Discipleship Today

For over 2,000 years, ever since Jesus chose the twelve to go with him, there have been people willing to go through the same suffering and persecution as they did. Today there is a lot of discussion about whether discipleship is possible in the modern world.

I intend to fully explain both sides of the argument (possible/not possible) and try to give each side a fair hearing. To conclude this essay I will give a full account of my own opinion on this matter.

The people who agree with the point of view that it is not possible claim that it is a materialistic world -  people are concerned with individuality and not about other people. A further point they argue is that people don’t concern themselves with religion and religious aspects of life, they are generally secular and claim it is far easier to look out for yourself than for others. People aren’t as friendly as they used to be in Jesus’ time because if you do something for a person they believe that you are only doing it to get something in return e.g. money or a favour!                                                            Furthermore, these people who believe that discipleship is not possible are of the opinion that there is too much emphasis on money e.g. you’re not popular if you’re not rich and you need money to be normal. Also they claim that people’s main aim in life is to become rich and get money to buy luxuries -  people don’t have time to be disciples! They also claim that people are bullied into thinking that going to mass is stupid and that being religious is un-cool. This is the general picture that people have of discipleship and the priesthood - that only losers go in for it, as it seems unappealing in the modern world today.

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They believe that disciples of today couldn’t possibly live such difficult and demanding lives as those of Jesus’ time. Today you couldn’t live without modern conveniences such as hot and cold running water, money and television and therefore they claim that the rules Jesus laid out for the twelve are not practical in the modern world. Furthermore they claim that it is hard for people to believe in something which they cannot see in this world, where everything remotely weird is questioned scientifically until proven otherwise. They believe that we cannot possibly do what Mother Teresa did which was to ...

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