Discipleship
Teachers around the time when Jesus lived thought that learning was such that the people who wanted to learn should come to them to be taught. But Jesus felt differently and rather than waiting for people to come to him, he went out to find them and then chose them to be his followers. He called them disciples and this word means one who learns. But Jesus chose his disciples carefully as we are told in Mark 1:16-20 and also in Mark 3:13-19. In the first passage, Jesus appoints his first four disciples, Simon, Andrew, James and John. Jesus said to them “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17) In Mark 2:13-17, Jesus calls up the fifth disciple, Levi who was a tax collector, and Jesus later renamed him Matthew. But Levi was not called in the same way as the other four disciples. Jesus was with him at the tax collector’s booth and Jesus simply said, “Follow me” (Mark 2:14) and he rose and followed Jesus.
These five men responded immediately to Jesus and this is very surprising as he is a man who they have never met before. It is quite clear that this idea of discipleship for the first disciples is very important and that Jesus is planning on building his faith in them and he wants them to spread the word around to the people. (Mark 3:14)
Jesus appointed 12 disciples in total and this number was significant because each one represented one of the twelve tribes of Israel. (Mark 3:13-19) Jesus gave them the authority to cast out demons and preach to his people and they were known as his companions. It seems strange for him to choose those specific people as his twelve because he could have chosen from many of his disciples, but he chose a specific twelve to be his companions and apostles.
When Jesus chose his apostles, there were two unusual choices: Levi and Simon the Zealot. Levi was a strange choice because he was a tax collector who had managed to get more money out of people than they need pay and so many people hated him and many other tax collectors. Simon the Zealot was an unusual choice because he was a zealot and although they had a strong belief in God, they hated the Romans, and being ruled by foreigners.
In the mission of the twelve, Jesus calls them to him and sends them in two’s saying that they have the authority over evil spirits. (Mark 6: 7-13) Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave th...
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...o Pilate, JesusÆ main enemy, or trouble, was the Roman Empire. Their religion was polytheistic; they had, among many others, a god of war, (Mars), a god of wine, (Bacchus), and a goddess of love, (Venus). They also believed that their Emperor, at the time Caesar, was a living God. This included Jesus, one of his titles being "King of the Jews". At the time of JesusÆ death, this number was sizeable, and as the early church grew, after the resurrection, the followers grew in number too. Literally. All of the people who attended these secret meetings, to tell or listen to the tales of Jesus Christ, were disciples. They were risking their lives to spread the good news. Stephen was viciously stoned to death after his great speech at the Sanhedrin (Acts 7), and Peter was crucified. There are many examples of modern day disciples around. Oscar Romero was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador. Endangering your own life by fighting oppression, injustice, and going up against bigger powers, or giving your life to helping others. There are still some people today who take the faith as seriously as the first Christians do, but not many. TodayÆs society is too materialistic.
This paper will prove it will remain unknown if the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) crash sighting at Roswell, New Mexico on July 4th, 1947 did happen, although the government is hiding Extraterrestrial information there. The following is a list of terms that may become confusing to some readers.
The UFO crash site in Roswell New Mexico in 1947 was the start of people’s interest in extraterrestrials, the discovery of military secrets and experiments kept from society, and the start, in search of answering are we alone in this universe.
The Roswell UFO incident is considered to be the most controversial and well known capture of an alien craft and its occupants. It is still unknown to the public and the United States Military still maintains that the crash was that of a secret balloon. Information has been concealed and misinterpreted since the incident, the people may never know the true story of Roswell. Or if the military press release really is true and all that truly happened was a crashed surveillance balloon.
The Meaning of Discipleship In this piece of coursework I will be writing about the meaning of
Have you ever heard about the Roswell, New Mexico, UFO incident? Well if not in 1947 a UFO crashed in New Mexico. The Air Force said it was a weather balloon that crashed and it wasn’t a UFO but people that think of this crash think otherwise.
