What Discipleship meant to the first disciples and for Christians today.

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Discipleship

Introduction

This piece of coursework is about Discipleship. I am going to write about what Discipleship meant to the first disciples and for Christians today. Disciple basically means follower but not only in religious terms but it is possible to be a disciple of many things outside religion such as being a follower of Manchester United like I am.

Going back in to Jesus’ time there were only twelve disciples that Jesus chose. He chose these twelve because he wanted someone that he could trust and have faith in to spread and speak out the message to the people. He also chose twelve to reflect the twelve tribes of Israel and to show that there is a new covenant coming updating the older one.

Looking at the background of the twelve, eleven of them were from Galilee and one was from Judea. Lets look at the eleven that were chosen from Galilee. The first two that were chosen were Simon and his brother Andrew. They were both fisherman. Simon was married and his name was later turned in to Peter, which meant ‘rock’. They both left immediately when Jesus called them to follow him. The next two to be chosen were James and his brother John. They both were fisherman to working for their father Zebedee. They were later known as ‘Sons of Thunder’. They immediately left everything while fishing with their father to follow Jesus. The other seven were Matthew who was later known as Levi, he was a tax collector working for the Romans. The disciples would have hated him, as he was a tax collector. There was Bartholomew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaes and Simon of Zealot a violent man who hated the Romans. The only odd one was Judas who was from Judea. It is very important that Judas was different was different because he later was going to betray Jesus which was very damaging because later on Judas killed himself. Out of these twelve they were five main disciples who were Peter, James, John, Levi and Judas. You would be thinking why they were all men. Well they were all men because if Jesus chose women or gentiles no one would have listened to them at the time so the whole idea of spreading the message to the people would have gone to waste.

You ask a question that why did men leave everything they had and followed Jesus straight away. Well some would say that those men were just dumb people doing that to follow Jesus. But you can’t say that because it might something special about Jesus that they found. As soon as they saw Jesus they might have thought this man is something more than a human, something special and has some sort of special powers. They must have had total trust and faith in Jesus if they had did that. In Mark 1: 14-20 Jesus said to them “ Come follow me”, when he said this; the men must have thought that this was a vocation from God and God was actually speaking to them and he also told them that he would help them catch people. What this means is that:

You get in your boat and find fish but for the disciples this would be finding people. Then you have to drop the net, which is giving the Word of God to the people. Then you wait and you pull the net back into boat which is the people entering the Kingdom of God.

This is a preview of the whole essay

You could say that discipleship is easy but it isn’t. For example in Mark 10: 17-31 the Rich Young man. The man had obeyed the Ten Commandments all his life but as soon as Jesus told him to leave everything and give all your money to the poor he couldn’t do it. So becoming a disciple is very difficult. What we learn from this is that you have to leave all worldly pleasures to become a disciple. When he chose these disciples he didn’t pick all good men he also picked less then perfect people. One was Levi; he was a tax collector working for the Romans. All the disciples would have hated especially Simon the Zealot who was against the Romans in many ways.

Now that all twelve disciples were together he started to teach them who he was and what he expects of them. As Jesus was difficult to understand at first the disciples got taught in parables as they were easier to understand and they were like riddles that you have to work out. Jesus used parables to let the disciples know what they have got to do which is spread the Word of God to the people. For example lets take the parable of the growing seed (Mark 4: 26-29). A man scatters some seeds in his field. He sleeps at night, and is up and about during the day and all while the seeds are sprouting and growing. The man doesn’t have a clue how it happens. The soil itself makes the plants grow and bear fruit; first the tender stalk appears, then the ear and finally the ear full of corn. When the corn is ripe the man starts cutting it with his sickle because harvest time has come. What this parable is saying the growing seed is the Word of God and it is spreading and the people are listening to it. When the seed is fully-grown into corn this means that the people have entered the Kingdom of God as they have listened to the word. Not only did Jesus use parables he also used miracles to show the power of God. Jesus used a miracle in the feeding of the 5000 men (Mark 6: 30-44). He used the power of God to feed the 5000 with enough bread and fish. This miracle shows us that the disciples should keep faith in Jesus and God.

After Jesus taught the disciples what they have to do he sent them on their first mission (Mark 6: 7-13). He gave them authority over evil and gave them instructions saying don’t take anything with you on your journey except a stick- no bread, no beggar’s bag, no money in your pocket. Wear sandals, but don’t carry an extra t-shirt. He also said “ Wherever you are welcomed stay in the same house until you leave that place. If you come to a town where people don’t welcome you or don’t listen to you leave it immediately and shake the dust off your feet. That will be a warning to them, what this meant was the ground the disciples walked on was not pure it was evil and so if they shake the dust off their feet the people will think something will happen to them. That was their first mission but their final mission was to go throughout the whole world and preach the gospel to the whole human race. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved and whoever does not believe will be condemned. What this teaches about discipleship is that it is very difficult. To go out to the whole world will take time but the message would spread quickly.

