What does it mean to be a disciple?

Question 11024.

Being a disciple is not a rank within Christianity; it is what a Christian is. The New Testament uses the word for the whole company of believers, and it carries a meaning our English ‘follower’ has largely lost.

So what does it actually mean, day by day, in a life with a job, a mortgage and a full diary? Jesus was unusually specific about this, and His answers are more demanding and more freeing than most of what passes for discipleship teaching.

An apprentice, not an admirer

The Greek mathetes means learner or apprentice. In the ancient world such a person did not simply attend a teacher’s lectures; he lived alongside him in order to become like him. The aim was reproduction rather than information.

That is why being a disciple cannot be reduced to agreement. You can admire Jesus, quote Jesus, and defend Jesus in an argument without following Him anywhere, and a great many people do exactly that.

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40). Likeness is the destination, which tells you what the training is for.

The three things He named

In Luke 14 Jesus states three times that a person cannot be His disciple without something. Whoever does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, in comparison with Him. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Him. And whoever does not renounce all that he has (Luke 14:26-33).

The first is about priority. The language of hatred is comparative, a Semitic way of expressing preference, and it means that no relationship, however precious, may sit above Him.

The second is about death to self-direction, since a man carrying a cross had lost the right to plan his own day. The third is about ownership: being a disciple means holding everything you have as His rather than yours, which is a different thing from giving it all away.

The marks Jesus gave

He also gave tests by which being a disciple can be recognised. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples (John 8:31). Continuing in what He said, rather than starting well, is the first mark.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35). The second mark is love within the community of believers, which is public and observable and not sentimental.

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples (John 15:8). Fruitfulness is the third, and it comes from abiding rather than from effort, which is why the vine and branches image sits where it does.

Counting the cost before starting

Jesus told two small stories at this point, about a builder who estimates the cost of a tower before laying a foundation and a king who assesses the opposing army before marching out (Luke 14:28-32). Both are about honest arithmetic done in advance.

This is the opposite of how we often present the Christian life. We advertise the benefits, secure the decision, and mention the costs later, if at all. Jesus did the reverse, and He watched crowds thin out because of it.

Being a disciple on those terms is more secure, not less. A person who signed up knowing what it would involve is far less likely to feel cheated when it arrives, and the New Testament assumes believers will meet trouble rather than be surprised by it.

What it is not

It is not earning salvation. The call to follow is issued to people God has already received, and everything a disciple does flows from acceptance rather than towards it. Any teaching that turns discipleship into a payment plan has lost the gospel.

It is not perfectionism either. Peter is the pattern here: called, taught, correcting Jesus at one point, denying Him at another, restored over breakfast on a beach. Being a disciple includes failing and being restored, repeatedly.

And it is not a personality type. The Twelve included a tax collector and a zealot, men who in ordinary life would have crossed the street to avoid each other. Following Jesus does not require you to become quiet, extroverted, or anything else in particular.

What being a disciple costs in practice

Time, chiefly, and the honest reckoning is that most of us have arranged our lives so there is none spare. Being a disciple requires unhurried hours with God and with people, and those hours have to come out of something you are currently doing.

Money, in the sense that your accounts stop being private. Comfort, since obedience will at some point require you to do something inconvenient for someone who cannot repay you. Reputation, because there are rooms in modern Britain where following Jesus openly costs you standing.

And relationships, sometimes. Jesus was honest that families divide over Him. That is not a licence for rudeness or for neglecting your obligations, but it is a warning against the assumption that faithfulness will always be welcomed at home.

What it gives

Rest, oddly enough. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:29). A yoke that is shared is lighter than the load you were carrying alone.

Purpose that outlasts circumstances. A disciple’s life has a direction that does not depend on how the job or the health is going, which is worth a great deal on the days when both are going badly.

Security as well, of a kind that does not depend on your performance. The disciple’s standing rests on what Jesus has done rather than on how well the apprenticeship is going in any given week, which is precisely why the demands can be faced honestly rather than avoided.

And friendship. No longer do I call you servants, He said, but I have called you friends (John 15:15). Being a disciple starts as apprenticeship and becomes something closer than that.

The ordinary shape of a disciple’s week

Strip away the language and being a disciple looks remarkably domestic. Time in Scripture and prayer. Gathering with a congregation and taking the Lord’s Supper with people you did not choose. Work done honestly. Money handled as a steward. Somebody helped who cannot repay you.

It looks like apologising quickly at home, which is harder than most public ministry. It looks like refusing a piece of gossip that would have been enjoyable. It looks like turning off something you should not be watching, and telling one other believer that you did not, on the weeks when you did not.

There is no glamour in that list, and I think that is deliberate. Jesus spent thirty years in a workshop and three in public ministry, which suggests a rather different weighting from the one our conferences imply. Being a disciple is mostly a matter of Tuesdays.

The consistency is what does the work. A believer who prays badly every day for twenty years will be transformed; one who prays magnificently three times a year will not. Character forms by repetition, which is why the habits matter more than the intensity.

How you know it is happening

Not by feelings, which are unreliable, and not by knowledge, which can grow without changing anything. The evidence is obedience in small things, love for believers you would not naturally choose, and a growing discomfort with sin you once excused.

Look for direction rather than distance. Are you further along than you were five years ago in patience, in generosity, in honesty? Nobody can measure a day, but most of us can see a decade.

And ask someone else. Being a disciple happens in company, and the people who live with you have a far better view of your progress than you do. I have written more on what discipleship involves and on helping others follow.

So, now what?

Take one command of Jesus that you know you are not keeping and obey it this week. Not the whole of the Sermon on the Mount, one thing. That is how being a disciple has always advanced.

Then look at your diary and your bank statement, since between them they will tell you what you are actually apprenticed to. Most of us discover something we would rather not have known.

He is still saying the same two words He said to fishermen by a lake: follow me. They left their nets in the boat and sorted out the details later, which is not recklessness so much as a decision that the details were never going to settle themselves first. What would it cost you to answer this year rather than next?

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

John 8:31-32, ESV