Almost everyone in the United States has heard about the small town of Roswell, New Mexico, primarily because of its connections with UFO’s. This crash site became one of the most credible and well known UFO crashes ever. One of the reasons for this is the fact that the U.S military initially reported that they had, in fact, recovered a crashed flying saucer. It was all over the newspapers and radio stations, declaring that the military had recovered a flying disk. Later, the military retracted that statement, saying that it was actually just a misidentified weather balloon, and the news that the military retracted their statement was even larger news than the crash was. (Marshall, Brian) The second thing that made the crash site more controversial is the way the military controlled the evidence. The military collected every single piece of debris from the crashing site and they even took all the evidence that rancher had collected, leaving nothing behind.
Among the other things that Jesus did during His time on earth, He made disciples. His command to His disciples to “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) was an extension of His disciple-making
"It appears, that of all the apostle John was especially favoured with our Lord's regard and confidence, so as to be called the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Peoples Bible-John 1). Even though John loved his leader so much, he still ran away like the other disciples did when Jesus was arrested. John was still their when Jesus had his trial and was crucified. Jesus also in trusted John with the care of his mother. John was there with Jesus when he would perform all of his great miracles. On of the famous lines from John is "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Peoples Bible- John 6). John was the spiritual evangelist. John and his brother James were called the Sons of Thunder.
What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? While I’ve never really thought too much about it, I feel that it’s something that I learned subconsciously while growing up in church. After reading Lee Camp’s Mere Discipleship, I find that a lot of what I believe to be considered a part of being a disciple is in fact true, but I also find my knowledge about the topic to be greatly expanded and mostly cleared up from what I understood before.
. At the town of Roswell an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) crash landed in the quiet little town. Many Roswell residents testified that they saw a burning object plummet toward the ground before exploding upon impact. The Air Force's initial reaction to the incident was to tell the world that they did not know what it was. This shows me evidence that they had no “protocol” for this kind of occurrence, thus the Military leader stepped in and covered everything up. This incident caught the attention of citizens of the United States, local officials, and the media. It has especially gained interest in a variety of Special interest groups/ groups that specialize in researching and investigating events that involve UFO’s.
The Roswell incident is one of the most publicized and well-known accounts of a possible UFO crash in the world. Perhaps the greatest evidence that a UFO did indeed crash near Roswell, is the wide scale military cover up that took place after the crash. This along with numerous eyewitness accounts of the crash site, prove that what ever happened in the summer of 1947, was certainly not a normal occurrence.
Jesus was the Son of God and some may ask why he needed followers, the
phenomenon there is diversity in the proof. The MIT physicist confirmed that there is not one, single, independently confirmed piece of scientific evidence for an alien abduction.
...Peter with the rest of the disciples, and not that of the “over exalted” view some people of the time had created.
When Jesus called His disciples, His invitation was simple. He invited them to follow Him. The same is true today. In Matthew 28, Jesus gave His last charge to His disciples, and the charge was simple. He called his followers to go and make disciples. Much effort has been placed by Christians to fulfill this charge, commonly referred to as the Great Commission. Jesus chose to fulfill the implementation of the New Covenant through 12 men who He called, appointed, and commissioned, and he only had a few short years to prepare them for the task (Willson, 1990). His methods were unconventional and were revolutionary for that time. His disciples were to be trained extensively by Jesus, living with Him for three years prior to His ascension. He taught about servant leadership and its meaning for both the leader and follower Matt. 20:25-28). From the beginning, Jesus put in place a careful plan, and an examination of His actions in the Gospels showed that Jesus left behind the pattern to be replicated. His methods, which included the incorporation of three different levels of discipleship, included His interaction with Peter, His closest three (Peter, James, and John), and finally the group of 12. This paper identified and analyzed the three levels of discipleship Jesus modeled, these discipleship methods were then measured against modern leadership theories, and Jesus’s level of involvement and interaction with his disciples were critiqued in light of these modern theories in an effort to determine the effectiveness of this approach.