What It's Like to be a Disciple

Good morning.

We, um, the family and I like to listen to a podcast that's titled "What It's Like to Be," and the host, he goes and he interviews people from all kinds of different professions, like an auto mechanic, or an airplane pilot, or just—he's got quite a collection. It's fascinating.

It was really interesting to hear him interview someone who did my profession. And so this morning, I don't have anyone to interview, but I would like to speak on what it's like to be a disciple. So what comes to mind when you think about a disciple? And we get this picture—I think most of us probably get this picture—of this man with a bunch of young men with him, out in the fields of Galilee somewhere, because that's sort of the context that we think about. And I think I've come to the conclusion that we don't understand as much of the Bible because the culture was so different than what we're used to. And so, in this message, I'd like to try to transport you to Galilee at about AD 30, and try to get a little picture in our minds of what it would have been like to be a disciple of Jesus.

Well, what is a disciple? The dictionary says a disciple is one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another, or a follower, or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher.

And I would say that the definition that I want to use specifically in this message is: a disciple is someone who wants to become just like their teacher.

I find it's very interesting that the word "disciple" and the word "discipline" have the same root word, and it means "to learn." And I think that's telling: it takes a lot of discipline to learn.

And a disciple's always learning. And that's exciting. And so I want to spend some time talking about what it would be like to be a disciple in Jesus' time, and I think it would be helpful for us so we can understand what was expected of a disciple. And so, if you were a young man, you would attend school, which focused on studying the Scriptures until about age 13. And of course, in Jewish culture, you become a man at age 13. That seems quite young. I'm not sure if I would be ready to call my 13-year-old a man, but they did, and they gave him that responsibility.

And then, after that, you would take an apprenticeship to learn a trade, and parents would start making arrangements for boys to do that, and they would actually live with the tradesman's family. And they were encouraged to get married young, by about age 20 they were expected to be married. And so think about that timeline when we're thinking about a disciple. The Mishnah says that the time that some began to attend the Bat Midrash, the house of study, which was a rabbi's school or study group, was about 15. And adults of all ages could come and listen to the rabbi teach. Women were welcome.

You could come however often you could, actually. And there were quite a few people who studied for a long time, but they never became teachers. They were still called disciples even when they were quite old. And even though marriage was strongly encouraged, some young men were so earnest in their studies they would put it off until later. They said Gamaliel II, who was the grandson of Paul's teacher, already had disciples when he got married. And Paul and Jesus fit into this tradition of setting aside marriage for the sake of ministry.

Now, you weren't allowed to charge a fee to teach the Torah. You had to do that for free. And so it was common for rabbis to practice a trade part-time and teach part-time. And disciples also did that. You had to support yourself somehow. And you can see that in Jesus' disciples. They kept going back to fishing.

And sometimes, maybe that was because they needed some more money. They would have their teaching sessions in the evening, or on the Sabbath, so that people could work and still attend. And then, if you were really a devout family, the women would earn the living and keep the house going so that the man could go and be with the rabbi. Now, I don't know. That seems pretty difficult from my point of view, but that's what they did. And sometimes extended families would help to support someone who wanted to study, especially, I think, probably if they showed more potential. And so what you would do: the rabbis were itinerant. They went all over the countryside teaching.

And if you wanted to travel with the rabbi, you were welcome to do that. You could do that. They would go away for weeks at a time. And a disciple had to ask his wife's permission to be away from home to study longer than 30 days. So if you were going to go for longer than a month, you had to get her permission.

My guess is there were a lot of 29-day trips.

And when they traveled, the disciples and the rabbi would pool their money for their expenses. And we see that in Jesus' group. They had a treasurer, not a very honest one, but they pooled their money. And they would buy food and whatever else they needed.

And sometimes there were wealthy people who would sponsor these groups. They would contribute towards their needs. And you can see that in Jesus' group. There were wealthy women who supported him and his followers. And when they—excuse me—when they traveled, the villages they taught in were expected to extend hospitality and give them food and shelter.

A saying from approximately 100 years before Jesus supports this picture of the rabbi in the land of Israel, and it is remarkably descriptive of the ministry of Jesus. "Let your home be a meeting house for the sages, and cover yourself with the dust of their feet, and drink in their words thirstily." So that was sort of being held up as an ideal.

Open your home, because you're going to get a blessing if the rabbi comes and teaches.

And it's really interesting, this phrase, "cover yourself with the dust of their feet."

