discipling4life

I was at a staff meeting last weekend and was explaining how I felt the need to train others more diligently in ministry skills to ensure that they were as independent as possible. In that explanation, I mentioned that I will be dying soon (no I have not been diagnosed with any illness), which elicited various responses along with rolled eyes from most of the substantially younger staff. Later one of them took me aside and said, “You really need to stop saying that. You’re not going anywhere for a long time.”

Isn’t it interesting how we assume that we will each live to a “ripe old age” like some of the fairy tales we heard as children. We often project that assumption on to others, the presence of whom we seem to enjoy and perhaps want to enjoy for years to come.

A mere three mornings after my “dying soon” comment, I was meeting a spiritual son at a local restaurant. When he left, I stayed a little longer to read and prepare for my next meeting that day. I got up to use the restroom, and then found myself sitting back in the booth, the back of my head aching and bleeding. The store manager called EMS and I was evaluated and sent home under the supervision of that same spiritual son and my son James.

I later learned that another customer found me on the floor in the restroom trying to clean up the blood I had spilled there (probably from years of training to always clean up a mess you make). Four days after the incident, and a week after my “dying soon” comment, I still have no memory of how I fell, how long I was on the floor bleeding from a gash on the back of my head, or how got back to the booth.

We really do make assumptions that we have all the time in the world to accomplish things that are important to us. People smile as they tell me that I will live into my 90s. Yet I watch the news and hear how people younger than me are dying every week. Some of those may be suicides, like the recent death of Chef Anthony Beaudoin, but heart, lung, and cancer problems abound, as do unexpected accidents – like a fall in a restroom.

A verse that I have been reading almost every day for a few months has been helpful in my thinking, hoping, planning: “And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, your power to all who are to come” (Psalm 71:18, NASB). I have been referring to this has my End of Life Verse to go along with my Life Verse which I claimed in 1975: “The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree, he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted int eh house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green” (Psalm 91:12-14, NASB).

What verse(s) drive your life, which could end sooner than you think?

In another posting, I mentioned that I was able to attend an evening service at The Metropolitan Tabernacle in London and met Mark there. Mark and I hit it off very quickly and the next day we went with the church for their annual holiday outing in Essex, a little over an hour’s drive to the east of Central London.

Mark quit school and left home when he was 16 years old. He mentioned by that time he had a number of addictions. His mother raised him and his brother as Catholics, but he had no faith by the time he left home.

Five years ago, Mark’s brother began to follow Jesus and began to talk with Mark about it as well. Mark began to attend a Hillsong church in London and was eventually exposed to the sermons of Mark Chandler in Dallas. Through these messages, Mark turned in faith to Christ, and eventually left Hillsong for the Tabernacle. He met his wife a year later and they will have been married for a year in July 2018.

As we talked together, it was clear that Mark was struggling in his relationship with his parents. He had shared the gospel with his mother (without her asking) and she would no longer talk with him about religion. His father had been estranged for ten years and at the present time Mark doesn’t even know how to contact his father. There was obvious pain in this conversation.

Mark’s outward life has significantly changed. His addictions have been turned over to Christ and he’s experiencing victory. He reads his Bible daily and shares his faith before the weekly evening service (sharing his faith at work is a different matter though). His relationship with his wife (Wara, from Boliva) is growing along with her extended family. His relationship with his parents, however, is an area that haunts him often.

Mark and I were able to spend several hours talking about how a Christian son can nurture his relationship with non-Christian parents. I gave him several ideas to implement. And, unsurprisingly, our relationship grew deeply quickly—a spiritual father and son relationship.

We will continue to Web talk and email one another over the next months, and I might be able to carve out a quick trip to visit him again in October 2018. Most of this relationship will be built on his need to relate well with his parents, but there are also areas of his Christian walk where he needs help. His church provides very good doctrinal teaching, but he expressed a need for personal mentoring in several areas.

What a joy to have a spiritual son “over the pond.” And to know that the mentoring gifts God has given me are useful there as well as here.

 

During my visit to London last month (May 2018), I was able to attend the evening service at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the church that Charles Spurgeon once pastored until his death in 1892. I have known of the whereabouts of Metropolitan since I first discovered it two years ago, but this time I actually was able to attend a service, and I was shocked. They were doing church all wrong, at least from a modern American perspective.

I arrived a little too early, so I walked about a block away to a Peruvian restaurant for dinner. I noticed as I passed by some well-dressed women talking to people at the bus stop with some colorful pamphlets, who I naturally assumed to be Jehovah’s Witnesses. I didn’t think much more about it than that.

After dinner, I went into the Tabernacle excited to see the pulpit from which Spurgeon preached. There were only a few people in the old wooden pews, and I took a seat near the back and snapped a couple pictures with my cellphone.

