We do not lack for sermons and books on the topic of discipleship. Some Christians speak about discipleship as if it is something to be into—like being into politics or running or weight loss. But such a view of discipleship betrays some faulty assumptions.
First, we tend to formulate the call to discipleship as an option for Christians to consider. And second, there is a tendency (especially in today’s consumer oriented churches) to make discipleship attractive. The fact is, there is nothing attractive about discipleship. It calls for an undivided loyalty to the gospel. It calls people to place themselves at the disposal of the Church and its work. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it best: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
Both Timothy and Epaphroditus exemplify what J.B. Phillips remarked about the early Church:
Perhaps because of their very simplicity, perhaps because of the readiness to believe, to obey, to give, to suffer and if need be to die, the Spirit of God found what He must always be seeking—a fellowship of men and women so united in faith and love that He can work in them and through them with the minimum of… hindrance.
What Paul implies in his descriptions of these two men indicates what the true Christian life is. The deeper Christian life is a call to discipleship, a call to authentic Christian living. Whereas sanctification is the process (and progress) of becoming more like Christ, discipleship is the discipline, the lifestyle of the one who is becoming more like Christ. As we make our way through 2:19 30, we will discover the marks of the true disciple of Jesus Christ.
Paul certainly is informing his friends back in Philippi about his situation. But in doing so he uses special words to describe Timothy and Epaphroditus. He wants the Philippians to know these two men are models of the Christ hymn Paul earlier cited (2:6 11). The narrative implies instruction. We should resolve to give the Church and the gospel priority (2:1 4, 12 18).
An excerpt from my lay-commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,
Destroying Our Private Cities, Building Our Spiritual Life. This book can be ordered in any Christian book store (ISBN: 1-594672-49-0) or through sites like
Amazon.
Life’s lessons often come from the most unusual source. For me, one such lesson came during a driver education session. I was sixteen. And it was not a good session.
It was spring, 1974. On a winding New Hampshire road, traffic was backed up behind me for at least a mile. Apparently, I was driving too slowly. Eventually the instructor found a safe place for me to pull over. The car immediately behind us pulled over as well. Not a good sign.
The driver didn’t even look at me. With noticeable frustration and anger he directed his comments to my instructor. “If the guy can’t drive, get him off the road!”
The irate motorist returned to his car and the line of traffic continued to file by. I was mortified. My emotions must have registered on my face.
“Relax,” the instructor said to me; “we’ll get back to driving in a moment.” Right then I wasn’t sure I wanted to drive--ever.
The instructor gave me time to settle down. Finally he asked, “You know what your problem is?”
Yeah, I thought to myself, I can’t drive!
“You are concerned about staying between the yellow center line and the white side line,” the instructor continued. “As a result, you drive too slowly and weave back and forth. You are concentrating on the road right in front of you. Try this: Look where you want to be going.”
Look where you want to be going. Good advice. It helped me through driver education and to be a reasonably safe driver ever since. It’s also good advice for contemporary North American Christians.
Our culture tends to make us overly concerned about the road immediately in front of us. Everything from TV sitcoms that solve problems in thirty minutes to fast food restaurants and instant cash machines put pressure on us. They force us to define ourselves by how we respond to and feel about the immediate—the temporal.
Where the Letter to the Philippians Is Going
Paul moves from a context oriented toward his relationship with the Philippian congregation (1:3 2:30) to a section that is deeply theological (3:1 11). We have seen the models of servanthood that occupied his attention: Christ (2:5 11), Timothy (2:19 24), Epaphroditus (2:25 30). He even refers to his own example (2:17 18). Now Paul returns to how his own life relates to the gospel, but with a theologically enriched vocabulary.
He has already discussed church disunity and joylessness at Philippi in relation to the church’s interaction with the world surrounding it (1:27 30). He has discussed as well the individual member’s relationship to the local body of Christ (2:1 4). Now he lifts these issues into the realm of the nature of the gospel itself. The congregation in Philippi must grapple with their lack of persevering joy in relation to the essentials of the faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (3:10 11).
The pressures of life and the false teachings infiltrating the congregation stole the members’ joy and diminished their ability to persevere. Our own moment in time places certain pressures on our churches and on us. There is temptation to accommodate ourselves with the status quo, to identify with the hedonistic culture around us. We want to feel comfortable in modernity. We dislike feeling alienated from our surrounding culture, from our democracy. But if we succumb, we too will be robbed of our persevering joy—and the power of true Christian identity.
