It is no secret that over the past several decades
Christianity in American culture has undergone dramatic and even radical
change. American Christianity has seemingly experienced the kind of
metamorphosis only found in certain species of insects. I do not think it
controversial to maintain that Christianity has never witnessed the kind of
radical and rapid shift away from its core teachings that is has recently,
since the inception of the movement (if we can call it a movement) in the first
century. It was not so long ago that when we called someone a Christian we had
a pretty good idea what we meant. Today, that no longer seems to be the case.
Despite the goings on in American and western culture, I
still believe that the term Christian means something very specific, at least
where the Christian Scriptures are concerned. I realize I am making a bold
assumption when I point toward the Christian Scripture in order to understand
what we mean when we use the term ‘Christian’, but for that assumption I will
make no apologies. If we hope to understand this term, we must inquire into the
source of its origin. And there is only one source for the origin of
Christianity: the Bible.
The word Christianos
appears three times in the NT, once in 1 Peter and twice in Acts. It is used by
Luke in Acts 11:26 to record that the Disciples of Christ were first called
Christians in Antioch. It is again used in the case of Agrippa when he
responded to Paul by asking him if he thought it was that easy to convince him
to become a Christian. Textual issues aside, the notion that Paul wanted
Agrippa to become a Christian meant something very specific. Finally, Peter
uses the term to encourage those who might suffer as a Christian not to be
ashamed but instead to glorify God in this name. Peter contrasts Christian with
meddlers, evildoers, and murderers. Obviously, there are things that Christians
are not.
According to the lexical evidence, a Christian is one who is
a believer in and a follower of Christ. Another source tells us that a
Christian is one who is associated with Christ. The name itself presupposes
that confession of Christ constituted the characteristic feature of Jesus’
adherents.[1] At
its most basic foundation then, to be a Christian is to believe in and follow
Jesus Christ. Another hint can be derived from Luke’s record again in Acts
11:26: a Christian is synonymous with disciple. Luke informs us, “and the
disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” A Christian then is a
disciple of Christ. That begs the question, what is a disciple of Jesus Christ?
The Greek word mathetes
is used 264 times in the GNT. It is very well attested. At its most basic level
it describes a person that was a follower of some Rabbi, Teacher, or Philosopher.
Now, this “follower” is not a follower
in the modern sense of the term. In order to understand what the Bible means
when it talks about a disciple, we have to understand what it mean when the
Bible was written. How did that Greco-Roman culture understand and use the word
disciple? How do Christ and His followers use the word disciple? I think we can
begin to understand what a Christian is if we can understand what a disciple of
Jesus Christ was in Greco-Roman-Jewish culture. One thing is sure: we cannot
possibly understand what it means to be a Christian by listening to all the
noise and chaos going on in modern writings about.
The disciple-teacher relationship
has deep roots in the ancient world and there is nothing to which it may be
compared in modern times, at least not in western culture. A man is called a mathetes when he binds himself to
someone else in order to acquire his practical and theoretical knowledge.[2]
This picture of learning becomes extremely clear in Deut. 4:10; 14:23; 17:19;
31:21. In each of these cases the object of manthano
is phobeisthai kyrion ton theon, to
fear the Lord God. Learning means the process by which the past experience of
the love of God is translated by the learners into obedience to the Torah of
God. This understanding is to lead to an inner acceptance of the divine will
(cf. Deut. 30:14)[3] To
be a disciple is clearly more than just being a learner or a student. In fact,
it is much more than simply being a student of someone else.
The noun mathetes occurs 264 times in the NT, exclusively in the Gospels and
Acts. It is used to indicate total attachment to someone in discipleship. The
verb form of this word, manthano, carries
the idea when used in the epistles that to hold to the teaching which the
recipient of the letters received is to hold to their faith (Rom. 16:17; Eph.
4:20; 2 Tim. 3:14). In other words, a disciple is one who learns from God and
holds to the teachings that God is giving through the holy apostles. And this
is precisely what it means to be a Christian since being a disciple is being a
Christian.
Disciples were identified with the
teacher they followed. In Matthew 9:10, the disciples of John came and asked a
question about Jesus’ disciples. In Matt. 10:1, we are told that Jesus summoned
His twelve disciples. Jesus also recognized that His disciples were to be
viewed as of more importance than one’s own family (Matt. 12:49).
One of the traits of a disciple of
Christ is love for other disciples. The world will observe the disciples
behavior and recognize the deep love that Christians have for other
Christians. Disciples of Christ prove themselves to be disciples, not with
words but with fruit (John 15:8). Jesus said that the cost of discipleship was
high. In fact, He said if anyone wanted to be His disciple that they would have
to take up their cross, deny themselves, and follow Him. In fact, Luke 14:26-27
If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and
children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My
disciple. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot
be My disciple.” Any view of Christian
that involves significant focus on self is entirely out of accord with the idea
that Jesus taught. One does not have to look very far to see that there is
hardly a stripe of American Christianity that does not begin with and focus on
the self. In fact, the most sacred doctrine of American Christianity, the one
thing that every version seems to have in common with every other version is
the radical notion of libertarian free will. No doctrine is more focused on
self than the doctrine of the free will.
In Matthew 18:15-18 Jesus
identifies disciples in community with one another as His Church. Any disciple
in that community guilty of sin must be confronted and lovingly corrected and
restored. In other words, sin will not be part of the Christian community in
any way, shape or form. If a professing disciple refuses to repent of sin as a
result of this confrontation, they are to be excommunicated and not treated
like a disciple. They are instead to be treated like an unbelieving pagan. The
disciple’s life is a life that believes all that Jesus teaches and that adopts,
embraces and lives the values that Jesus lives and commands. The teachings and
ethic of Jesus are more important to the disciple than their next breath, than
even their spouse, and yes, more important than their own children and parents.
The Bible provides a clear
demarcation of what it means to be a Christian as opposed to a pagan as opposed
to a pagan claiming to be a Christian. Contrary to the chaos in American and
western Christianity, Christian has a
definite meaning. To be a Christian is to be a disciple of Christ. To be a
disciple of Christ is to be one that believes Christ’s word and teachings, and
one that lives Christ’s words and teachings, His values and ethic. No one who
claims to be a disciple of Christ rejects the teachings of Christ either
outright or by way of a subversive hermeneutic. Christians do not look for ways around the clear teachings of Scripture. Christians do not challenge the Word of God; they obey it. Christians submit to the Word of God. They reject the theological and hermeneutic skepticism that is the by-product of philosophical skepticism. They humbly embrace Christ's Word. "
The message to the believer then is
that you must stand up and engage. You must seek the truth, live the truth,
proclaim the truth, and yes, you must defend the truth. This is what it is to
love the truth. This is what it is to be a disciple of Christ. This is what it
is to be a Christian.
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