(This posting is an adaptation of the author’s thesis submitted to the faculty of the Nairobi International School of Theology towards the fulfillment of a degree in Master’s in Divinity)

Presentation and Biblical Critique of the Teaching on Discipleship

Presentation of the Teaching

The following are the passages cited and the points emphasized in the lesson on discipleship: (1) Mk. 1:16-18 A disciple follows Jesus and is a fisher of men. (2) Lk. 11:1 A disciple has a learner’s attitude and prays to God daily. (3) Lk. 9:23-26 A disciple denies himself, i.e. he puts aside his feelings, emotions, interests and desires and does what Jesus would do. A disciple is committed to Jesus to the point of death, never to be ashamed of Him. (4) Lk. 14:25-33 A disciple loves Jesus a whole lot more than even his family and self. A disciple denies himself, carries the cross and follows Jesus. A disciple must count the cost. A disciple gives up everything to follow Jesus.

Biblical Critique of the Teaching

The above citations and emphasis hardly constitute the teachings of many evangelicals. And so it is commendable that the N.C.C. does bring out the cost and meaning of discipleship on the fore-front of their teachings. However, one soon hurries to withdraw this commendation the moment he realizes the basic presupposition of the N.C.C. in regard to who a disciple is and what disciple making entails. At the very heart of the N.C.C. teaching on discipleship is this dangerous and false presupposition: A disciple is not a Christian! One can only become a Christian if he or she has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he is an able disciple. As such, the art of disciple making for the N.C.C. constitutes recruiting non-believers and literally compelling them to conform to the Christian norms of reading the word, praying consistently, attending church every Sunday, participating in the weekly Bible studies, confession of one’s sin to another, and living a life characterized by self-denial and abandonment. To put it more accurately, non-believers are compelled to live the supernatural Christian life apart from divine empowerment. These Christian ideals then become the basis for determining who among the non-believing disciples has attained the mark of a disciple. It is those who live out these expectations who then become eligible for water baptism upon which they become saved and thus born again Christians.

In this section we want to determine whether the biblical mode of disciple making assumes that the object of it is a non-believer like the N.C.C.’s model would suggest. For us to come to an accurate biblical understanding of disciple making, we will have to do a brief word study of the Greek word translated “to make disciples” and the context upon which it appears. This word which carries both the intransitive and transitive usages, occurs only in the New Testament where it is mentioned four times (Mt. 27:57; 13:52; 28:19 and Acts 14:21) (Rengstorf, TDNT, 4:461). Let us now analyze this mode of its usage in the context of these above mentioned scriptures.

(a) Usage in Mt. 13:52.  As defined by Calenberg, the use of the verb here by Christ is instructive in light of the role of the apostles in Acts (Calenberg, The New Testament Doctrine of Discipleship, p. 98). Having taught the parables of the new form of the kingdom of Heaven and having personally interpreted them for His disciples, He asked them if they had understood their meaning. Upon their affirmative response, He said, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple ( ) of the kingdom of Heaven is like a head of a household, who brings forth one of his treasure things new and old” (Mt. 13:52; N.A.S.V.). Haarbeck commenting on this verse says: unlike the scribes of the Old Testament, the scribe here is trained in the kingdom and thus is able to bring out old and new from his treasure. In this respect he stands in contrast with those scribes who were trained in “the tradition of the elders” who for the sake of human tradition make void the word on God. Like Jesus himself, the scribe trained in this kingdom of heaven is able to bring out the true treasure from the law and the prophets (Hearbeck, NIDNTT, 2:715). It seems like Christ was here referring to the twelve new “scribes” who had been trained by Him as His disciples whose future task it would be to teach this truth (Calenberg, The New Testament Doctrine of Discipleship, p. 198). Notice that the flavor of the verb as it is used in this verse is intransitive. Our interest in this section is not in the intransitive usage (to become a disciple) but in the transitive usage (to make a disciple).

(b) Usage in Mt. 27:57. Here a fact is stated, i.e., Joseph is ( a disciple of Jesus).

