Disciplines: An Introduction

Note: This is part of my series on Discipleship and Disciplines. You might want to read from the beginning if you haven't already.

A vital part of pursuing a disciple's life is the practice of spiritual disciplines. No, I'm not talking about God the Father pulling out His cosmic paddle and taking you to the spiritual woodshed. I'm talking about intentional, costly efforts that are designed to help you grow in strength, control, or skill, with a view toward improving your spiritual walk. These practices will help you to find your path, remove distractions, and keep moving in the right direction.

Here are some other forms of discipline you might be more familiar with:

• A child practicing an instrument
• A mother of four working out with a personal trainer
• Football players taking dance lessons
• A toddler sitting in timeout or losing privileges
• A college student taking a defensive driving course

Let's think about what these examples have in common:

• They don't necessarily come naturally
• They're not always pleasant
• They're done in an effort to get better:
• Become better-rounded, more mature, or more complete
• Improve or broaden a skillset; become more useful
• Grow in skill, strength, speed, flexibility, or patience

How are these examples different from one another?

• Some are self-imposed; some are imposed by others
• The goal of the discipline depends on who is imposing it
• The structure (i.e., what it looks like) depends on the goal
• Self-imposed discipline requires a level of personal commitment
• Some are regularly scheduled; others occur on an as-needed basis
• Sometimes the focus is on developing new abilities; sometimes it's on improving or expanding existing abilities
• Each discipline has different costs and benefits, both to the one receiving it and the one administering it

Discipline is an act of faith, just as sowing a seed is. Though we cannot see the results yet, we trust that this momentary, costly activity will bring benefits greater than its cost. In other words, we think spiritual disciplines are a smart investment. We press on because of our firm hope that these things will come to pass (cf. Hebrews 11:1).

Spiritual disciplines are primarily self-imposed. In other words, we make a conscious decision to place ourselves under a particular discipline. We do this because we expect it to bring about a certain result in our lives.

In my next post, I'll discuss the scriptural basis for making spiritual disciplines a top priority in the life of every Christ-follower.

Discipleship: An Introduction

A disciple is one who follows and learns. The term comes from the Latin word discipulus, meaning student, pupil, or follower. And yet a disciple is more than a mere student. A true disciple must immerse himself in the master's teaching. He must allow it to become a way of life, not just a set of ideas. The deeper he goes, the truer a disciple he becomes.

In John 8:31-32, Jesus tells the Jews who have believed in Him, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." I think we'd all agree that we'd like to be free. And if we're followers of Christ, we also want to know His truth. So, then, continuing in His word is vital, if we are to attain these goals.

At least three things are required on the path to becoming Christ's true disciples:

1. Know the word. You can't follow a path if you don't know where it is. Similarly, you can't walk in the truth if you don't know what it is. Psalm 119:105 says that God's word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It shows us the way we ought to go.

2. Remove distractions. You won't get far on a journey if you keep taking side-paths that lead away from your goal. I John 2:15 instructs us not to love the world nor the things in the world. This is because the world around us is caught up in worldly, fleshly things. It isn't concerned about spiritual truths, so being too attached to the world will prevent us from setting our affections on things above, where Christ is (Colossians 3:2).

3. Begin following. You'll never get anywhere if you don't start. An old proverb says that the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, and that's true. Before Joshua's death, he urged the Israelites to "choose for yourselves today whom you will serve" (Joshua 24:15). The same choice applies to you and me, every day of our lives. Yes, we have chosen Christ once. But if we want to continue down the path with Him, if we want to grow in Him, we also keep choosing Him, moment by moment and day by day.

My purpose over the next few weeks is to outline how to get from where you are to where you want to be in a relationship with Christ. In other words, I want to help you reach that spot where you can look at your life, evaluate it in light of John 8:31 ("If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine"), and say, "Yes! That's me!"

In my next post, I'll introduce some tools that will help us as we journey together toward discipleship.

Commentary on John 1:4-5

 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

-John 1:4-5 (NASB)

Here, John continues on with more abstract descriptions of the Word: He is the source of a life that brings light to all of humanity. The same living Word who was in the beginning, who was everything's first cause, continues providing life, light, and goodness to all who see Him.

In verse 5, we see our first indication of an adversary. Up until now, the Word has been unopposed, as well you might imagine. After all, think about what a potential opponent would be facing: A being that was in the beginning with God, that is one with God Himself, and that has brought all things into existence. It's not exactly taking candy from a baby to go up against this guy.

Nonetheless, this divinely powerful Light does have an opponent: The darkness. The word that the NASB renders "comprehend" is actually κατέλαβεν, and "comprehend" is only one possible meaning. Other senses of the word include "take hold of," "arrest," "capture," and "perceive." It comes from two words meaning "to aggressively take" and "down." Literally, the darkness cannot take the light down.

So the darkness could signify ignorance here: The Light was shining in the darkness, but the darkness failed to understand it.

Or the darkness could signify opposition: Despite its best efforts, the darkness couldn't stop the Light from overcoming it.

Regardless of which sense is correct here (and the answer might be that both are!), the Light stands in direct opposition to the darkness. It contends against darkness, evil, ignorance, and general sneakiness. This is a common theme in St. John's writings -- his first epistle reads, "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" (I John 1:5).

