My Torah studies have stopped for a time to examine portions of the Gospel that correlate to this time of the year as it relates to the Creator’s Calendar. During this period, the Master is believed to have been teaching His disciples in the Dead Sea region as winter had by now settled in. It would have been about the 10th Biblical Month in the year 27 C.E. The passage of interest is found in Luke 11:1-36. Here we find one of the disciples observing the Master as He was praying and that disciple (unnamed) approached Yeshua and asked Him to “teach us to pray like Yochanan (John the Immerser) also taught his disciples to pray.” Obviously, this disciple felt some inadequacy in terms of the method or procedure he and the others were using to pray. Seeing the method and pattern of prayer used by the Master, the disciple wanted to learn how to pray as Yeshua prayed. And this is what a true disciple of the Master does. He sees His Master doing “stuff” and he/she, by virtue of being a disciple, naturally wants to imitate their Master. This is a unique concept to our western culture and world-view, is it not? More so, this is a unique and even foreign concept to Christianity and the Hebraic Roots/Messianic communities (although to a lesser degree than Christianity). This whole concept of discipleship and discipling is something that I will be looking into in future blog and podcast postings, for I believe that this is a crucial topic that needs serious addressing.
Being a disciple of the Master is not being a Christian nor is it being a believer in Christ as churchianity so adamantly teaches. The term disciple as found in this and virtually every other mention in the Gospel record is “mathetes” in ancient Greek which means a “learner, pupil and or disciple.” According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, mathetes refers to one who follows one’s teaching. As it is used throughout the Gospel record, the term is usually referring to the pupils or learners of Yeshua. The term is not always restricted, as many in churchianity would insinuate, to the inner 12 that Yeshua selected to head the Church after His resurrection, but also those among the Jewish population that “favored Him, joined His party and became His adherents,” those who followed Yochanan the Immerser, and even those who followed certain Jewish sages and religious leaders of that time.
Today, the term disciple is all but restricted to the pages of the Gospel record and is rarely if ever used to describe us, the redeemed of the Lord, His chosen, His elect. Why? I think a lot of this has to do with the change in mindset that came about in the last couple centuries (although I have little to no doubt that this mindset extends back to the 4th century C.E.) from that of literally conforming to the image of Yeshua as a result of being a disciple (aka His pupil, His student) to that of getting one saved. Once the focus went to “how many people we can get saved” and the concept of “grace” was altered to reflect an all encompassing construct that eliminated the need for the believer to be obedient to the teachings and commands of the Master (or that matter the Father) but simply occupy till the rapture. I believe that the perverted doctrine of grace then has pushed aside any requirement for the believer in Messiah to be a faithful servant and following–that is disciple. To me, that makes those of us who simply ride the coat-tails of “grace” to heaven nothing more than dead weight that will ultimately have to be shed or purged. Nothing points to the cause of the horrible state of Christianity today than the elimination of the concept and requirement of being a true disciple of Messiah. Until we as true believers throw aside the perverted mindset of grace being the only concern of the believer, but adopt the burning desire to be a disciple–one who’s only purpose in life is to conform to the very image of his/her master–then all bets are off that we will be included in the coming Kingdom as Yeshua’s elect. Revelation (the 5th Gospel) speaks to the true identities of the Master’s chosen: Rev 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
May we be disciples of Messiah, perfect in all our ways; obedient and faithful to the end. Furthermore, may we follow faithfully the Great Commission which directs us to make disciples of others. The true Faith once delivered, the Church, is not filled with Christians or hangers-on, but disciples.