(c) Usage in Mt. 28:19. Suffice it to say that the study of the usage here, which is transitive coupled with the other remaining usage in Acts 14:21, will furnish us with a clear biblical understanding of what disciple making constitutes. The grammatical analysis of the Mt. 28:18-20 passage reveals the following: the main verb is (make disciples) and it is surrounded by three participles, viz., Allow us to elaborate more on the relationship between the main verb and the participle the conclusion of which will also hold true for the participle since both participles have identical parsing and both follow the main verb. The participle is present tense. The normal significance of the present tense is that the action is simultaneous to the action of the main verb. The less frequent usage of the participle is to denote an action subsequent or antecedent to the action of the main verb (Flynn, “Participles” p. 10-8). It is highly improbable that the author meant for the out-working of this participle to be antecedent to the main verb otherwise he would have used the aorist tense. Seemingly we should be able to argue that this action of the participle would scarcely be subsequent since the future tense is not used At this point, Blass’ quote is critical: On account of the infrequent use of the future participle, the present participle stands here (referring to Mt. 28:18-20) after the principle verb to indicate an action which in order to describe an action following, as by virtue of the purpose and preparation steps, already beginning to come to pass (Blass, Grammar of the New Testament, p. 198). Going by the above observation, there is then an allowance of the fact that the outworking of this participle could either be future (or subsequent) or contemporaneous. But perhaps a more pertinent study would be the connection between the pronoun object of these participles and the antecedent object of the principle verb. According to the practices of the N.C.C., it is actually “these non-believers” who are taught and then baptized. However, from Mt. 28:18-20 we notice that it is not the heathen nations who are to be baptized and taught to obey the commands of Christ as will be shown later; rather, it is the believers. If the heathen non-believers were to be the object of teaching and baptism, then the antecedent of the pronoun “them” in the phrase , which is the same as the one in the phrase , would have to be the noun “nations” in the phrase “make disciples of all nations”. However, the parsing for the pronoun is accusative, masculine, plural whereas that of the noun “nations” is accusative, neuter, plural. The incompatibility in gender renders the N.C.C.’s practice of subjecting non-believers under rigorous teaching and finally baptism as non-biblical. This is the very reason why we concur with Warns when he affirms that the employment of the masculine pronoun after the preceding neuter noun discloses that not all the peoples of heathen as such are to be taught and then made disciples, but that the heathen are first to be evangelized, made disciples, then baptized and taught (Warns, Johannes, Baptism, p. 41) Preceding any disciple making is the concept of evangelism. This is the idea implicit in the remaining participle. The participle comes from the deponent verb and is parsed: first aorist, masculine, nominative, plural, passive and thus should be translated “having gone”. It is until we study the remaining passage (Acts 14:21) that we realize the full implication of this term.

(d) Usage in Acts 14:21. This usage illustrates the practice of discipleship that characterized the ministry of the Apostles during the earlier period of the establishment of the church. Paul was in central Asia minor on his first missionary journey. Having been stoned and left for dead outside Lystra, he was miraculously raised by God and then with Barnabbas, travelled to Derbe the next day (Acts 14:19-20). Acts 14:21 records the activities which characterized their ministry in Derbe. “And after they preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples ( )…” It seems that prior to the whole practice of discipleship making is the preaching of the gospel. The purpose of this preaching is to elicit repentance and faith (cf. Lk. 24:47; Rom. 10:9, 10). In conclusion then, making disciples is a process that begins with believers taking the initiative in presenting the gospel to the unsaved in order to bring them to salvation. This is followed by water baptism and by a continued process of teaching the word of God (Luter, “Discipleship and the Church”, Bib Sac, 271). The teaching does not refer to that necessary preaching which is meant to elicit belief, but rather it refers to the continued exposition of the whole counsel of God to those who have believed. (Scaer, “The Relation of Matthew 28:16-20 to the rest of the Gospel”, p. 256).

Conclusion

The N.C.C. mode of disciple making falls short of the biblical one in the following ways: (a) It is void of the initial presentation of the gospel. (b) It subjects the non-believers to the impossible task of obeying Christ without the divine empowerment of the Holy Spirit that endows every believer.