Deurpost

When Jesus started his ministry and people started following Him, his early followers did not ask any questions about becoming a disciple. We read in John 1:38 that his early followers immediately started calling Jesus ‘Rabbi’ (which means teacher) and started following Him. Why? Let’s see if we can find out why that was, shall we!

Now, the Old Testament doesn’t really talk much about disciples or discipleship, but that doesn’t mean we cannot infer discipleship relationships. We know that Isaiah had disciples (Isaiah 8:16); Samuel probably had disciples (1 Samuel 10:5); Elijiah discipled Elisha (1 Kings 19:19). But probably the most prominent discipleship relationship in the Old Testament is that between Moses and Joshua. Moses took Joshua with him when going up the mountain for the tablets of stone (Exodus 24:12-14). Joshua did not depart from the tent of meeting when Moses talked face to face with God (Exodus 33:11). God commands Moses to charge Joshua to lead the nation of Israel into the promised land (Deuteronomy 3:28). God commissions Joshua to lead the nation of Israel (Deuteronomy 31:23, Joshua 1:1-3). Joshua finished well in the eyes of the LORD (Joshua 24:31).

So long before the days of Jesus, discipleship was already a well-established institution within Jewish culture. All the great sages (people famed for their wisdom), the rabbis, the sages among the Pharisees and the teachers of the Torah (the law) had disciples. The Hebrew word for disciple is ‘talmid,’ which means student. We translate this as disciple. A talmid’s job was to learn everything that his master had to teach. Discipleship was the primary institution for higher religious education in the days of Jesus. There were no Bible schools. There were no seminaries. There were no freely available Bibles. A young man seeking a future in teaching Torah would apprentice himself to a rabbi to learn the trade. The teacher/disciple relationship was a powerful bond. Disciples regarded their teachers higher than their fathers. They regarded themselves as slaves to their teachers. It was as it were a father/son relationship.

Looking at the relationship between a disciple and his teacher, we can say that a disciple performed five tasks, and these tasks describe the cultural context of the institution of discipleship in the gospels:

They decided to follow their teacher
There was an absolute dedication, loyalty and submission to their teacher which is basically incomparable to any situation in our own culture and experience.

They learned their teacher’s traditions and interpretations
It was a disciple’s job to learn the tradition of how his teacher kept the commands of God and interpreted the Scriptures. Every detail about the teacher was important to the disciple. The disciple needed to learn how the teacher washed his hands, how he kept the Sabbath, how he fasted, how he prayed, how he gave charity, how he said the blessings over food, etc. Furthermore, the way the teacher interpreted passages of Scripture, the meanings he drew out, the parables with which he clarified, the way he explained a verse or understood a concept, each of these was of utmost importance to the disciple. Details of this sort were not just trivia. To a disciple, these were like gems and pearls meant to be gathered and treasured.

They memorized the teacher’s words
The oral transmission process was the only inter-generational communication practiced among the sages. The great rabbis and Torah scholars of First Century Pharisaic Judaism did not write scrolls or compose books for their students to read and study. Instead, they taught orally and their disciples studied by memorizing their words. Through constant repetition, disciples memorized their teacher’s words and were able to repeat them to subsequent generations

They imitated their teacher’s actions
A disciple’s highest calling was to be a reflection of his teacher. A disciple studied to learn, to act, to speak and to respond the same way his master would act and speak and respond. A disciple studied to do the things his master did. His highest goal was to walk after his teacher. There is a story in ancient tradition that tells of a rabbinical student so devoted to his teacher that he hid in the teacher’s bedchamber to discover the mentor’s sexual technique. To be sure, this is a bit extreme, yet it demonstrates the level of commitment required to be a disciple. In Luke 6:40 Jesus said that “a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

They raised up their own disciple
It was the job of a disciple, when finally trained, to raise up his own disciples. He was to create a new generation of students and to transmit to them the memorized words, traditions and interpretations and the actions and behaviors of his Master. The goal was to pass the torch of Torah from generation to generation.

These functions describe the cultural context of the institution of discipleship in the gospels. When Jesus called his disciples, these five tasks are the things they were called to do. This is how they understood their job. And that’s how we should view ourselves being disciples of Jesus.