1 Discipleship in the Bible

1

Discipleship in the Bible

This book is about discipleship—in particular, the picture of discipleship the Holy Spirit reveals to us in the Gospel according to John. In these pages, you will find the fourth Gospel’ s answer to these questions: What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? How can we apply this knowledge to our own lives? How do we live as true disciples of the Lord? And finally, how do we know that we ’ re doing so?

There are few more intimidating goals than reaching for true discipleship. Who am I, you might be asking yourself, to think I can aspire to walk side by side with Jesus? One of the purposes of this book is to unpack the many ways Scripture suggests that this is exactly what our aspirations should be. The second purpose of this book is to unveil clear and practical ways to apply the New Testament teachings of the Lord so that, just like His earliest disciples, you, too, can journey with Jesus.

As we journey together, our road map is simple. First, we will briefly study the etymology and context of key words related to discipleship. Then, we will quickly turn our attention to the Gospel of John and proceed step-by-step through the narrative in the order that John set down his thoughts. We will see that these teachings can be summarized in a four-part program of discipleship, the core of which is believing and remaining in Jesus: first, someone gives witness to us