As the time for the service to begin drew near, the sanctuary began to fill with people. I was surprised to see the diversity. Two-thirds of the congregation were Africans, Asians, and South Americans. What a diverse group that was quite reflective of the people I saw outside the Tabernacle.

As the service began, an organ began to play. It was only then that I noticed there was no “praise band.” A wooden marquee listed songs by number so I grabbed the small black Psalms and Hymns book in the pew-back. Shock; there were only words to the music in the hymn books. However, people were singing teach hymn by memory and in harmony as if in a choir. I wondered how they knew the music so well.

As the Associate Pastor Ibrahim Ag Mohamed (originally from Iran) began to preach, I realized that the King James version was the Bible of choice in this church. Several times as he was quoting a Scripture verse, I could see other people mouthing the words along with him – in 17th century prose!

The sermon was from Acts 20:21 and focused on the need for repentance and faith. There was no mention of how this would give the hearer a better marriage, self-esteem or outlook on life. It simply focused on how each of us need to both repent from sin and have faith in Jesus Christ,

After the service, I was able to meet Mark, a 27-year-old man who had been a Christian for three years and was deeply involved in the Tabernacle. It was then that I learned he, in a sportscoat and tie and several other young people were witnessing to people at the bus stops around the church and inviting people into the evening service. Ah ha! Those weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses, they were members of the Tabernacle witnessing on the street!

I give you this snapshot of the Metropolitan Tabernacle to show that most of what they are actively doing in their worship services and practices run against the conventional wisdom of the modern American church. Organ music instead of a praise band. Hymns by John Owens and Charles Wesley instead of the latest songs from the local radio station. An archaic King James Bible instead of a modern thought-for-thought paraphrase. Cold-turkey street evangelism at the bus stop, and most of all, Millennials wearing dresses and jackets and ties instead of shorts and t-shirts.

Yet this 800-seat church could host approximately 700 people at a Sunday evening service. I’ve never seen anything like it in America. I don’t believe it can be replicated, but I praise God that a church that has been known for a strong commitment to the gospel continues that strong commitment with young people continuing to respond to that gospel.

Yesterday, during a conversation with one of my sons, he mentioned that he had been shown an illustration using a passage from Mark chapter four about the four soils. He had recently begun meeting with another man for discipling and was considering showing him the illustration he had just learned. I advised against using this illustration at this time, and this blog gives some reasons why.

The “parable of the sower,” as several Bible versions title this parable, can be found in both Mark 4 and Matthew 13. For some reason, there is a tendency to use the Mark 4 passage rather than Matthew (I believe I understand why). In the Mark passage (verses 1-20), one thing Jesus says is that this parable is key to understanding “all the parables” (verse 13, all quoted references are from the NASB).

Verses 14-20 go on to explain the meaning of the parable to the disciples, and many people have identified the “three S’s” of the passage: sower, seed, and soil. In many of the popular illustrations, very little is said about the sower or the sower’s tendency to sow seed on any type of the four soils mentioned. Very little is also said about the seed, with the assumption that the seed is the gospel. The vast bulk of the conversation will revolve around the four types of soil and the result of the seed being in each of those types. The fourth soil is highlighted because of its productivity; bearing “fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold” (verse 20).

In the illustration, the four soils are indicated in four quadrants, and the majority of the discussion will revolve around which soil the person being shown the illustration is currently in, and perhaps, what he might do to improve his soil in order to near more fruit. This sounds like a great illustration to move a man towards being serious about being spiritually productive.

However, if we look at the sister passage in Matthew, we may begin to get a slightly different understanding of what Jesus was communicating to the Twelve when he explained what he had said to the crowd by the sea (verse 1 in Mark, verses 1 and 2 in Matthew).

In Matthew, the disciples actually ask Jesus why he is speaking in parables and Jesus gives a reason and an explanation. In Mark, Jesus explains it without any query by the disciples. The explanations both focus on the English word “understand.” In Mark, this word occurs three times in two side-by-side verses (12 and 13); however all three words are a different Greek word (syniēmi in verse 12, and oida and ginōskō in verse 13). Because the word “understand” only appears three times in the Mark passage, it may be easy to focus on another concept from within the parable (however, notice that the word “soil” also only appears three times in both the Matthew and Mark renditions).

The explanation given in Matthew should, however, point the reader to a broader concept that the casual illustration seems to be missing. (Remember that almost all biblical scholars believe Mark was the first Gospel written, and Matthew used Mark and other sources to write his Gospel, and he often expounds on what Mark mentions briefly.) In Matthew 13:11, Jesus says, “To you has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.”

