J. M. Pendleton in his Church Manual defined a church as “a congregation of Christ’s baptized disciples, united in the belief of what he has said, and covenanting to do what he has commanded.”[i] The unity and the covenant that he mentions are predicated on the concept of the church being composed not of baptized members, but of baptized disciples. This idea is based on the command to “[g]o therefore and make disciples” given by Jesus in what is called the Great Commission, located in Matthew 28:19.[ii] This begs two questions: what is a disciple and how is a disciple made?
The Historical Context of Discipleship
Before examining the relevant passages, it is important to understand the terminology in light of its historical meanings and context. The most important word for the purposes of this paper is the term maqhtής – mathetes - , which is translated as “disciple.” This term can be boiled down to the basic meaning of “apprentice.”[iii] There is much more weight to the term, though, as it implies a binding of oneself to “someone else in order to acquire his practical and theoretical knowledge.”[iv] To be a disciple requires that there be a master/teacher, a didaskoloς - didaskalos.[v] Discipleship, then, is to be understood as an intentional relationship, whereby the disciple gains from the teacher’s knowledge and applies those insights to his own life.[vi]
The teacher would gather around himself a group of disciples. This group of disciples would be committed to the teachings of their master, a commitment which lasted beyond the death of the teacher. This commitment was tied with a responsibility to pass on those teachings.[vii]
Moving from the Greek world to the Jewish world, one finds that the Old Testament does not contain the idea of a learner to a teacher, as in the Greek context, though there is a call for teaching what God had said on to the next generation: “you shall teach [these words] diligently to your sons…” (Deut.6:7).[viii] It is only in Rabbinic Judaism that the concept of pupil/teacher comes to the fore, probably as a result of contact with Greek philosophy. Here the relationship is of the talmid to a Rabbi, where the talmid places himself under the Rabbi in a servile manner.[ix] The Rabbis, like the Greek teachers of philosophy, would gather around themselves students whose aim was to learn with the purpose of being able to teach others.[x]
Our next post will look at some of the passages relevant to understanding discipleship.
[i]J. M. Pendleton, Church Manual : Designed for the Use of Baptist Churches (Philadelphia, PA: The Judson Press, 1950), 7.
[ii]All Bible references are from the NASB, unless otherwise noted.
[iii] Karl Heinrich Rengstorf. “maqhtής.” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich. Volume 4. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), 416.
[iv]Dietrich Müller. “maqhtής.” New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. ed. Colin Brown and David Townsley. Volume 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986), 484.
[v]Rengstorf, 416.
[vi]Müller, 484.
[vii]Rengstorf, 423.
[viii]Duane L. Christensen, Deuteronomy 1, 1-21,9, 2nd revised ed., Word Biblical Commentary 6a (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), 143.
[ix]Ibid., 485-6.
[x]Ibid., 488.
