What is a Disciple? Part 1: The Call - by Dan Roach

Disciple.

This is the basic name for a follower of Jesus Christ. It is our fundamental identity as Christians and it is who we are before we are an employee, a student, a parent, a husband or wife, or a leader.

The word ‘disciple’ appears almost three hundred times in the New Testament, and every one of these references is found in the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and in the book of Acts. While we usually use the word Christian to describe ourselves, this word is used only three times in the New Testament. Significantly, Luke writes that ‘in Antioch the disciples were first called ‘Christians’.[1] So while there’s nothing wrong with calling ourselves Christians, it’s important to remember that we are disciples first.

Our identity as disciples has a rich meaning that’s worth thinking about more and allowing it to shape our understanding of ourselves and other believers. The word disciple says so much about who we are and how we are to view our relationship with Jesus. The word comes from the New Testament Greek mathetes. It describes any ordinary man or woman who makes a life commitment to follow Jesus.

Following Jesus, being changed by him and becoming more like him is a lifelong process which we call discipleship. As Leon Morris has said, ‘discipleship is not static, but a growing and developing way of life. Always the true disciple is becoming more fully a disciple.’

Discipleship begins with this powerful call of Jesus to ordinary men and women like us: ‘Follow me.’[2] Deciding how we will respond to this call is the most important question we will ever consider in this life. Jesus takes those who respond to his call and gradually begins to mould and shape them to become more like him and to explain what following him entails.

To fully understand just how dynamic this process of discipleship is, we need to look at the deep relationship that we see developing between Jesus and the first disciples in the four Gospels. It’s so important to remember that these books were written by people who responded to the call of Jesus to follow him for themselves and were radically changed by their interactions with him in the years that followed. So when we look at the Gospels, we are being given a wonderful front row seat on discipleship at the hands of the Master, Jesus himself. There we see five major aspects of discipleship: the call, the cost, the community, the cross and the commission, each of which we will be treated in turn.

[1] Acts 11:26.

[2] Matt. 4:18-22, 9:9-13; Mark 1:16-20, 2:13-15, 3:13-19; Luke 5:1-11, 5:27-32; 6:12-16.