A gap? Modern discipleship versus biblical discipleship

Is there a gap between biblical discipleship and modernity’s Western discipleship? Modern Christians can get cause and effect backward in their faith. The mistaken idea is that blessings and favor with God are the effects of something. And that something is works – that works (good deeds and moral living) are the cause of attracting God’s favor and blessing and eternal life. Put the coins in, get the product out. It’s a transactional salvation concept. Transactional religion a popular model: Mormons, Muslims, Baha’is, Sikhs, (and if you take out the personal salvation part), Hindus, Buddhists and Jains – all run on transactionalism: do this stuff, and you get happiness and peace with God / gods / the universe.

A moralism that is both transactional and discretionary

A transactional and discretionary moralism animates much of Christian culture these days too. Transactional, because a buyer and seller each bring something to the table to “close a deal”. Discretionary because the buyer (that’s me) gets to decide first what I want from the merchant (God), and how much I want (eat the best, leave the rest). Moralism since the price of the goods and services God carries (salvation, blessing, favor) is fairly priced by the kind and humane works I own and can trade for his goods.

In other words, transactional discretionary moralism is a cosmic vending machine, with offerings like:

– “Getting saved” by regretting some of my actions, plus “accepting Jesus” plus saying a prayer [a.k.a.evangelicalism]

– “Heroism” since nobility is defined by the number of souls won, and because saving people is the primary duty and destiny of every “truly” Christian person [a.k.a. conversionism]

– “Wealth, health and happiness” since success, contentment and blessings come in allowing Jesus to co-pilot my life and shower blessings on me [a.k.a. prosperism]

– “The good guys win” by being intellectually better, or by crushing ideas of bad people, or consolidating political power to force people to hew to our particular way of thinking [a.k.a. nationalism/wokeism]

Biblical discipleship

But none of that is Christianity. There is no vending machine. There are no coins to put in and the products described above are not real in Christ. In fact, the precise opposite is the reality of Christ alive in disciples: our works and actions and such are the effects of what God causes inside believers! The cause is God, and the effect is that I changed, and now I want to please Him. I’m not working a punch list, I’m different, and I think differently and I reflexively now want to do what many label as “good works”. There is no transaction at all.

How does this biblical discipling work?

A biblical disciple is in transformational journey, the rest of their life. My life is no longer my own, because I have been ordered to surrender unconditionally, and to accept my place as a bondservant to Christ. Unlike the cause-effect of transactional moralism, a disciple is in a perpetual “morphing” – changing in personality, actions, and thinking. In human terms think of it like training muscle memory. Disciples are to be about sloughing off self-selected passions and personal entitlements and redirecting their reflexes toward biblical responses.

Examples abound in Scripture defining a disciple’s radical transformation:

“following” Christ (abandoning my own way) [13 times in the NT]
New traits and “dying” to self [Galatians 5.23-24]
“losing” your life [Matthew 10]
“taking up your cross” [Matthew 16]
“bondservants” [Matthew 13 & 22; Luke 12 & John 12]
“transformation” [2 Cor 12; Romans 12]

These are not self-fulfillment slogans – they demonstrate a completely new creature emerges, over a lifetime journey. Metaphorically – an elephant is not an elephant because it has a long trunk, tusks, big ears and ropey tail. Those are symptoms of an elephant. Taping a trunk and big ears on a giraffe results in….a funny looking giraffe, but not an elephant. An elephant’s characteristics are caused by it’s DNA, coded for an elephant. A disciple surrenders/kills off their own self-agenda in surrendering as a believer in Jesus Christ. The old DNA will cease to function as the self-creature dies away. Explicitly, a new creature – a new DNA is taking hold as Christ brings that new disciple to new life. The cause? Wholly God. The effect? A life cranking out the things many think of as the cause: the “good” works, the worship, the unity, the love, the praise. There will be failures. None of them eternally fatal because of grace. We stand up again, and we press ahead.

Such is the journey of discipleship. Not a destination, not a status, and not a moral nor discretionary nor transactional event. Christians exist to be disciples – people with a transforming DNA. There’s a really big gap between a disciple of Christ and transactional works-based Christianism.

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