The danger for those of us seeking to share the gospel in our day is the temptation to discount discipleship in an environment that does not teach the concept, to present a Christ who does not command or demand, but instead offers gentle suggestions about personal improvement in my time and on my terms. So-called liberal Christians are already presenting a feel-good Savior whose job is to serve his followers and leave their morals, practices and daily lives almost completely untouched. Their churches are emptying because even unbelievers recognize this sort of a faith is not up to much.

When we discount discipleship, we are no longer operating under the authority of Christ and will shortly find our attempts to share the good news also lack his authority. The Holy Spirit cannot bless a watered-down, insipid attempt to recast eternal truth to suit its pampered, consumerist audience. He requires we deliver the pure, provocative milk of the Word, even if that raises questions and objections and demands explanations no Christian in the first century ever had to make. Even if it insults our audience in a culture where that’s the worst thing you can do. Done right, it probably will.

Sharing the gospel effectively today requires we do what the Lord Jesus did with that young man who wanted to inherit eternal life: identify the individual barriers to discipleship in each heart and confront them boldly, whether it means our audience walks away or remains to hear more.

It’s a real challenge. It requires love, a listening ear, great discernment and lots of courage. Christians who will not rise to it will not bear much fruit, and anything they do produce will be weak, sickly and in great danger of falling away at the first test.

Because discount discipleship is no discipleship at all.