That's been traditionally understood to mean to sit at the feet of a rabbi, to humbly learn from him, as Mary did. However, these words might convey a different picture. For the long-term disciple, learning from a rabbi meant considerable traveling as well. One literally had to follow a rabbi to learn from him. So if your rabbi traveled, you did too. To this day, the unpaved roads of Israel are covered with a fine dust. And as a result, when people walk along these roads, they invariably raise a considerable cloud of dust. Any group of disciples following a rabbi would be covered with dust at the end of the journey. And if one wanted to travel with a rabbi, one literally had to cover oneself with the dust of his feet.

And that, you know, you have to be pretty close to somebody before that's going to happen. If you followed at a distance of 100 yards, you probably wouldn't get covered with the rabbi's dust. And I just want you to keep that in mind for a little bit later. And then another thing about Jewish culture is that you might assume that the synagogue, as the place of worship, would be considered more important or more sacred than the schools. But this was not the case. To this day, the Bat Midrash is given more prominence than the synagogue, not because education is valued more highly than worship, but because Judaism does not make a distinction between the two.

Indeed, Judaism has always held that the study of the Torah is one of the highest forms of worship. And so I don't know if you can sort of get the picture of being in a culture where studying God's word is the highest form of worship. Now, the thing you have to remember about the Jews, even today, is that the Torah, those first—especially those first five books of the Bible—are the ultimate thing that they have. That's the highest thing of honor in Judaism, is the Pentateuch.

And learning it and working with it is so important to them. And it was very interesting a couple years ago, Joanna and I had the privilege to talk to a rabbi down at the Bible Museum, and he—when he wasn't talking to people, I don't think he made very good progress with this—he was copying a Torah scroll. And every synagogue needs a hand copy of the five books.

And that work is just considered very valuable by them, and studying it. And so thinking about that with Jesus, you know, studying him and his teachings is a form of worship. And I think it's important to remember that. Now, if you got into this circle with the rabbi and were a disciple, here are some of the things that you would do, some of the conditions. The disciple to be agreed to totally submit to the rabbi's authority in all areas of interpreting the Scriptures for his life. This was a cultural given for all observant Jewish men, something they each truly wanted to do. As a result, each disciple came to a rabbinic relationship with a desire and willingness to do just that: surrender to the authority of God's word as interpreted by his rabbi's view of Scripture.

And one of the ways that they did that is they would—they all knew the word of God. They memorized huge passages of the New Testament as young men. Everyone did. And it wasn't a question of what the words were, because they knew that inside and out is how you apply it. And so what they would do is they would have these discussions among themselves. And you can see this in the Gospels, where Jesus' disciples would have these discussions. And the rabbi would encourage that, and he would let it go for a long time. And they would discuss every angle of this practical application of God's word, these real-life questions. You know, "Can I light a candle on the Sabbath?" or "If I can light one, can I light more than one?" or "Can I divorce my wife if—or if I know my taxes are going to oppress our people, should I pay them?"

They would wrestle with these things. And the rabbi would let this go for weeks. But when the rabbi ultimately did declare his authoritative interpretation on an issue, all further debate ceased. His declared interpretation was now known, and therefore binding on his disciples' lives for the rest of their days. So this was how this culture worked. You were the disciple of this man. He interpreted the Scriptures this way, and that was the way you believed.

And they didn't have a curriculum for this study, but it was just this: you lived together every day on these trips, and all of your life was observable to the rabbi and to the group. And so a disciple would expect the rabbi's consistent and persistent question, "Why did you do that?" And don't we see Jesus asking his disciples those things? "Why did you do that? Why were you talking about who was going to be the greatest?"

And so the emphasis was on behavior formation, not just imparting of wisdom. And so that was very interesting to me. By always asking questions, the rabbis were concentrating on developing discernment in the mind of the disciple, not the imparting of how-to formulas. Notions of three principles of prayer or four steps to prosperity would be abhorrent to a first-century rabbi.

And they should be to us too.

And then the expectation was that you would become just like the rabbi as a disciple. And so they would imitate how the rabbi would eat, his likes and dislikes, his mannerism. And they would go to some pretty extreme lengths to try to imitate the rabbi.

And so that's sort of a picture of how this worked in the first century. And now I want to talk a little bit about Jesus and what he wanted from his disciples.

