Disciples vs Christians

"The word 'disciple' occurs 269 in the New Testament. 'Christian' is found only three times." (Dallas Willard). In reading a six-page extract from his "The Spirit of Disciplines" I'd only reached the end of the opening paragraph before a whole new concept had blossomed in my mind (helped on its way by the remainder of the extract.) It's actually an old concept but this morning it hit me as one of those 'epiphany' moments.

For a long time I've used the word 'Christian' as the appropriate shorthand for... well, for a Christian. As I teenager I recall telling my Sunday School teacher how the previous night I had invited Christ into my heart as my Lord and Saviour. He immediately wanted me to repeat what I'd just told him to someone else and I remember the relief with which a shorter and less pious-sounding phrase suddenly popped into my head - "I've become a Christian."

45 years later I'm wondering whether this was a bad choice of noun. What do I mean by 'Christian' anyway? I know some people use the word to mean 'a good person with standards corresponding to what are generally perceived as Christian morals'. Others use the word to mean 'a person who has given their life to Christ, who is born again, and who is guaranteed a place in heaven when they die'. I would certainly tend more towards the latter definition, though perhaps not so rigidly as some would.

John Wesley famously had a deep spiritual experience at Aldersgate Street on May 24th 1738 when he felt his heart 'strangely warmed'. This is often described as his conversion, but having learned more about his life I'm not at all convinced that this was the moment he became a Christian. It seems more like one stage in his Christian development. And then there's Peter. When did he become a Christian? When he first responded to Jesus saying 'follow me'? When he recognised Jesus as the Christ? When he confessed his love three times after the resurrection? When the Holy Spirit filled him at Pentecost?

Such questions become irrelevant when we realise that what Jesus told us was to go and make disciples. Not to go and make Christians. A disciple is a much clearer concept. It is someone who wilfully seeks to learn from and emulate their master. In Western culture I don't think we have much in modern life that corresponds to this. My concept of discipleship is influenced more by Eastern culture - at least as it is portrayed in films like King Fu Panda.

Being a disciple of Jesus is much more than having made a particular decision and said a particular prayer as a teenager. It is about committing my life to following Jesus (not literally walking down the street after him, but following him as I might follow mathematics or the board game hobby - spending time and effort reading, learning, taking an active interest in the development of, keeping up with the latest news on... etc.) and it is about putting into practice what I learn from him, always keeping him before me as my role model for life.

This is a challenge to me personally. Can I really call myself a disciple? And it is a challenge to the church. How many of my regular congregations live as disciples of Jesus? And what should I be doing as their minister to make disciples? (...both of those inside the church and those outside.)

And if I still want to use the word 'Christian' from time to time, maybe I should use it in the sense in which it originated. According to Acts 11:26 the word was first used in Antioch. And what kind of people were referred to as Christians? The disciples.

ABR#16 Galatians

In 2009 I began to read the Bible alphabetically (see here for my rationale), reading each book at least three times and trying to get into the mind of the original author and readers as well as listen to God’s message for today. Here’s what I’ve discovered from reading Galatians.

I am reminded of the kind of dispute which can plague any organisation where two sides are vehemently disagreeing. Both sides are well-meaning, both sides are accusing the other of base motives, both sides employ spurious and irrelevant arguments to make the others look bad, both sides argue that they are only thinking about the welfare of the organisation and its members when in fact they are worried about their own standing and reputation. My sense of fair play means that only hearing one side of a debate (in this case a letter) doesn’t allow for an even-handed appreciation of the issue.

HOWEVER. Despite this letter sounding like the above situation, and without wanting to gloss over Paul’s failings, strong emotions and all too human approach, I need to keep in mind a few facts.

a) In some disputes one party actually turns out to be right and the other wrong.

b) When the early church were collecting together a number of documents which they felt expressed the Christian faith they chose to include this letter, meaning that its contents were regarded as being more important than the (absent) view of Paul’s opponents.

c) if I believe that Scripture is inspired by God, then I must accept that this letter contains a message which God wants us to hear and through which he still wants to address the world.

Bearing in mind the author is an angry and frustrated apostle desperate to persuade his fellow Christians to reject heresy and turn back to their true faith, I don’t wish to treat every aspect of this letter as a perfect example of how to present an argument. Rather I want to understand the difference between what Paul regards as the true and false gospels. I want to understand why he is so passionate about it. And I want to hear what God is saying today through this letter.

My attempt to summarise the message in this letter.

