More on Discipleship

Let me return to the subject of discipleship this morning. Jacob came in 1st thing and said that the fall youth retreat was going to be centered on that topic. So we discussed discipleship for a few minutes.

I am coming to realize that I have heard the words of Jesus so much that they had lost their punch. But currently, I am walking through a period in my life in which I am hearing them afresh. They are SO convicting -- His call to a sold-out, different-from-the-world life.

A disciple is more than just a learner. With our Western minds, we think of a learner as someone sitting at a desk taking notes from a lecturing teacher. In the Eastern world, learning took place at a different level. I loved the illustration that Rob Bell used in his book Velvet Elvis as he discussed the meaning of "disciple." Young Jewish boys would choose to become disciples of a particular rabbi. They would follow him everywhere -- even staying close as he went to the bathroom. In the Jewish rabbinical teachings, it states that a disciple should "wear the dust of his rabbi." In other words, he stayed so close to him -- learning from him, becoming like him -- that at the end of the day, he was covered by the dust kicked up by the rabbi as he walked.

This is the way Beverly and I "learned" on our trip to Israel. We stayed so close to our guide, Anton, that if it had been dusty, we would have been covered. We didn't want to miss a word. We dialoged with him as we walked. Something like that of an Eastern disciple.

In my prayer time this morning, I had prayed that today I might "wear the dust of Jesus." And then Jacob coming in to talk about discipleship just reinforced that. Oh, how I want to be like Jesus -- to my wife, to the waiter at the restaurant tonight, to the guy who cuts me off in traffic. Let me be covered with the dust of Jesus.