Jesus told the disciples that it will be very hard to follow him, they must forget about themselves have trust in God and be humble. Jesus was right because the disciples did find it very difficult to follow Jesus. One example when the disciples found it difficult was when the disciples went to Bethsaida (Jesus walks on the water, Mark 6: 45-52) early on a boat without Jesus who was going to catch them up.

What happened was Jesus walked on to the water to get to the boat but what happened was that the disciples thought it was a ghost but when they heard Jesus say to have courage they were amazed that it was Jesus. They had not understood the meaning of the feeding of the 5000 and so they didn’t know it was Jesus because they had a lack of faith and trust which if they had in them they would have easily known that the person walking on the water was Jesus.

Another example was when Jesus had risen from the dead and Mary Magdalene found out that he had risen and she went to tell the disciples but they would not believe her. But when Jesus appeared to the disciples himself the disciples were shocked and amazed. If they had full faith and trust in Jesus then they would have known that He was going to rise from the dead.

As soon as Jesus ascended into heaven the early disciples faced problems. The Christians were facing violent persecution because they believed in Jesus. They were being tortured and killed also. To be a true disciple at that time would often mean sacrificing your life and the lives of those you loved.

Some people want to follow Jesus but are not apostles. The rich young man (10:17-31), the man with evil spirits (Mark 5:1-20) and Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52) are examples. If Jesus had let them become apostles then that would be adding onto the 12 that were already there. Jesus wanted to reflect the twelve tribes of Israel so if he had more people it wouldn’t be reflecting the tribes. Whatever happened to these people in their past would have affected them like the man with the evil spirits and blind Baritmaeus must have done something in their past life which was and they are getting their punishment. The rewards for discipleship are getting in to the Kingdom of God. What I think the Kingdom of God is it is a place where you go after you die and you will never come back on to earth and it is a good reward because the place is like paradise where you will only see God and Jesus and no one else. In Peter’s declaration (Mark 8: 27-30) it is an example of good discipleship because Peter has fully understood who Jesus was much quicker than the other disciples.

The call for the disciples today is the same. Followers are asked to continue the work of the apostles. There is only one vocation, which is to follow Jesus, and people do it many different ways. Martin Luther King is an example of a modern day disciple. A quote from Martin Luther King “I just want to do God’s work”. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929. He studied to be Baptist minister. He started his ministry in 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1955, the young minister began to work actively for the equal rights insisting on a policy of non-violence. When the black woman Rosa Parks refused to give her seat up to a white man she was arrested. The black community refused to use buses until segregation was removed. These activities turned into the Civil Rights movement, which Luther King was the leader of in 1960. Terrible things happened to Luther King, he was stabbed, stoned imprisoned and his house was bombed. He never wavered at all, and in 1964 he received the Nobel Peace prize. Luther King was only 39 when he died. He gave his life for serving others and doing God’s work. He was a true disciple. Monks, nuns and priests are true disciples because they have basically left everything to follow Jesus and do God’s work and to make a world a better place form evil. They are true disciples to.

You ask a question ‘It is not possible to be a true disciple of Jesus in the modern world, do you agree or disagree?’ It is possible to be a disciple of Jesus today and it is not possible to be a disciple. It is possible to be a disciple because we can leave everything and follow Him in a life dedicated to Jesus as a priest, nun or monk. We can serve Jesus as a layperson by working to help others. We can try to imitate the life of Jesus; we don’t have to be perfect. Even the first disciples failed and still Jesus accepted them. We can spread the message of Jesus by the way we lead our lives. We can be an example for others to follow. We can be prepared to suffer for our beliefs – we may be laughed at or victimised for what we believe, if we have faith and trust in Jesus and God then we can overcome any obstacle. We can try to do the will of God and we can be humble and tolerant to others. We are not going to be tortured or killed for following Jesus today. We can be aware of the dangers of wealth or anything that is more to us than God. We can out ourselves last and not seek power or important positions for ourselves. It is not possible to be a true disciple because most people are selfish and not willing to give up everything. We have more to give up than the first disciples because we live in a materialistic world. Jesus told the Rich man to give his money away but we need money to live. Most of us are not willing to suffer for what we believe in. It is hard to know what the will of Jesus is for us. We cannot just leave everything to follow Jesus we have responsibilities. People do not put themselves last; even in Church there are positions of greatness. Even Jesus’ disciples deserted Him, how can we do better? We are not able to heal and cast out evil as the first followers of Jesus did. Well it is actually up to you if you do want to be a disciple or not. I think it is difficult to be a disciple of Jesus in the modern world because we have all these worldly pleasures around you and they are so important to you I don’t think you can give them up that easily. One example would be money. People need money to buy everything they need but what they don’t think is that once they die they wont be able to take anything with them. If you want to become a disciple then you will need to give up worldly pleasures like money otherwise there will be no Kingdom of God for you.