Disciple

The term disciple is the English word that translates the Greek term mathetes in the Bible. Mathetes means student, pupil, learner.

In the Western culture in which I grew up we tend to think of learning in terms of aquiring information about something. It’s mostly an intellectual head game. In palestine of the first century, where Jesus lived, the Jewish people had a very different understanding of the term. Whenever a person became a disciple of a great teacher that disciple would live with the teacher. The disciple would learn the behaviors, values, and skills of the teacher along with the concepts the teacher taught.

The closest word that we have in the English language to that understand of a disciple is the term apprentice. When someone wants to become skilled at a trade like electrician, plumber, or carpenter, that person enters into a rigorous apprenticeship program. The apprentice learns the whole-bodied skill of the trade.

This is how I like to think of the term disciple. Jesus invited his first disciples to follow him. They spent three years living with him, walking with him, watching him, listening to him, and participating in his ministry.

To be a disciple of Jesus today means to be an apprentice of Jesus, learning to walk in the ways of Jesus.

 

-ship

Whenever we add the suffix -ship to a word it makes a new kind of noun that means to be in the state of being in that thing.

So, discipleship is to be in the state of being a disciple of a teacher. Christian Discipleship is to be in the state of being a disciple of Jesus.

In this video I drew the image below to play with the metaphor and visualize the fact that disciples of Jesus are, together, in a physical state of being and doing the way of Jesus.

I will unpack this metaphor in upcoming weeks.

 

What do you see in this image?

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