ORE TRUTH
What is discipling?
Discipling is an intentional relationship in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ. This includes equipping the disciple to make disciples who make disciples.
1. Identify key words or phrases in the question and answer above, and state their meaning in your own words.
2. Restate the core truth in your own words.
3. What questions or issues does the core truth raise for you?
EMORY VERSE STUDY GUIDE
Jesus’ mission statement for the church is to make disciples. These pivotal verses (Matthew 28:18-20) are commonly referred to as the Great Commission.
1.Putting it in context: Read Matthew 28. What key events precede Jesus’ giving the Great Commission, and how would they have affected the disciples?
2. The memory verses areMatthew 28:18-20. Copy these verses verbatim.
3. What do these verses teach us about Jesus?
4. Why does Jesus stress his authority (v. 18) as a backdrop to his command to “make disciples”?
5. What do the action words of “go, baptizing and teaching” tell us about how disciplemaking is to be carried out?
6. When is a disciple made?
7. How have these verses spoken to you this week?
NDUCTIVE BIBLE STUDY GUIDE
Jesus always lived with a view to the end of his earthly ministry. The preparation of a few who would carry on his ministry after he ascended to the Father was ever before him. This Bible study focuses on the training and transference of ministry to his selected disciples.
1.Read Luke 6:12-16; 9:1-6, 10. What do you suppose Jesus included in his all-night prayer? (See the readinghere for some ideas.)
2. What can you learn about Jesus’ strategic purpose for the selection of the Twelve from 9:1-6?
3. What power and authority was given to the disciples? What power and authority can we expect to receive from Jesus today?
4. What was Jesus’ role with the disciples after their return (9:10)?
5. What questions do these passages raise for you?
6. What verse or verses have particularly impacted you? Rewrite key verses in your own words.
EADING: A BIBLICAL CALL TO MAKING DISCIPLES
When Jesus commanded his disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), he spoke the mission statement for the church. Jesus told his disciples to do what he had done during his three years of ministry. Jesus made disciples by selecting a few into whom he poured his life.
JESUS’ METHOD OF DISCIPLEMAKING
What was the strategic advantage of having twelve men who would “be with him” (Mark 3:14)? There are many reasons, but two seem most relevant.
Internalization. By focusing on a few Jesus was able to ensure the lasting nature of his mission. We might wonder why Jesus would risk others’ jealousy by publicly selecting twelve from a larger group of disciples (Luke 6:13). Why didn’t Jesus simply continue to expand his growing entourage and create a mass movement? The apostle John captures Jesus’ caution when people clamored to him because of the marvelous signs: “But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone” (John 2:24-25 NRSV).
Though Jesus ministered to the needs of the crowds, he knew they were fickle. The same ones who shouted “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday were shouting “Crucify him” five days later on Good Friday. Knowing the whims of the throng, Jesus built his ministry on a select few who would form the superstructure of his future kingdom. Disciples cannot be mass produced but are the product of intimate and personal investment. A. B. Bruce summarizes this point: “The careful, painstaking education of the disciples secured that the Teacher’s influence on the world should be permanent, that His Kingdom should be founded on deep and indestructible convictions in the minds of a few, not on the shifting sands of superficial impressions on the minds of many.”1
Multiplication. Just because Jesus foc
