Discipleship

Discipleship

Introduction:

The word disciple comes from the Greek word "Mathétés". It means, one

who learns. The twelve disciples were chosen to represent the twelve

tribes of Israel. There are four lists given of the names of the

disciples. In Mark's gospel the list is in Mk3: 16-19. In Mark and

Matthew's gospel they both include Thaddeus but in Luke's gospel he

has Judas Son of James nicknamed Thaddeus since the name Judas was

hated by the early church. But at that time disciples were very

common, everybody had them because in MK 2:18, we are told that the

disciples of the Pharisees are fasting. All rabbis had disciples. They

hoped to become rabbis themselves and thought that they'd get glory,

wealth, honour and maybe even a place in heaven for leading a good

life. What is unique to discipleship for Jesus is the type of people

who followed him, the values needed to be a true disciple, how he

called them to follow him and what they were charged to do.

The calling of the Disciples:

Jesus called the lowest people in Jewish society, fishermen and tax

collectors, etc. The way he called them was extraordinary. Because

being a fisherman and owning your own boat like Simon and Andrew would

have been a well enough paid job and would have been a good enough

life. And to give it up in an instant just because Jesus said, "Come

follow me" would have been a very big leap of faith for them. They

must have trusted Jesus entirely to do this. Simon (Peter) and his

brother Andrew were fishing & James and John were mending their nets

when Jesus said to them;

"Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men" (MK1:17)

Jesus says this as it shows that the disciples are to bring people

back to god. Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist at the time but

left him to go follow Jesus. As Jesus was talking to the crowd, Levi,

son of Alphaeus (later known as Matthew) was sitting at the tax