Centrality of Christ and Stages of Discipleship - Essay Example

Centrality of Christ and Stages of Discipleship] Presented By Presented To Discipleship entails among other things evangelizing, fellowship, bible study and prayers. The church is called to be Disciples of Christ and at the same time convert non believers to embrace discipleship. It entails leaving behind all activities that one is engaged in and following Christ. Just the way Peter, John and James were told to leave their craft of fishing and follows Jesus, God calls people to leave their worldly pursuit to follow Jesus (Willard, 2012). Jesus is the center of the discipleship because he died on the cross in order to save mankind. Being a Christ disciple means taking up the cross and suffering together with Christ. By getting into a covenant with Christ, he gives us the ability to carry our own crosses. It is through accepting the cross of Christ that Jesus is able to transform the lives of those who believe in him making them his own disciples. One can only exhibit true discipleship if they accept that Jesus died for them on the cross and they believe that his sacrifice was enough adornment for their sins. It is through the working of Christ in his people that they are able to practice the life of discipleship. For one to grow in the true discipleship, they should feed on the faith of Christ and his crucifixion (Hull, 2004: 76). This is seen in the preaching of Paul where he always started his sermon by proclaiming Christ as the savior of the world who died. Christ should always be at the center of discipleship proclamation. The centrality of Christ is illustrated in the theology of Paul in the New Testament. You will that in the books written by Paul, the ministry of Christ takes prominence. For instance, in the book of Romans, Paul takes about Christ and God in Rom 11:36 where he indicates that he performs things through Christ and in Christ. He clearly shows that it is from God that all good things originate and it is through him that good things are accomplished. To God belongs all the glory. According to Paul, the character of God is magnified in Christ. In Colossian Paul illustrates that it is through Christ that the image of God is displayed to mankind. He preaches about conversion and asks the disciples who decide to follow Jesus to walk in his footsteps (Col. 2.6). He shows that for a believer to be fully converted, they must yield themselves fully to the will of Christ. They should be willing to forget self and walk in the will of Christ. They must be converted to reflect the image of Christ in character by living according to his will and shunning their own selfish ways. In the book of Galatians, Paul admonishes the believers who argue that circumcision is a necessary prerequisite to becoming a Christian. He is against this though because it diverts the minds of the believer from the fact that salvation is based on Christ alone. It does not matter whether a person is circumcised or not. Whether they are Jews or pagans; God accepts people just the way they are. They only need to believe in Jesus Christ and his crucifixion and believe in his sacrifice for the atonement of the sins of the world. According to Paul, if one can achieve righteousness by observing the law, then the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross was futile. Preaching of righteousness by action diminishes the centrality of Christ as the true gospel surrounds the cross. He also elaborates on the blessing that the children of Abraham were promised (Gal 3;4). Being an offspring of Abraham does not automatically imply that a person enjoys the blessings that were promised to the sons of Abraham. For one to be a son of Abraham, they need to join the family of Christ and become spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham (Willard, 2012: 14). A person may thus be a biological descendant of Abraham but miss on the opportunity of going to heaven because they rejected the gospel of Christ. There are three stages of discipleship. John compares the three stages of discipleship with growth of a child. The first stage is that of a toddler/ infant, youth and the last stage is adulthood (1 John 2: 12-14). The first stage is the stage of declaration. This is the initial stage where people are chosen by Christ and they accept them as their savior. In the first Disciples of Christ, this period is seen to have lasted for about one year. During this time the disciples were called by Jesus from their secular positions to him in his mission. However, they would occasionally return to their secular work. In the present day, the first stage involves getting interested in the gospel of Christ (Longneck, 2007: 29). This is exhibited by a person frequenting the places of worship and taking an active interest in the ministry by reading the gospel. For instance, a non-believer needs to first get interested in the gospel as the initial step of becoming a disciple. It is the work of Christ follower to create this interest in the non-believer and drawing them to Christ. This can be done by evangelizing through organizing active crusade or through exhibiting the life of Christ in actions and behavior. After the initial interest, the person then takes time to study and understand the gospel. They allow Christ to work within them and transform them to their likeness and can now declare to be true followers of Christ (Law, 2011: 237). According to John, it is the work of the believers to nurture the new disciple and nourish them with the food of the gospel by teaching them basic teaching about salvation and Christ. The second stage in discipleship is development. In this stage the disciples are prepared for the task of becoming evangelist. During the development of the 12 disciples, this stage took one year and it involved the disciples leaving their secular jobs to join Christ in the ministry fully. By walking with Jesus every day, the disciple learnt how to conduct their main mission which was to convert the unbelievers into becoming followers of Christ. This stage involves in depth learning of the principles of Christendom. It may take a short time depending in the person ability to comprehend spiritual matters and their willingness to be submitted to the transforming grace of Christ. According to John, after passing the stage of childhood and becoming a youth, the new believer is now ready to feed on the hard foods. In this stage the believer digs deeper into the word of God. They also seek to identify the kind of sins that they struggle with and repent them (Hull, 2004: 43). It is a stage of thorough preparation for the ultimate mission that all the disciples have been called to: making others to become a disciple. It is not possible to convert non-believer to become disciples if one has not fully understood the story of redemption and experienced the working on the spirit in their lives. The last stage of discipleship is deployment where the now developed disciple is sent to the field to make disciples from men. John compares this stage with the father. A father has gone through the temporal stage of youth and is now able to lead and guide the young ones. During the time of Jesus, deployment of the disciples was done after they had received the Holy Spirit. The disciples had walked with Christ on his sojourn on this earth for three years. They had watched him perform miracles and had experienced his priceless sacrifice and his miraculous resurrection. It was not time that they confessed to the world of the saving grace of Christ. The same applied to the disciples of today. It is after walking with God for a long time and learning his ways and becoming established in the Christian faith that one can be deployed to go and convert other souls (Henderson & Michael (2010: 176). . Being a father, one is called into service of nourishing the young believers and showing them the way rest they stumble upon blocks that they may find on the road to righteousness. They also give comfort to those who need to be comforted. It has been observed that Christ takes the central position in discipleship. It is through accepting the atoning blood of Christ that non-believers are brought into fellowship with Christ. The laws of the Old Testament are meaningless without acknowledging that the sacrifice that Christ offered in enough atonement for sin. The three stages of discipleship are based on the understanding of the gospel of Christ in order to fulfill the ultimate mission of disciples which is to turn non-believers into followers of Christ. Bibliography Henderson, D. Michael (2010). A Model for Making Disciples: John Wesley’s Class Meeting, Nappanee, IN: Francis Asbury Press. Hull, Bill (2004). Choose the Life: Exploring a Faith that Embraces Discipleship. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House. Law, William (2011). A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life: Adapted to the State and Condition of All Orders of Christians, London: Griffith Farran & Co, n.d. Longenecker, Richard (2007). Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Willard, Dallas (2012).The Spirit of the Disciplines, San Francisco: Harper and Row. Read More