“Disciple” is a noun
Song of the Week: Jesus Have It All (Live), by Jeremy Riddle (2022)
Book of the Week: Practicing the Way, by John Mark Comer (2024)
Hello again. Sorry to miss you last week - I spent the weekend in Orlando, FL - a very beautiful woman and her family and friends had all of my attention.
I’ve tangoed with John Mark Comer’s new book/ministry/movement over the last few years: Practicing the Way. As I talk about it with people, I’ve realized Comer doesn’t say anything new, but he says old things in a different way - which is needed! The ways of Jesus are truly ancient, even more ancient are the words and practices that Jesus and NT writers used to tell us how to engage with the living God. Several moments and movements are burned into my brain from my time in the Thrive Residency (now Telos) - it’s to be expected: put eleven people into one house for a year, then release a global pandemic in the middle of it, and they’re bound to have some memories. One of those was a phrase that got bounced around a few times that year which could serve as an emergency tool - you could make a case that says “in case of argument or fight, break glass” and it’s a piece of paper that reads “Words Matter”. That phrase has rung in the back of my head for years and every time it comes to mind, it feels more relevant and true.
I posit that nowhere is that more true than in our efforts to understand Scripture. Old words matter, new words matter, words that are hard to define matter, unspoken and unwritten words matter, and so on. One of the points Comer makes toward the beginning of what seems like his magnum opus is that it is immensely bad form (Biblically) to say you’re “discipling” someone, or someone is “discipling” you. “Disciple is not a verb” he says. It’d be like saying you are “follower-ing” someone or someone is “Christian-ing” you. I’ll give you two reasons why correctly defining Disciple, as it is written, matters (one from me, one from John Mark) and in doing so, I hope we’ll see the importance of all words.
For one, it matters because we ought to care about what God is trying to communicate. This is broader, but let’s exemplify it - say you responded to this journal by saying “I hate that!”, what should I make of it? What is “that”? What do you mean by “hate”? Why do you “hate that”? Hypothetically speaking, say you meant that you hate it when words are misused in Scripture, but what I took this to mean is that you hate my writing. Now I’m hurt, our friendship is tested, and you’re not invited to my birthday party. That’ll show you. Now you’re hurt (don’t forget, unnecessarily) and pain has been woven into the tapestry that is us. Dramatic, of course, but do you see the problem? If we are lazy in our attempts to understand the meaning of words and carelessly misapply them, we leave the author or speaker feeling misunderstood and small, and we run the risk of seriously hurting ourselves and others.
Second, from Comer, and more specifically about Biblical interpretation, when we distort the meaning of a word in Scripture, it can lead us into some dark spiritual waters that will leave us confused and frustrated with God and our leaders. He uses the example of someone lamenting the fact that their pastor didn’t “disciple” them like they wanted to be. As sweet as it would be for everyone to get one on one facetime with a pastor, and many pastors I think would love to be able to do that for their church members, the only person who can truly “disciple” you, if we’re going to use that as a verb, is Jesus. Your spiritual growth and maturity is no one else's responsibility - that is between you and the Lord; He is the only one to thank for putting people in your life that help you stay the course.
Follow Jesus and become like him. “May you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi” - First Century Jewish blessing, quotes on preface page X (10) in Practicing the Way.
In love,
Josh
