Disciple

A disciple is a learner attached to a teacher, and the New Testament traces a definite path from that simple shape to a public name. John the Baptist gathered disciples; Jesus called his own; the circle widened to seventy-two sent out two by two; and at length the followers received a name of their own. The Gospel of John frames discipleship around speech, sight, and following, and the rest of the New Testament fills in the cost, the empowerment, and the new identity.

Following

The vocabulary of discipleship in John's Gospel is the language of the road. Jesus speaks of himself as light to be walked after: "I am the light of the world: he who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life" (Jn 8:12). The image is restated in pastoral terms when Jesus describes his sheep: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" (Jn 10:27). Service is bound to the same motion: "If any man serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there will also my servant be: if any man serves me, the Father will honor him" (Jn 12:26).

The pattern reaches outward beyond Jesus' earthly company. Paul addresses the Ephesians as those who imitate the God who has loved them: "Be⁺ therefore imitators of God, as beloved children" (Eph 5:1). Peter grounds the same following in suffering: "For hereunto were you⁺ called: because Christ also suffered for you⁺, leaving you⁺ an example, that you⁺ should follow his steps" (1 Pet 2:21). At the far end of the canon the Apocalypse names a body of followers who go behind the Lamb without limit: "These [are] those who follow the Lamb wherever he may go. These were purchased from among men, [to be] the first fruits to God and to the Lamb" (Rev 14:4). Even the prophets carry the same shape forward as a corporate determination: "And let us know, let us follow on to know Yahweh: his going forth is sure as the morning" (Hos 6:3).

The Circle Widened

Jesus' immediate circle of disciples was not the whole of his sending. After the Twelve Luke records a second commission: "Now after these things the Lord appointed seventy-two others, and sent them two by two before his face into every city and place, where he himself was about to come" (Lu 10:1). The number is preparatory; the seventy-two go ahead of Jesus into the same towns he intends to enter, so that discipleship under him extends past direct attendance into proxy mission.

Tests of Discipleship

Jesus also names the conditions of being his disciple, and the conditions are stated without qualification. Three sayings in Luke 14 mark the perimeter. First, the displacement of every other loyalty: "If any man comes to me, and does not hate his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own soul also, he can't be my disciple" (Lu 14:26). Second, the carrying of one's own instrument of execution: "Whoever does not bear his own cross, and come after me, can't be my disciple" (Lu 14:27). Third, the renunciation of property: "So therefore whoever he is of you⁺ who does not renounce all that he has, he can't be my disciple" (Lu 14:33). The threefold "can't be my disciple" is not graduated; each clause is a perimeter the would-be disciple must cross.

John adds two further tests, this time positive. Discipleship is constituted by remaining inside Jesus' speech: "If you⁺ stay in my speech, [then] you⁺ are truly my disciples" (Jn 8:31). And it is recognized by the fruit it bears: "In this is my Father glorified, that you⁺ may bear much fruit and may be my disciples" (Jn 15:8).

Secret Discipleship

Alongside the open following John records a recurring shadow form. Nicodemus is its first portrait, "a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews" who comes to Jesus "by night" and addresses him as a teacher come from God (Jn 3:1-2). The same fear hangs over the public during the Feast of Tabernacles: "Yet no man spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews" (Jn 7:13). It clings to leaders who have actually believed: "Nevertheless even of the rulers many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess [it], lest they should be put out of the synagogue" (Jn 12:42). Joseph of Arimathea (Jn 19:38) is also grouped under this paragraph, but that verse falls outside UPDV's preserved text.

The Beloved Disciple

Within the inner circle John's Gospel reserves a particular phrase for one figure: "There was at the table reclining in Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved" (Jn 13:23). The same designation reappears at the cross, where Jesus places his mother under that disciple's care: "When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by whom he loved, he says to his mother, Woman, here is your son" (Jn 19:26). The name is functional rather than personal: a disciple identified to readers by the love that holds him in place at the table and at the cross.

Disciples Empowered

Jesus does not send his followers in their own strength. To the seventy-two he grants protection that names the powers they will encounter: "Look, I have given you⁺ authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing will in any wise hurt you⁺" (Lu 10:19). For the hour of trial he promises speech that is not their own: "for the Holy Spirit will teach you⁺ in that very hour what you⁺ ought to say" (Lu 12:12). Authority over hostile power and supplied speech in court are the two specific empowerments the Gospel attaches to the disciple's commission.

A Name of Their Own

The disciples eventually acquire a name that is not their teacher's. Peter assumes its public currency for the suffering church: "but if [a man suffers] as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this respect" (1 Pet 4:16).

The Epistle to Diognetus, addressing a pagan inquirer, organizes its account of Christian existence around the same name. Diognetus is curious about the godliness of the Christians and "in what God do they trust, and in what way do they worship him, that they all scorn the world and despise death" (Gr 1:1). The author concedes the antagonism that gathers around the name — "For this cause you⁺ hate the Christians, because they do not count these gods" (Gr 2:6) — and the freedom on which it rests (Gr 2:10). He distinguishes Christian identity from any ethnic marker: "For the Christians are distinguished from the rest of men neither by country, nor by language, nor by customs" (Gr 5:1). They occupy no separate cities, "nor use any unusual dialect, nor lead a conspicuous life" (Gr 5:2), but instead live in Greek and barbarian cities, "in clothing, diet, and the remaining manner of life" displaying "the marvelous and admittedly strange character of their own citizenship" (Gr 5:4).

The closing image is anatomical: "what the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world" (Gr 6:1). The soul is sown through the body's members; "Christians through the cities of the world" (Gr 6:2). The invisible soul is guarded by a visible body; "Christians are known to be in the world, but their godliness remains invisible" (Gr 6:4). The soul is locked inside the body but holds it together; Christians "are kept in the world, as it were in ward, yet hold the world together" (Gr 6:7). And the soul, ill-treated in food and drink, is bettered; "Christians when punished increase the more day by day" (Gr 6:9). The disciple of Jesus, by the time the church can name itself, is a figure whose presence in the world is read on the model of soul to body: hidden, holding, increased under pressure.