Discipleship in Jesus' time

The earth has had the greatest privilege to have the greatest man ever come and teach us the greatest message ever. The disciple's of Jesus never realized the impact that he would have on the world, but they knew that they wanted to follow him with their whole hearts. I always ask myself why the disciple's wanted to follow him so badly when they did not understand who he truly was yet. When we read Matthew 4:21 tells us that Jesus came to James and John, both sons of Zebedee, and called them to be disciples. The interesting thing is that the "immediately" left their boats to follow him (Jn. 4:22). My question here is why? Why would these men get up from their jobs and run right to Jesus? When kids reached the age between 7 and 12 they learned the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch is often known as the Torah, or the first 5 books of the Bible. They did not just read the Pentateuch, but they learned everything about the first 5 books and even took the time to memorize them! We think of that as something so insane. Can you imagine waking up and quoting the book of Leviticus? Not many of us want to even read that book let alone memorize it. When student's reached the age of 12 they would learn the family trade. But, if they were good at learning the Torah, they would move on to study and memorize the rest of the Old Testament. If you were surprised when I told you that 7 and 8 year old's were memorizing the first 5 books of the Bible, then memorizing the rest of the Old Testament will blow your mind! This is so much more rigorous of a process that took so much effort as well as a true calling from God. Some of us will make an effort to read the Old Testament, but we could not even dream of putting the amount of effort into memorizing it all. When these students would reach the age of 15, they would work on becoming a Rabbi. This means that after all the teachings that they have received from the teacher's of the law, they would then follow any Rabbi that thought them as teachable. For example, a student would come up to a Rabbi and would ask to follow him. The Rabbi then would ask three questions. One, may be about quoting a passage of the Torah. The second, the Rabbi would maybe ask for the student to explain a certain passage of Scripture. The final question would be to ask the student to explain a more specific part of the law and how it applies to another part of the Old Testament. Following a Rabbi was a very difficult process and blew my mind the first time I ever heard about it. If you have read my last blog on discipleship (http://smith6261.blogspot.com/2012/07/discipleship.html) I mentioned that you need to look for someone who is a strong spiritual leader. Someone who is faithful to God and has good morals. When you find this person, ask them to teach you things about the Scriptures, ask them questions that you have, and tell them the struggles you are having in living what you have learned out. This is what these early disciples learned from when they were children, and we can follow God just as faithfully today even though we cannot quote all the Old Testament. Find someone in your church you can really trust and ask them to teach you. If you would like to do a deeper study on this, I encourage you to check out Ray Vander Laan. He does an amazing look at the history of the early teachings and even walks you through the land of Israel to show you what it may have looked like in the time of the disciples in his series titled "The Footsteps of the Disciples" (http://www.followtherabbi.com/).

Discipleship

Remember all the times listening through Sunday School talks hearing the word discipleship, and asking yourself what this word means. Well, participating in Sunday School is a form of discipleship making, and so is being at church. But, how many people recognize the weightiness of this word discipleship? I do not think many people truly understand what discipleship stands for. This word represents the Church, and show's us how we are to be like Christ here on earth. I would like to begin to devote a lot of my blog's towards what true discipleship means. Disciple making has been around for a long time, and has been passed on through generation to generation. Parent's disciple their children to become better parents then them, teacher's disciple their students to become smarter then they were. Discipleship goes on and on and is an important aspect in life. Long ago, a man named Jesus took with him twelve disciples. He taught them everything he knew, and he told them that they could do even greater things after him (John 14:12). As people teach other's, they expect them to grow into stronger people then even they were before. I believe that discipleship has become a needed part of church. Churches try to teach this to us, but we do not understand the true weight of this. What are we to look for, when are we ready to teach other's, and how are we to teach? Here are a few aspects to find in a teacher, and when I talk about teacher, I mean someone you are close to that you can trust. This person need's to be wise and strong in faith. Go to your pastor and asking him or her to help you find someone in the church that can really be a mentor in your life. I bet we can all remember back when we were children and our parents taught us to walk, to speak, then how to be mature people. They taught us how to grow up, but it involved a special relationship as well. We would not have wanted to learn from complete stranger's. In order to learn anything, there needs to be a relationship between the teacher, and the learner. We can teach people the greatest information they have ever heard, but if you do not mean anything to that person, what you have to say means nothing to them as well. My first year at college, I took a class called American Government, the name alone tells you that you want to fall asleep in this class. However, the first day, the teacher really poured out to the student's and was into what he wanted to talk about. It got me interested in what he had to say in class and found myself working hard than I needed to to take notes in his class. Teacher's need to be excited about what they teach. If they teach you things that do not excite them, what makes you want to even listen to them. They make the subject sound boring and uninteresting, and it makes the subject seem the same way when it is actually the teacher who is boring and uninteresting. These are two examples of discipleship that I believe are important in looking for a teacher. I believe that a strong, biblical teacher is needed in all of our lives and we neglect this so much because we all believe that we do not need it. We believe we are fine with the way we are, and we are not. We need people in our lives that we can have teach us and help us along the way. I encourage you to look for someone to teach you, and ask them to be a part of your life, and do not be afraid to open up to them. If you feel weird about doing this, ask some of the elderly people at your church to tell you stories about their lives. Get to know some people, find out about them, and have yourself open up as well. When you find someone you believe is a really strong Christian and has good morals, and is willing to teach you, allow them to teach you and listen to what they have to say.