Discuss discipleship and its many meanings.

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Discipleship

Introduction

At the time of Jesus it was customary for Jewish leaders to have followers, these followers were also known as disciples. The word disciple means 'learner'. It comes from a Latin word 'disciplus'. Nowadays people will know a disciple as a 'follower of Jesus'.

Jesus' disciples were different from the others because it was Jesus who chose them himself. He chose twelve special disciples also known as 'apostles', which means 'messenger'. The reason for him only choosing twelve is to represent the twelve different tribes of Israel. This was the old Jewish church and replace and it was renewed with the new church of Christianity. This is not only for Jews but also includes Gentiles.

Jesus had only three years to complete his mission so he had to get working as soon as possible. The twelve he chose were (MK3: 16-19) Simon (Jesus gave him the name Peter); James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee (Jesus gave him the name Boanerges or 'sons of Thunder'), Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the patriot and Judas Iscariot (who betrayed Jesus).

All these men in whom he picked by Jesus were pretty ordinary. The majority were fishermen but among them there was a tax collector and even a zealot. This was rare because at this time the tax collectors worked for the Romans and were considered sinners and unclean because they cheated people and the zealots were rivalries of the Romans. But he picked these people, as he wanted them to work together and communicate with each other: 'love your neighbour as you love yourself' (MK12: 31).

Discipleship revolves around following Jesus both physically and spiritually. A disciple of Jesus would be expected to respond immediately to Jesus, love his neighbours, be willing to forgive sins, show generosity, accept persecution, and live their lives using gospel values in everything they do and say.

The first disciples of Jesus were excepted to give up everything to be real followers of Jesus and this is illustrated in Marks gospel when he called on his disciples.
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'As Jesus walked along the shore of lake Galilee, he saw two fishermen, Simon and his brother Andrew catching fish with a net. Jesus said to them 'come with me and I will teach you how to catch men'. At once they left their nets and went with him.

He went a little farther on and saw two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebeedee. They were in their boats getting their nets ready. As soon as Jesus saw them, he called them; they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired ...

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