Lent and the Epistles: Emerging discipleship

By Andy Peck

Many are rejoicing in an upsurge of interest in discipleship and Lent seems an excellent time to comment on it.

There are all kinds of reasons for the upsurge.

The Christian church has faced the perennial challenge of finding it easier to gain converts than grow disciples. Back when tent crusades were a thing, there were people stroking their chins after conversion stats were announced, declaring, ‘that’s good but let’s see where they are in a year’s time!’ Bonafide surveys of ‘converts’ several years after the evangelist had left town found very few still attending a local church: not the only marker for discipleship, but a major one.

A tendency for converts not to continue to discipleship has of course been known since Jesus first raised the issue in the Parable of the sower, with three of the four soils not suitable for flourishing.  In more recent years, local church leaders seem to have especially realised that many people they thought were committed disciples have not returned to church after Covid. In this magazine [Preach Spring issue – The epistles], Wimbledon based pastor Phil Moore reflected on how this impacted him as a church leader and led him to a major change in ministry direction, away from continuing as the church leader where he had been. Those still in local church ministry are making a major push to ensure that their teaching and life together is sustainable and lasts.

And there are plenty of individuals aware they need put in some work if they are to grow spiritually. They have known the highs of an event, week’s conference or Festival  and know they need a more regular diet of spiritual practices to sustain their life in the trenches of the daily commute, changing nappies and making ends meet.

But there’s a danger in all this. And this is where the Epistles come in.

Finding 60 minutes

There’s something about discipleship and its focus on spiritual disciplines that appeals to us!

When I was at university I was challenged by a preacher at my church to do an hour’s Bible study and prayer a day. His line was: ‘if you can watch telly for an hour a day [which I did] then you can certainly read scripture and pray for an hour!’

Now, remember I was at college with a 15 lecture week, so an hour then was nothing. And so for my remaining time at college, around two years, I was able to sustain an hour a day of Bible study and prayer and benefited enormously. Our CU had hour long prayer meetings on Mondays and Fridays so that accounted for two of the days and I had some good IVP books to fuel my study. It meant I went off to Bible College directly after, which is another story.

But didn’t it feel good to be doing so much and so much more than fellow Christians at College?!  I became to feel rather smug and proud, at least inwardly. Was I godlier because of it? Or prouder? Let others judge!

Digging into the epistles

You will probably know that Paul’s letters typically start with Paul’s reminder of who we are before focusing on what we do. His letter to the Ephesian church is probably the most classic. Look at chapter 1 and the reminders of the glorious riches of God’s grace in Jesus. Paul is saying – look what God has done!

It is on that basis that he then goes on to say: ‘As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received (Ephesians 4:1). The second part of the letter outlines how we should live.

Paul never put the cart before the horse. Indeed in Philippians 3:8 he reminds the church that any ‘righteous stuff’ from his Pharisee life, is actually like garbage (the literal Greek word can be translated dung). You could have transposed Paul the Pharisee into today’s discipleship courses and he would have looked excellent (an hour’s Bible study and prayer a day kind of guy!).

Western society is self-obsessed and into self-improvement. Might this account for some of this interest in discipleship? The Pharisee in us that equates godliness with activity. Wasn’t that the point of Jesus parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector? (Luke 18:10-14)

The massive irony of many discipleship approaches is that it leads us to the very opposite of what Jesus calls us to – we become obsessed with ‘self’ and how we are doing. Like the athlete continually taking their pulse as they run to see how they are doing and defeating the point as he does so.

The bigger picture

I have outlined the danger. What of the solution?

Dallas Willard helpfully distinguishes between effort and earning. Yes we put in some effort, but do we think the effort is doing? Is this earning us a place in heaven?

Our faith and trust is in Jesus. We love him. One hour a day might even be too little, we live for him 24/7, but as we do all we do, not just the ‘spiritual disciplines’. I have mentioned prayer and Bible study – there are of course many more (See Richard Foster’s book The Celebration of Discipline (Hodder & Stoughton, 2008) for his outline of many more, including silence and solitude, celebration, worship and service).

When we preach we need to bear this in mind too, especially if we have a passage in the second half of a letter. It may be verses exhorting us to ‘do this and don’t do that’ and we are right to apply this. But it’s vital we alert listeners to the earlier assurances of all that God has accomplished and who this makes us to be.  We rejoice to live in the grace of God and please him.

So an upsurge in interest in discipleship could be good news: providing those interested in discipleship have this perspective, then their activity will be a blessing and the churches they are part of will get a much needed boost.

 _____________________________________________

Andy Peck is sub-editor of Preach magazine.