Immediately after Jesus says this, he quotes a passage from Isaiah, not found in the Mark account, that brings our focus on “the heart of this people” (verse 14). Notice that Jesus says the seed is sown in the heart (verse 19). Jesus is addressing a condition of the heart, both for the Jews in Isaiah’s time, and the hearers of the parable in his time. It is the hard heart that allows the seed to be snatched away (verse 19). However, Jesus implies that the disciples have a right heart when he says, “Blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears because they hear” (verse 16). Jesus is identifying the disciples as already being in the fourth soil! Because God granted them the ability to know and understand!

The Matthew parable passage only uses one Greek word for understand, “syniēmi,” (verses 13, 14, 15, 19 and 23). More importantly, we miss another time Jesus uses that same word because it is at the end of this teaching module (verse 51). Jesus asks the disciples, “Have you understood all these things?” and they reply, “Yes.”

Here’s my key thought: The result of God granting the disciples the ability to not only hear but also understand, results in “an abundance” (Matthew 13:12), and the parable paints this abundance as bearing fruit “some a hundredfold, some, sixty, and some thirty” (verse 23).

In the popular illustration being used today, what is communicated is that the person seeing the illustration needs to improve his soil from either compacted soil (the road), shallowness, or infested with weeds (Mark 4:19) which all lead to unfruitfulness, and become “good soil.” The emphasis is on what the person can do to be fruitful.

In the Matthew passage, fruitfulness is a result of God granting the person the ability to understand. This puts the emphasis on the work of God in the believer’s life, rather than the work of the believer.

This is not to say that the believer has no role, no application, no struggle in developing fruit in his life. However, one must ask the hard question, “If I’m being choked out by weeds, has God granted me the knowledge and understanding that Jesus talks about in Matthew?”

The first step in becoming fruit producing good soil then, is pleading with God in his mercy and grace to grant us hearing ears and seeing eyes. Only when God begins the work, can we see the resultant fruit, and that in abundance.

When God grants us understanding with our heart, we respond by returning to him (repentance) and he heals us (can we read into this that God improves the soil?) (Matthew 13:15). That healing leads toward abundance (verse 12); thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

Don’t be like the Pharisees and lay a heavy burden on your disciple that you yourself were/are not able to bear. Use the parable of the sower to show your disciple how God makes him fruitful when he sees the understands the kingdom of God.

Jeff and I met for a late lunch of sandwiches to catch up on the previous month; we normally meet just once a month with his busy financial advisor schedule. In the process, I asked him how the two fellows he was discipling were doing. One had dropped out of their weekly time together after only a couple meetings. The other was hanging in there, but Jeff had a lot of questions about all the questions this fellow was asking.

They were going through the Gospel of Mark (that was Jeff’s idea), but not making very much progress. Covering less than a paragraph at a time, Jeff’s friend (a lawyer) was asking a lot of questions that were not part of the text they agreed to read. Jeff wondered out loud, “Maybe I’m not doing something right.”

In college, Jeff was part of a disciple-making ministry. Ministry was simple and regimented; Bible study content was determined by the ministry leadership. People were assigned roles in the ministry based on their year of college. For example, college juniors became small group leaders with members assigned to the group by the leadership team. Freshmen were recruited to be discipled by juniors and seniors and went through materials that were provided by leadership.

While this might sound strange, but it fits the college life nicely. Every student was used to the idea of a progression of coursework, a syllabus that laid out the semester’s activities, the professors dictated that agenda and the students followed it. The ministry was very similar to college work: follow the leader and you will succeed.

When Jeff graduated, he came on staff with the ministry in an intern type of position. He now had greater influence in deciding curriculum and helped in the assignment of younger students to mentors and small groups. But very little actually changed in how students worked through the ministry program.

Today, Jeff lives in the vocational work with a wife and three small children. Any ministry activity needs to be built around work hours and family time. That usually leaves early morning meetings before work or short visits to a coffee shop as the only possibilities for discipling a younger believer who is also trying to balance work hours and family time.

Jeff said, “It was so easy in college. Everyone had a lot of flexibility in their availability. No one questioned the material or asked questions outside of the appointed content. Doing this in ‘the real world’ is so much harder.”

We talked about ways to get a little more structure in his discipling time, however we both acknowledged that discipling in “the real world” was going to be different from discipling in a college environment where everyone is about the same age, has the same experiences, few outside demands, and willingness to submit to conformity (interesting idea when so many college students are committed to non-conformity).

There’s reason why Jesus asked his disciples to pray for laborers/workers. Ministry is work, and work is rarely ever easy. As we get older and life gets busier, let’s not forget to set aside time to personally disciple another man. And remember flexibility is key, but we must maintain our focus as we adjust to life’s demands. The harvest is still plentiful. The laborers are still few. (Matthew 9:35-38)

A friend of mine is a pastor and teaches theology in a Christian college. A couple of days ago, he caused quite a stir on his Facebook page by asking this question: “If recreational marijuana was legal (similar to alcohol) throughout the US, would it be okay for Christians to use?” His page lit up with replies, and there was quite a bit of name-calling included. Two days later, people are still responding, and some of his friends have been warned to stop commenting or risk being blocked.

