What is the definition of discipleship?

What every Christian should Consider

Divided Road

This deceptively simple question is dangerous and wonderful. Let me explain. It’s dangerous because it challenges the status quo of common practice. It’s wonderful because by diving into some of the details, we can see the awesome work of YHWH over the centuries on a massive scale. The end result is a very clear perspective of what can be, what is at present, and why some problems have arisen that challenge that. As a professional modern-day educator and Yeshiva student, I find these concepts fascinating and can shed light on them from a detailed and broad perspective that will hopefully edify you.

In a previous post, click here to read, I covered what a disciple was in antiquity. To summarize, disciples learned more than mental facts, they learned to imitate their teacher in almost every facet of life. Yeshua was not the only person to have disciples though. There were many teachers of the Torah who had disciples. Hillel, Shammai, and Gamaliel, each had disciples, and Hillel and Shammai both had respective institutions if you will, called Beit (House of) Hillel and Beit (House of) Shammai. Had our faith grown to be an institution within Israel instead of Rome, perhaps our perspective would be as Talmidim of Beit Yeshua instead of as Christian disciples of the church.

Since the modern world is awash with the perspectives of institutional Christianity we are left with very important questions. Is this the same as that? Is Christian discipleship the same as Talmidot? What is the difference? If they are significantly different, what is the right way?

What are the Criteria for Judgment?

If we are going to come to understand the challenge, we have to first agree on a system to use for discernment. For this exercise, I suggest we use a modern academic understanding of knowledge as a starting point. That places the entire conundrum within the field of epistemology. Epistemology can be understood as a question, “How do you know what you know?” Answering this question leads us to identify the sources of our knowledge. The five sources of knowledge according to epistemology are perception, memory, introspection, inference, and testimony. Note that all five areas of knowledge are addressed extensively by the Torah and the B’rit Hadasha!

Whether one is a Christian Minister or Rabbi, these five areas are available for transferring knowledge from one generation to the next. The foundational method of instruction for both Christianity and Judaism is the study of scripture. The discipline used to process and understand the scripture though is very specific, exegesis. While this word is common to Jews and Christians, the methods are distinct. Anyone would be surprised to learn that Christians have a different process for interpreting Jewish scripture from Judaism. Christianity has at least eleven different competing doctrines of exegesis that developed long after the scriptures were written and the canons were established. Only the early writings of Origen reflect the Jewish Midrash style of exegesis because of the writings of Sha’ul. Others have found a plethora of competing ways to interpret what is written based on the perspectives and values of different institutions whether Catholic, protestant, or either scientifically based, historically accurate, and so on.

During the time of Yeshua by comparison, there were two very popular schools of thought regarding exegesis. Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai had two competing approaches, one liberal and one more conservative. In the gospels, when Yeshua says, “You have heard…but I say…” and then modifies the learning, he is correcting a perspective, not disregarding the entire learning discipline or exegetical process. He very carefully never says, “Stop learning from the Torah teachers or Rabbi's.” Instead, he says to do everything they tell you to do. This is the point, 1. Yeshua reinforces the value of Judaic Biblical Exegesis by not dismantling it and 2. by commanding his followers to follow the ones who use it with his modifications. 3. By commanding his disciples to go forth and create Talmidim (exact replicas) of their own into perpetuity. The epistles further define this point saying that anyone who teaches differently should be condemned to hell. Moreover, Yeshua hammers the point home saying that anyone who teaches you not to follow even the least of the commandments of the Torah is among the least in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Has the church been successful at discipleship?

When Christian institutions changed the way to interpret scripture and departed from the methodology that Yeshua endorsed, what happened? Entropy happened, and chaos happened. In the absence of headship (downward pressure), events become random (chaotic). Every possible permutation and angle of understanding proliferated to the point where today, there is a church that promotes the sparkle creed (over the apostle’s creed) and blasphemes the Ruach HaKodesh. Major denominations in the US and the UK have split over LGBTQ issues, all of which blatantly transgress the Torah. The Evangelical church is in freefall with disillusioned attendees abandoning core beliefs. Some church leaders decry the modern changes and departures from traditional interpretations but lack the authority or moral high ground to distinguish their methods of understanding from those in strident error. Few of the leaders of those institutions could be confused with uneducated or unlearned people. The problem is clearly not that they tried to read scripture. The problem is how they learned, what they learned, and how that is applied to life. If the net result of Christian discipleship is harshly and extremely different from how Yeshua actually lived day to day, then we can accurately say that it is different. That difference makes a gaping hole in the structure of the church for hell to walk right in. Now that hell is walking in, the children of Adonai are walking out. Fifty years ago, this might have been an extreme statement, but today the evidence is staring us right in the face. Christian interpretation of scripture is somehow off base and not working.

The core of discipleship is learning. The core of learning is knowing. The core of knowing is epistemology (answering how you know what you know). The practice of acquiring knowledge from scripture is housed within exegesis. If exegesis is corrupted, the entire structure is corrupted, and reading scripture becomes an exercise in proving one's own presuppositions and as random as there are people on the earth. Unlike the houses of Hillel and Shammai of his day, would Yeshua correct or completely destroy the methods of exegesis we encounter in our age if that exegesis is leading to blasphemy?

Talmidot and Christian Discipleship...to be continued