Explain the meaning of discipleship.

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Discipleship

A01

A disciple is a follower of someone or something. In the gospel this means to follow Jesus’ example, to care and love for other people and never turn anyone away in any circumstance. Each generation has heroes or idols to follow and look up to. This was the same two thousand years ago. Jesus Christ was in demand for so many people.

Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee when he called the first four disciples. He saw Simon and his brother Andrew fishing, “Come follow me”, Jesus said “and I will make you fishers of men” Their response was immediate; they left their nets and followed him. He then came across James, son of Zebedee and his brother John, preparing their nets. He called them and without delay they left their father in the boat and followed Jesus. This shows that God’s call to them was stronger than anything on earth.

The 12 apostles Jesus chose were Peter, Andrew, James, John, Matthew, Bartholomew, Phillip, Thomas, Simon, Jude, James and Judas. His choices were unusual because they were simple, ordinary men with no particular rank or race. They were not holy, educated, rich or successful men and some of them had sinned, for example Matthew was a tax collector and Simon was a freedom fighter. What was important to Jesus was that he could see their potential, their ability to change and he could see into their hearts to their good qualities. Becoming a follower of God does not require a life without sin because these can be forgiven if they devote themselves to their faith.

When Jesus called the crowd and his disciples to him he told them “If anyone wants to come with me he must forget self, carry his cross, and follow me”.  By this he meant the cost of discipleship was to put other people before themselves, to accept the suffering and burdens of being a disciple, and to devote their lives to their faith. An example of the cost of discipleship is the story of the widow’s offering at the temple. There were two types of people at the temple, the poor widow and the rich men. The widow gave two very small copper coins and the rich people gave large amounts of money. Jesus praised the widow because she gave out her poverty and everything she had to live in and the rich men gave out their wealth. Christians can learn from this story that the nature of discipleship is about total commitment.

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Very few people in modern day life are prepared for discipleship because they have commitments to family and to their jobs. The story of the rich man is a good example of how people care too much for their possessions. The rich man said to Jesus “Good teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?” The man had obeyed all the commandments since he was young but when Jesus told him he had to give all the money he owned to the poor for him to have all the riches in heaven, he was not prepared to do ...

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