The stage is set, the actors are in position, and the lights have come up on center stage, overwhelming and driving out the darkness. (The darkness isn't completely gone, though -- he's hiding in the wings, preparing for his next appearance.) Now, at last, we're ready for the narrator to come on the scene...

Commentary on John 1:3

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

-John 1:3 (NASB)

Here, we learn that the Word (who, as you'll remember, was both with God and one with Him) is the source everything that exists. In other words, nothing has appeared on the universe's stage without His direct, express involvement.

This is probably as good a time as any to address a couple of Christianity's fundamental problems:

1. If God's nature is thoroughly good, unadulterated by any evil, and if everything in existence has come through God, then how can we explain evil's existence? How could a good God have created a world fraught with evil?


2. Similarly, if God is all-powerful, and if He hates evil (since it is foreign to His character), how can we explain evil's continued existence? Why hasn't He wiped it out from the universe once and for all?

It would be foolish to claim that I have some final, ironclad answer to these questions. In fact, many brilliant philosophers have been arguing about this very matter for centuries. I can, however, tell you where my intellectual and spiritual journey has led me. 

1. I believe that when God creates rational beings, He gives them the ability to make decisions. This statement may seem obvious, but think about its implications. If God forced every human -- or angel, or whatever other will-bearing beings may exist -- to behave in accordance with His perfect nature, they wouldn't truly have the ability to make decisions. Oh, they might be able to choose within a range of acceptable options, but the decisions that mattered most to their identities would have been made for them long ago.
   
   I would argue, then, that our ability to choose evil is a fundamental part of being made in God's image. That is, our capacity for making decisions -- good or bad -- is the fingerprint of the divine.


2. I believe that mercy is a fundamental part of God's nature. This is particularly true in how He views mankind, His favorite creatures. Just as I do not wish to destroy my children when they choose to disobey me, God does not wish to wipe out His disobedient children, either. Instead, He wants to reach out, to restore our broken relationship, to give us as many chances to repent as possible.
   
   This is why He sent His Son to take our sins on Himself and bear the punishment of our evil. Being divine, Christ is able to accept God's wrath without being permanently removed from His sight. Being human, Christ is able to truly take the punishment that Adam and his children deserved.
   
   Nonetheless, God is also constrained by His goodness, righteousness, and holiness. Thus, He cannot and will not brook unrepentant rebellion forever. A day of reckoning must come for those who do not accept Christ's substitutionary sacrifice on their behalf.

We'll dig deeper into these ideas later. For now, the important thing  to see is that everything came into existence through the medium of the Word, the divine logos. And by everything, the evangelist means EVERYTHING. He emphasizes this by repeating himself in the second phrase: "Apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." 

God's very divine Word, the being with whom He is one, and with whom He was in the beginning, is the source of everything that is and everything that ever has been. And, as we'll see, the Word is also the only way for God's rebellious children to return to Him.

Commentary on John 1:1-2

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

-John 1:1-2 (NASB)

From the very first words of John's gospel, it's obvious that this won't be a straightforward story. Jesus Christ, of course, is the focus of this book, but the evangelist won't actually mention him by name until verse 17. Instead, he begins with a more abstract title: logos (λόγος - "the Word").

John's audience, if they were familiar with the Septuagint (the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek), probably would have identified logos with God's universe-creating word of power, as in Psalm 33:6:

By the word [λόγω] of the Lord the heavens were made,
And by the breath of His mouth all their host.

If the readers were familiar with contemporary Jewish philosophers, they might have also heard of Philo of Alexandria's concept of the logos, which he identified with the Angel of the Lord. For Philo, the logos was an immaterial, adequate shadow of God, containing the fullness of His supernatural wisdom and power. Or perhaps they would have known of the Stoic concept of logos, dating back to 300 BC. Zeno and other stoics considered the logos to be the material, driving principle behind all life and action in the universe.

John's use of the term logos signals that he wants to provide his readers with a narrative deeper than a mere recounting of historical events. That doesn't mean he's going to play fast and loose with the facts. It does mean, though, that he's more concerned with spiritual truths than he is with giving an exact, detailed chronology of Christ's life and ministry.

We can tell from this first sentence that John's project is ambitious. The scope of his narrative begins not with Jesus's human birth in Bethlehem, but with the very origins of the universe itself. Moreover, the sentence echoes the first sentence in Genesis: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The implication is that, like some evangelistic Paul Harvey, John is here to tell The Rest of the Story.

John clearly asserts three things about the Word in verse 1:

1. The Word was present in the beginning (time)
2. The Word was in God's presence (location)
3. The Word was distinguishable from God, and yet one with Him (identity)

In verse 2, John repeats his first two assertions, but uses the pronoun οὗτος ("this one," or "he / she / it"): This One existed in the very beginning, and This One was together with God at that time. The repetition underlines the fact that the Word was both distinct from God and present with Him before the world existed.

So, then, the stage is set, and the actors are present:

SCENE: The beginning of all things.

Enter GOD, accompanied closely by THE WORD, the embodiment of His dynamic creative power. They are distinct, yet somehow one.

And without even reading the next verse, we know what must follow. After all, here we are, surrounded by a fully-formed, wondrous world...