Is the church making disciples as Jesus did?

by Dan Grubbs

John Warr, an 18th-century apprentice shoemaker, was determined to be a faithful witness for Christ. Another apprentice was hired, and John repeatedly talked to him about spiritual things. That new worker, however, didn’t want to be bothered. Then one day he was caught exchanging a counterfeit shilling for a good one. In his guilty humiliation he asked John for help and prayer. Through the faithful witness of John Warr, that man put his faith in Christ and developed into a committed disciple.

The young apprentice was William Carey, who later became a remarkably fruitful missionary to India. Carey’s life and ministry had a tremendous influence on the cause of worldwide gospel outreach in modern times.

Jesus said in John 15:8, “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.” This could be discouraging to Christians who can’t preach, sing, teach, or go to the mission field. They might see themselves as stuck in a situation that makes fruitful service impossible.

If that’s how you feel, then take courage from the example of John Warr. His impact on a co-worker brought glory to God and untold blessing to multitudes of people around the world.

In a world where bigger is usually assorted with better, it seems that Jesus might be considered a failure by today’s standards. After all, the Lord spent most of His time with only twelve disciples, one of whom betrayed Him. However, Jesus knew that by concentrating on twelve disciples He would leave this world, but leave behind a legacy. Here are eight elements of Christ’s disciple-making strategy:

1. Jesus concentrated on teaching, training and developing twelve disciples into church leaders. By putting quality ahead of quantity, the Lord set a pattern for how godly leaders are to develop. There can be no short cuts to developing leaders for the church. Mark writes, “He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” (Mark 3:14) The Lord selects those He wants. No person can presume to be a leader of God’s people by their own volition.
2. Jesus concentrated on twelve because He wanted future leaders to give their entire attention to building well-rounded godly character. It is a myth that godliness can be manufactured through large theological factory like settings. Even Paul commended Timothy for learning lessons on godliness when he wrote, “You know all about my teaching, conduct, purpose, patience, love persecutions, sufferings and perseverance.” (2 Tim. 3:10) Real training happens in the context of a total life experience.
3. Jesus employed His thoughts, emotions and efforts to assure that the apostles would replicate His life and thinking into the body of believers. In Acts 2:42-47 it says, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and the apostles did many wonders and miraculous signs. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” The apostles knew no other way but concentrated ministry that sprang from a total commitment to the Lord in all dimensions of life.
4. Jesus focused His objectives on twelve apostles who would teach through their examples. Many people were amazed at the transformation in the lives of twelve ordinary men. Luke wrote, “When people saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13) We become a lot like the people we spend most of our time and mental energies on.
5. Jesus condensed many of His most complicated teaching to simple statements that could be transmitted through the those with little or no education. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31,32) By concentrating much of His teaching in a few statements, the disciples could easily retain, reinforce and reproduce what they had learned.
6. Jesus used local settings to keep His teaching contextualized. The Lord never went beyond 75 miles from the place of His birth. By using local people, with local illustrations and local situations, the Lord was able to provide a rich context that was easily reproducible.
7. Jesus aimed at particular people who were most apt to respond to His message and have a life changing experience. While the world is looking for better methods, Jesus looked for better people. Pray and ask the Lord for wisdom in selecting a few disciples to train for godliness.
8. Jesus distilled the grains of truth from volumes of knowledge so everyone could read and study His life and teachings. In God’s providential wisdom, the life and ministry of Christ is recorded in the Bible. Yet, the Bible says, “In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Col. 2:6) We should follow Christ’s example in keeping our teaching straightforward, principled and consistent with our Master’s example.

False doctrine leads to deception

by Donna J. Kazenski

Most Christians today have no problem discerning that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Masons, etc. are teaching false doctrine and leading many astray. However, there are many who are not able to discern truth from error. As a result, they have placed themselves in the hands of the enemy and are being led down a path of deception and destruction.

Paul warned that false teachers would attempt to infiltrate the church from both the outside and from within. Peter wrote, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction,” 2 Peter 2:1 (KJV). The word translated as “privily” not only describes the method by which false doctrine is smuggled into the church, but also describes its deceptive purpose.

The original Greek word pareisago, is a three-fold word that begins with the preposition para. Para means “alongside” and describes the smuggling operation. False teaching runs alongside true doctrine. This creates a deception difficult to detect because it is close to sound doctrine.

Those who work with money must be trained to know the difference between a counterfeit and a genuine dollar bill. Spiritually speaking, we can apply these same truths when it comes to exposing false teachings that are propagated in the body of Christ today. We must allow the Lord to minister to us and train us according to His holy word and by the power of His Spirit. We must be careful that we do not allow another Jesus or another gospel to lead us into error.

The next part of pareisago is the Greek word eis which means “into”. Usually men or women from within the ranks of Christianity will run these false teachings alongside (para) true doctrine for the purpose of getting their deception into (eis) the church. The final part of this word is the Greek word ago. This word means “to lead”. The end result of false doctrine is for individuals to be led astray.

The Greek word pareisago reveals that false doctrine runs right alongside true doctrine, to get it into the body of Christ and to lead individuals astray.

The sad fact of the matter is that many times the deception is brought into the body of Christ by respected leaders and laymen. Therefore, we must learn to eat the meat and spit out the bones or we will find ourselves choking on what we should never have consumed.

Hebrews 13:9 tells us not to be not carried away with divers and strange doctrines. The church must not be quick to embrace every teaching that comes from the pulpit. We must learn to sift the teachings given to us through the filter of the scriptures. The word of God will expose which is error and which is truth. We must pay attention to what God’s word is saying. If what we are hearing is not lining up with the word of God, we would save ourselves from deception and heartache if we would just learn how to spit out the bones.

In Matthew 22:29, Jesus told the Sadducees that they didn’t know the scriptures very well. I believe this is one of the major problems of the body of Christ today. We do not know the scriptures or the power of God. We have settled for less than God’s manifest presence in our midst. We have neglected spending time at the Master’s feet in prayer and adoration of who He really is. We have accepted the teachings of man instead of the word of God. We have negated the power of God because we do not know Him in the way that we should know Him. We have embraced everything that has been dished out to us, but we have not yet learned how to embrace the Cross and the Christ who died upon it.

The early church tapped into this power as they gathered together in one accord and began to seek the Lord of glory. They didn’t seek after new techniques or the latest Christian fad; they sought after the power of the Holy Spirit and they received the power needed to evangelize the whole known world. They possessed what many of us do not possess today.

They spent time with Jesus and as a result of their relationship with Him; they experienced His power to seek and save that which was lost. They manifested His power to those who needed His supernatural touch.

If we want to see the power of God manifested in our midst, we must focus our eyes upon Jesus and allow ourselves to be saturated with His word so that we will be able to discern between that which is truth and that which is error. May the Lord turn us from that which is counterfeit to that which is genuine.