What was Paul trying to persuade the Galatians to do, to be or to believe? (And by extension, what is God trying to persuade us today to do/be/believe?)

Starting point: Jesus rescued us from this evil world (see Paul’s opening remarks). He did it through offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins and God wants everyone to experience that rescue. The key thing to note is that there is something wrong with our world from which we need to be rescued. From other parts of the letter the wrong thing seems to be that people do evil and hurt each other. The solution? ‘Stop doing wrong’ of course. But that’s easier said than done.

Does it help to have a set of rules which everyone abides by? No. Not really. Paul describes his own experience and admits that all his law-keeping wasn’t working. In the first part of the letter his emphasis is on how God took the initiative, something he planned to do ever since Paul was in his mother’s womb, and diverted Paul’s energies from trying to stamp out the Christian faith. Instead God helped Paul realise that Christ was the divinely-chosen way for rescuing the human race. God, through Jesus, revealed this message directly to Paul and not through some human intermediary.

Paul wants people (especially non-Jews) to share his experience – that trying to be good didn’t work and that putting his trust in Jesus did. The world still isn’t perfect and neither is Paul (yet) but he is ‘on-side’ with God, he is part of God’s plans and purposes and not working against them. He puts a lot of emphasis on how he is trying only to impress God and doesn’t really care about human validation. Although at the same time he does want to stress that the key leaders in the church have approved him and his message. (A case of wanting to have your cake and eat it. But hey, no problem. It shows Paul is only human.)

The Galatians had begun by trusting God. Their ‘conversion’ or ‘salvation’ or ‘transformation’ was achieved by simply accepting the free gift of what God had done in Jesus. Why then are they now trying to finish the process by trying to keep the rules instead? If God is the one who begins the process of changing lives, shouldn’t we trust him to keep on doing so?

I can relate to this folly. My faith as a young keen Christian was all about relying on God. My faith today is more about getting things done. They are ‘Good Things’ (leading worship, pastoral care, teaching, administration etc.) but nevertheless my life has become much more about keeping self-imposed (or church-imposed) rules than trusting God to use me, mould me, fill me. I know (and God knows) that certain things connected with the role of ministry have to be done. I can’t escape admin. And there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being organised and efficient in managing my time. But the underlying foundation of my daily life ought to be “I’m yours, Lord. How do you want to use me today?” I ought to be saying “Let’s do something exciting together, Lord” rather than “Help me to get lots of tasks accomplished so that I don’t feel guilty at the end of the day because I’ve done too little.”

The later chapters are about how the Christian life should be lived. Maybe the law has no power to save us, but neither is it useless and irrelevant. David Pawson says this letter is about true liberty in Christ. He describes twin dangers (like walking on a path between two dangerous drops) – one is to fall into legalism where we trust in keeping the law to save us, the other is to fall into license where we think our behaviour doesn’t matter any more.

The freedom we have in Jesus sets us free from rule-keeping and allows us to focus instead on loving people. Paul’s antipathy towards the Galatians getting themselves circumcised is not just because he regards it as pointless, but it actually opens up a whole avenue of dangerous thinking and behaviour. Setting up any system of laws (whether circumcision or anything else) and proclaiming it as the right and only way to behave puts the focus back on rules instead of freedom. But this freedom is not licence to do anything you want, it’s licence to love freely and to allow the Spirit to grow in you all kinds of good ‘fruit’. In chapter 2, Paul describes freedom as “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” This is one of the many paradoxes in the Christian faith. It is only by letting Jesus take over our lives that we find true freedom to live.

Miscellaneous postscript.

The middle section of the letter is chock-full of interlocking illustrations:

* Once a will is made it cannot be changed. God’s promise to Abraham can’t be changed.

* The Law looked after us as “wards of discipline” (Moffat’s translation) until the time came where we became sons.

* An heir who is underage is effectively a servant in the household. When he reaches maturity he becomes a son. Once we were servants to the ‘elemental spirits of the world’ but now we are sons of God.

* Abraham had sons through two women. Hagar (a slave woman) and Sarah (a free woman) represent two covenants, based on the Law and the Promise respectively. We are like the son of the free woman rather than the slave woman.

I’m not on Paul’s wavelength at all when he starts quoting Scripture to support his argument (see 3:10-14 for example). I’m mystified by the relevance of v.12. Maybe I’m trying too hard to be logical. But I do get the main point of his letter. In Jesus things have changed. We have a new (and far better) status. Why should we want to go back to the old ways?