The Start of Discipleship

Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men

[Matthew 4:19]


Jesus is a great model for discipleship, after all he picked 12 guys got to work on and the end result was not only were they changed but so was the whole world.

Two simple steps.

1. Follow me, imitate me, become like me.
2. Go and do the same.

Seeing as he was talking to fisher men he talked about fishing, if he were talking to me he'd talk in teaching terms, in music terms, or anything to get the point across.

Listen and repeat, Follow the beat, play it for others.

There is one last problem. Following someone means not going your own way, instead you have to go where they go.

or Perhaps a better way of saying it....

Jesus and present simple sentences

After introductions and basic questions about themselves we usually move on to teaching students present simple sentences [starting with affirmative, positive statements and then moving on to negatives and interrogative (or question) forms] Jesus seams to follow this pattern.

The Beatitudes

2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

5 "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sonst of God.

10 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you
 

The beatitudes in Matthew five are full of present simple sentences. Blessed are....

For those of you who don't know present simple is used for stating repeated actions [with varied frequency] and facts. Here Jesus is stating facts and repeated actions. When you are persecuted (this isn't a single offense) you are blessed [you may not my choice of a zero conditional there, to exaggerate the nature of this being a fact.]

Let's look at the grammar a bit deeper, these are actually all passive voice sentences. They don't state who does the blessing. We use passive voice when we don't need to state who is doing an action as the result is more important OR we know who is doing the action.

So which is it in this case? Well it is certainly possible that Jesus wants to focus on the positive outcomes of these blessings and the nature of the blessings. However if we look at the end of the section we can see that actually there is the assumed knowledge there ("for your reward is great in heaven")

So Jesus's first sermon started with a load of facts in the present simple passive voice. They were all about how God blesses the unlikely and people who appear to be losers (in the fullest sense of the word)

Hello I'm... What's your name?

When teaching language skills we focus on tasks, skills and communicative goals and not teaching a set of grammar or vocab (unless they achieve these goals) [At least in theory!]

Typical the blog post title is the first skill that a language speaker learns in any language. Introducing themselves. After all being able to introduce yourself is usually the foundation in any use of language [even within such things as Airtrafic control pilots have to use such lexical phrases as "this is flight..." or "this is the control tower" a form of introduction in their field.] As such it is interesting to see what Jesus's introduction is.

Jesus being introduced by others

In the gospels Matthew starts by showing us Jesus linage before going on to detail his birth with Joseph being visited by an angel before hand.

In Mark Jesus is first spoken about by John before he is then baptised and God's voice declares him to be his son.

In Luke he talks about John's birth before Introducing Jesus and explaining how an angel tells Mary she will give birth to the Messiah.

In Johns he introduces us to "the word" who was with God and is God.

This is no normal man.

Jesus Introducing himself

The first time Jesus introduces himself  in Matthew[I'm discounting with John the baptist as he knows who he is and the temptations by the devil for the same reasons] is to call people to repent and follow him.

The first time in Mark is for the same purpose.

The first time in Luke is when he declares the year of Jubilee has come with him and that the kingdom is now here.

The first time in John is actually when Jesus ask other people! (also in John 1 v 35-39) He starts with the question "What do you want?" and then invites them to "come" [this is to two of John's disciples who hear John call Jesus the Lamb of God].

Now I don't know about you but I've never had anyone introduce themselves and tell me to follow them. I've never had anyone tell me to "Change direction" when they've first met me. The way Jesus introduces himself and the language he uses tell us so much about him.

Did even John the Baptist have doubts?

I used to think that John the Baptist sending his disciplesto check out Jesus, when John was in jail, was a very strange thing. They turn up with instructions to ask Jesus “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” and yet John himself was the one who Launches Jesus on to the main stage, who announces his arrival and hears God’s voice from heaven declare him to be HIS son. In fact in other gospels when Mary visits Elisabeth when she is pregnant with John, John does a summersault in Elisabeth’s stomachas Mary (with Jesus in womb) speaks, he clearly recognised him them. It does seam a bit strange of John to now be reflecting and wondering if he got it right.

However maybe this is quite a natural thing, John knows his time is almost up, he’s probably heard some people bad mouthing Jesus saying he can’t be the messiah as he eats too much and get’s drunk [Jesus does tackle these claims straight after John’s disciples leave] John is probably wondering if his whole life has been built upon a lie or a miss reading. Having had several friends who have stopped following God I have seen this in them too (and at moments myself as well). We hear things like, Christianity is sexist/racist/homophobic/evil/causes wars/not charitable etc and we can start to wonder did I follow the right man? Is my life based on a lie?

So how does Jesus respond?

“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who doesn’t fall a way on account of me.”

These are thing things that Jesus preached about in his first sermon, the year of jubilee has come, the kingdom of God is here (which is what he goes on to talk about after John’s disciples have left) This is the proof that Jesus is who he says he is.

There is the curious last line though. I do wonder if this is again a comment about accusations of being a drunk and glutton or maybe just the fact of how narky he could be. Either way it almost seams to be Jesus is saying HE can be a barrier to faith. I’m not sure what to make of that! 

Jesus was a white man?

If you're from the western world then I'm sure you're familiar with his image of Jesus. Also known as "Jesus the white man". 

For a long time it actually filled me with some feelings of rang at the complete lack of authentic representation for Jesus appearance that we see within stain glass and classical paintings. These images have in some cases been used to reinforce racial prejudice and in some cases anti-Semitism. After all Jesus was just like us and certainly not like them. 

Of course this flies completely in the face of the gospel message and people can only come to this conclusion with selectively reading the bible to reinforce a pre-exisiting world view and not asking God to challenge them as to what HE is revealing from the Bible. However, this made me feel uneasy... Why was Jesus not a Jewish and from the middle east?

However recently I wondered if this was a deliberate mistake. You see everyone wants a Jesus they can relate to and often the elements of God we most relate to get overemphasised (and sometimes we diminish the parts we don't like). Maybe these painters wanted to show that God was their God, not just the God of this tribe or that but he was their God. If you go to Africa you can find pictures of Jesus who is black, if you go to India then there are pictures of Jesus as an Indian man. 

Jesus was the God for all and people.