“Follow Me.”
This was the simple invitation offered to Jesus’ first disciples. It was an invitation to enter a specific type of relationship. A relationship that we in the western world do not understand nor appreciate the way they would have in those days and in that culture.
In those days it was common for a rabbi to be responsible for the general, as well as spiritual education of children. As the children grew in age, the more outstanding students would have sought out or would have been offered an opportunity to follow the rabbi more closely. These students would leave their homes to study the rabbi. (1)
The goal was not to simply study with the rabbi, but to study the rabbi himself. The goal was not to glean knowledge from the rabbi, but to study the rabbi so closely that they would imitate the rabbi in word and deed. The goal was to become the rabbi. To be like him, so that the essence of the rabbi would live on in them.
When the students would reach a level of mastery, they would then go on their own journey as a rabbi. They would take on students of their own and repeat the process that brought them to the point of mastery. They would be the master to their own group of students with the goal of passing on what they had learned to a new generation. What was passed on would be the essence of the previous rabbi as the current rabbi understood it.
This was the kind of relationship that each of the early disciples were called into. Each was invited to learn who Jesus was and learn to imitate Him in their own lives. In this relationship, the time would come where they would mature to the role of master and then be expected to become the master teacher for a new set of students. We see the culmination of this relationship at the end of the book of Matthew in what is often referred to as the Great Commission, when Jesus says, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (2)
This would be the relationship they would call a new set of students into with the goal of passing on the essence of who Jesus was, as they understood Him. Every new group of students would be asked to do the same for a new group of disciples. The goal would be to pass on the essence of Jesus.
This master-teacher relationship has been all but ignored in our modern western culture. It seems, from my perspective that we strive to call people into large gatherings, lined up in rows, to hear a presentation, in hopes of transferring information. The depth of relationship that was present in the early days of Christianity seems all but lost when evaluating the present-day Church.
I cannot help but wonder what a move of God would look like if we rediscovered the heart of making disciples the way that Jesus taught those, whom He trusted to further the Kingdom of God. What would need to change in the way we pursue ministry today? I dare say that I have more questions than answers. What I do know is that I am called, and so are you. We are called to “go and make disciples.” This is the expectation of the one who says yes to the invitation to, “follow me.”
1. Rabbi and Talmidim. That The World May Know with Ryan Vader. https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/rabbi-and-talmidim
2. Matthew 28:18–20 (NASB1995)