This morning I took a little time to scan through the comments, and it brought another question to mind: “Why did Mike feel compelled to ask that question on Facebook? I do plan on asking him that question, but my question began to get me thinking about why we might ask provocative questions of anyone, much less a group in a public forum where people seem to feel compelled to respond with strong answers and often be, what my wife used to say, ugly.

I began to think about provoking others, and two familiar Bible verses came to mind. Paul wrote to fathers living in Ephesus, saying, “do not provoke your children to anger.” He also wrote to the Corinthians that love “is not provoked.”

While in English, both these verses read with the word “provoke,” in the common Greek of Paul’s time, he used two different words: parorgizō to the Ephesians (which means “to rouse to wrath, to provoke, exasperate, anger”), and paroxynō to the Corinthians (which means “to make sharp, sharpen” either by stimulating or urging, or by exasperating, despising, or scorning.

It’s not clear to me why a father would purposely aggravate his children until they respond in anger, although I probably did that on more than one occasion with my own children. However, I would assume that a pastor asking a question on social media is not trying to provoke anger, and his question provides no trace of despising or scorning his friends who would be reading the question.

That leads me to a conclusion that the problem may not be in the asking of the question but in the response of others. Could it be that the person reading the question reads (or interprets) the question in a way that it was not meant in the asking? Could the reader, by default, assume that the question comes from a desire to exasperate, despise or scorn the reader, rather than to stimulate or urge the reader?

Are we taking the time to understand not only the question but the reasoning or emotions behind the question? Alternatively, we may ourselves also be guilty of exasperating, despising or scorning the person asking the question, either because we do not take the time to understand where the question comes from, or we do not care to give a reasonable response, or, worst of all, we simply do not care (I would consider anyone who would infer that a pastor is demon possessed because he implied that marijuana should be legalized to be guilty of not understanding and not caring).

For the sake of argument, one could find some fault on the person asking the question. However, I would ask why someone asking a question is faulty. Instead, I am reminded of my friend Jim Webster, who recently passed away from pancreatic cancer, who told me on more than one occasion, “You do not have the right to be offended, nor do you have the right to offend.” That means that I should not be asking a question of someone with the intention of offending them.

Another friend of mine, Don Lanier, advised me several times, “Always assume that a person has your best interests at heart, until he proves otherwise.” So, I should assume that Mike is asking a question with my best interests at heart, and I should not take offense at his question, nor attempt to offend him in my response.

So, the issue for me today, and I would ask you to consider as well, is how am I doing at responding to questions from others? Am I taking the time to understand what is behind the question? Am I attempting to answer the question that was asked in a stimulating way, or is my response provoking someone to anger?

The answers to these questions are what brings life to others, and ourselves.

How did it go when you covered John 1:1-18 with your friend? Let me assure you that each time you get together, you will get a little more comfortable leading the discussion. The hardest part is not knowing what might come up, and admitting that you may not know every answer. Was there something that you were asked that you didn’t know? You can help other Christians by posting a comment on the John 1:1-18 blog page so that they can see what you encountered. Just don’t get all hung up on the variables. Stick to the key questions!

This time we will move to John 1:35-51. Two things you will notice right away. 1.) We skipped verses 19 through 34. And I do suggest that you skip these. Remember that our objective is to learn about who Jesus said He was and what Jesus did. The verses we are skipping are more about John the Baptist than they are about Jesus. 2.) This passage is a little longer, and we’re beginning to get into some of the red letters. The Bible or New Testament you are using may not have red ink for the words of Jesus, but these words are where we want to spend much of our time talking. So here are this week’s questions:

For John 1:38 (Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”)
Question 1: If Jesus asked you, “What do you seek,” what would you say/answer?
(Give them plenty of time to consider what they might ask, even if they don’t believe Jesus was a true historical person.)

For John 1:41 (The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ).)
Question 2: What have you found?
(This question plays off the first question – what do you seek, what have you found. Your friend might have difficulty answering these questions, but be sure that the questions will continue to stir within them over the next weeks and months.)

For John 1:48 ( “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”)
Question 3: Who really knows you?
(A good follow-on questions is: Do you think God knows you? These kinds of questions are not something that most people normally consider. Give your friend time to think and answer. And don’t try to correct them. You’re asking for what they think, not for the theologically right answer!)

For John 1:49-50 (Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.”)
Question 4: Did Jesus agree or disagree with Nathanael’s statement?
(Our objective here is not to prove that Jesus is the Son of God and/or the King of Israel. It is to show that when called that name, He did not correct the person what said it. This might feel like an uncomfortable place for you to stop, but you’re ending your discussion with a key thought: That Jesus allowed people to call Him the Son of God.)