We must place our confidence not in the world or the things of the world (1 John 2:15 17; Romans 12:1 2) but in the essentials of our faith: the cross and the resurrection. Only in doing so can we restore our identity. Only in doing so will the Church be able to persevere amid the tensions of life.
An excerpt from my lay-commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,
Destroying Our Private Cities, Building Our Spiritual Life. This book can be ordered in any Christian book store (ISBN: 1-594672-49-0), or through book distributors like
Amazon,
CDB, or Christian distributors like
Deeper Shopping Christian Books & Bibles.
When I became a Christian in 1978, I was rather naïve. I knew my salvation depended solely on the work of Jesus Christ. The Bible was clear enough on that point. But I also supposed the same Bible that instructed me how to be saved would instruct me how to live “saved.” It does and it doesn’t. (I’ll explain that in a moment.) That is where I was naïve.
As a newborn Christian, I was immediately placed under the spiritual care of the two men who led me to the Lord: Mike Cronk and Jack Anderson. In my naïveté, I assumed this was how all new Christians were taught. Such a submissive, teacher¬–pupil relationship with those more experienced and mature in the faith was standard procedure. It struck me as both biblical and reasonable. If growing in the faith is the process of learning submission to Christ’s authority, then the issue of my autonomy must be resolved by learning such submission.
Later I discovered that new Christians rarely were put in such a discipleship environment. Yet both Jesus in the Gospels and the apostles who wrote the New Testament letters clearly advocate such a relationship. I, a new Christian, was to be accountable to another, more mature Christian. Why, then, wasn’t the church providing disciplers for its new converts?
Many years later, as a Bible college professor, I constantly heard students decrying the lack of discipleship between professors and students. I could agree with the students that little resembling true discipleship was going on in that academic setting. But I also realized the students were using the term discipleship outside its biblical implications. They more or less understood the term as a relationship with someone who’d teach them about the Bible. He or she would pray with them, encourage them to pray, help them memorize Bible verses and offer Christian advice.
During a student retreat this subject (and complaint) was discussed at length. Finally I asked the students, “When you say you want to be discipled, do you realize that such a teacher–disciple relationship means that you are to submit to the authority of the one discipling you?”
The room suddenly fell silent. But the students had gained a more biblical perspective of what is involved in discipleship.
Jesus’ mandate, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), can be seen in relationships throughout the New Testament. The first is Jesus and His disciples, of course. But there was also Barnabas, the discipler of Paul. And Paul, in turn, who discipled Timothy. Paul, founder of the Philippian church, has already indicated Timothy’s selflessness. Timothy was one of the few who put the interests of the Church above all else. He did so because he was concerned about the interests of Jesus Christ. Now we are told the secret behind so selfless an attitude. Paul’s partner in the service of the gospel learned this attitude through his relationship to Paul: “You know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel” (Philippians 2:22).
An excerpt from my lay-commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,
Destroying Our Private Cities, Building Our Spiritual Life. This book can be ordered in any Christian book store (ISBN: 1-594672-49-0), or order through book distributors like
Amazon.
This plague of privacy has had a devastating impact on the Church and its mission. North American Christians have embraced our culture’s fascination for privacy, at the same time ignoring its consequences. Because we treasure our “private cities,” we are governed not by the will of God or the Scriptures but by personal fulfillment. And we view life from a very narrow perspective. Our Christianity becomes trivial and private because we relegate it to the private sphere of our lives.
Guinness, in his book The Gravedigger File, laments that Christianity to the believer
“was once life’s central mystery, its worship life’s most awesome experience, its faith life’s broadest canopy of meaning as well as its deepest guarantee of belonging. Yet today, where religion still survives in the modern world, no matter how passionate or “committed” the individual believer may be, it amounts to little more than a private preference, a spare time hobby, a leisure pursuit.”
This worship of privacy has had devastating consequences for the Church’s participation in the missionary task. I have worked with many mission leaders. Almost every one of them have voiced a grave concern about the future of missions as they look upon contemporary missionary candidates. They know there is an all time high attrition rate among first term missionaries. The reason given most, “Young people go into missions in order to find personal fulfillment.”
Christians have been so captivated by our culture’s love affair with privacy that the gospel and world missions have paid a heavy price. When our own “personal fulfillment” is the center of Church life, the gospel of fulfillment replaces the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul’s letter to the Philippian church puts a torch to the Christian’s “right to privacy” and ignites the Spirit’s passion among us to be participants in the work of the gospel.
An excerpt from my lay-commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,
Destroying Our Private Cities, Building Our Spiritual Life. This book can be ordered in any Christian book store (ISBN: 1-594672-49-0), or order through book distributors like
Amazon.