Welcome to my blog. In this foundational post I want to encourage you with a call to Christian discipleship. May God be glorified in all we write, think, and do as we seek to follow him in every area of life.
A Diagnostic Question
When was the last time you sat down with another Christian in an informal setting, in order to read the Bible together and encourage one another from the text? For many readers of this blog, the answer is likely “Never.” Certainly there are programs within your church designed around Bible study and instruction. Our diagnostic question is not aimed at those opportunities. Rather, the discipleship I’m asking about here is more personal and direct. It gets at how you build and strengthen relationships with other Christians at a more personal level, as friends and fellow soldiers in following Christ and battling temptation.
For most of the men reading this, I venture you have precious few real friendships and even fewer minutes spent together with those friends than you would like to admit. Some may even honestly say that Bible-based discipleship like this never happens in their life. You might even be at the point where you do not have any Christian friends beyond acquaintances in your local church.
Hurdles to Christian Discipleship
There are many currents in today’s culture which pull us apart from one other at an individual level. Much of evangelical church culture is designed around programs and meetings, without providing opportunity or encouragement for personal discipleship. Popular culture fights against us as well, keeping us so busy with urgent demands on our time and energy that there is nothing left in the tank for relating one to one with other Christians. Digital culture is aimed at entertaining us endlessly and robbing us of time that could be spent on building up others.
These are only a few examples. The list could be multiplied dozens of times. Influencers such as sports, hobbies, divorce, absentee parents, and abuse all impact our worldview. Biblical illiteracy hampers both our willingness and our eagerness to engage in discipling relationships. For many of us, never having experienced personal discipleship will stop us cold from pursuing it out of ignorance and fear.
A Biblical Call to Discipleship
To say that Christians should be in fellowship with one another is to speak biblically. There are many examples, some explicit, others implicit or tangential, given throughout the Bible.
My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. – Proverbs 4:20-22, ESV
Discipleship is one of the God-given ways to strengthen our faith and our “walk”, our Christian life and testimony. Encouraging one another from the Bible will bring healing into a broken life, and bring real life into what may be a mere existence.
The Bible is blunt in addressing the practical temptations which arise in the life of a young man (and older men as well), and how fellowship in the truth may rescue you from the day of calamity.
And now, O sons, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth. Keep your way far from her (i.e. the forbidden woman), and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your honor to others and your years to the merciless, lest strangers take their fill of your strength, and your labors go to the house of a foreigner, and at the end of your life you groan, when your flesh and body are consumed, and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. I am at the brink of utter ruin in the assembled congregation.” – Proverbs 5:7-14, ESV
Stop and consider, dear brothers, the end of such a man. What a tremendous tragic fruit rebellion yields, a harvest of futility and tears. This isn’t the only sin to be rescued from, not by any means. But it’s important for you to see that God understands us and how stupid we can be.
Fellowship in the family of God can keep your feet on the path, guiding you in the daily duties and tiny steps that make up the number of your days.
A Practical Call to Discipleship
The letter to the Hebrews has great insights into our struggles, temptations, and weaknesses. Christ has given himself for salvation of all who come to him, as the faithful son over the house of God (we are that house, if we hold fast our confidence in him). How are we to hold fast in the faith, day by day? God says…
“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.” – Hebrews 3:12-14, ESV
God calls us here, in the letter to the Hebrews, to love one another by actively encouraging each other in the faith. You do not have to be a pastor, an elder, a deacon or deaconess. You, dear Christian, are part of this family of encouragers. God knows our hearts and how we regularly need exhortation and encouragement to stay the course. We hear God saying “exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today’.”
Realities We Must Recognize
We simply must recognize that discipling relationships need to vary according to the demands and capacities which impact life in general. You will have different opportunities to disciple a young man who has few responsibilities, compared to a husband and father in a bustling family.
Even though opportunities to meet might be more limited with some, make every effort to find space to meet together in person. While there are always exceptions, it is truly rare for someone to have absolutely no free time in their daily calendar. Everyone makes decisions with the spaces in their day. Some of that space is an opportunity to meet together, read a passage or chapter of the Bible together, and encourage one another.
A Way Forward
If you, like many reading this, are wondering how to start discipling relationships with your fellow believers, I have a recommendation.
David Helm has written a wonderfully simple and practical little book to get you started.
One to One Bible Reading comes in at under 100 pages, with several of those being guide lists for reading and interpreting the various genres found throughout the Bible.
The chapters are very brief, with most of them under 5 pages in length. Examples in the book abound, and make up over half the reading.
The author takes special pains to keep this as simple and practical as possible. He demonstrates two different interpretive methods, which are both very straight-forward and non-technical. These are basic approaches to reading and understanding the Bible, littered with helpful examples.
You will be well-served by Helm’s equipping, and will understand how to invest yourself in others through this very simple discipline. Some books play a signal role in our lives, in addition to the Bible. For many of us, this could be that book. The simple act of generous obedience, giving of yourself to care for another in the faith, can transform Christian discipleship. If you are interested in trying this, but still uncertain in how to start, reach me through the Contact Me page and we can discuss what your next steps can be.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20, ESV