And the first thing I noticed about Jesus and his disciples is he gave an invitation. Now, some of them volunteered without the invitation, and some of them he asked. And so if you want to, you can turn to Matthew 4, and we'll read a passage there.

This is, of course, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry.

Matthew 4, verse 17. "From that time," so he had just been baptized and was tempted in the wilderness. "From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Then he said to them, 'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.' They immediately left their nets and followed him.

Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him."

And I was thinking about, you know, these men were out doing what they did every day, trying to earn a living. And this new rabbi comes along and says, "I want you to come with me. Come and follow me."

And they dropped what they were doing, and they went.

Immediately, it says. And then if we go over to John chapter 1, and this is somewhat of a parallel passage. The end of John chapter 1, verse 43, it says, "The following day, Jesus wanted to go to Galilee." And I think this is actually the following day after these first four received the invitation. "The following day, Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and he found Philip and said to him, 'Follow me.' Now, Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. And Philip found Nathanael and said to him, 'We have found him of whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.' And Nathanael said to him, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?'

Philip said to him, 'Come and see.' Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, 'Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit.' Nathanael said to him, 'How do you know me?' Jesus answered and said to him, 'Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.' Nathanael answered and said to him, 'Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.' Jesus answered and said to him, 'Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these.'

And he said to him, 'Most assuredly I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.'" And then another example, which you don't need to turn to, Mark 2:14, says, "As he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, 'Follow me.' So he arose and followed him."

And I guess I was just really impressed with how quickly these men answered the call to be a disciple. And prepared them for this. Probably it was not unusual for rabbis to go around inviting people to follow them. I would have to assume that, because the Bible doesn't make a big deal out of this at all.

So those are some examples of people who responded to Jesus' invitation. And then Jesus was talking to other people, and he said, "If you want to follow me, you need to count the cost." And so we can turn to Luke 14 and just consider what the cost is of being a disciple.

Luke 14, verse 25, starting there. "Now great multitudes went with him. And he turned and said to them, 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it? Lest, after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'

Or what king going to make war against another king does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has, cannot be my disciple."

And then another passage in Mark chapter 8, verses 34 to 38. "And when he had called the people to himself with his disciples also, he said to them, 'Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

So being a disciple of Jesus is serious business. There's a cost, a heavy cost, in fact. And it's not a decision that we should probably make in the heat of emotion. Jesus talks about sitting down and calculating the cost.

And so he gives several costs here. He says, "If you don't hate your father and your mother, your sister and your brother, you're not going to make it as my disciple." And I think it's important to remember that the Greek word that's used here for hate means to love less. So you don't have to turn against your family. They just have to be less important to you than being a disciple of Jesus.

And he says, "If you're not willing to bear a cross, you're not going to make it as my disciple." And we have a little bit of a picture of the cross, and we heard about it in Sunday school. But you have to remember, these people would have seen this, these criminals carrying their cross, going up to die.

And that was a very graphic thing for them. They witnessed that.

And that sounds pretty serious if you're going to take up a cross, an instrument of death. And then he said, "If you're not willing to give up your possessions to be my disciple, you're not going to make it. It's going to cost you everything to be a disciple."

And if you think about the kinds of things I described about disciples back then, it was a difficult life to live. The Mishnah says that it's a painful existence. This is the way to acquire knowledge of the Torah. Eat bread with salt. Drink water by measure. Sleep on the ground. Leave a painful existence, literally a life of sorrow and labor, studying the Torah. These people who were becoming disciples were willing to put themselves out. If you wanted to make it financially, you didn't go and follow a rabbi. You worked. Because if you followed him, you didn't have time to work full-time. You just maybe barely made it.

But the other thing to remember is that the joy and satisfaction that a student of Jesus received far outweighed the sacrifices he was required to make. Jesus taught that the value of being part of the kingdom of heaven was inestimateable. It was like the value of buried treasure or a priceless fine pearl.

And I like the way that Juan Carlos Loretz tells the story of the Pearl of Great Price. "A man sees this pearl and says to the merchant, 'I want this pearl. How much is it?' The seller says, 'It's very expensive.' 'How much?' 'A lot.' 'Well, do you think I could buy it?' the man asks. 'Oh, yes,' says the merchant, 'Everyone can buy it.' 'But I thought you said it was very expensive.' 'I did.' 'Well, how much?' 'Everything you have,' says the seller. 'All right, I'll buy it.' 'Okay. What do you have?' 'Well, I have 10,000 in the bank.' 'Good, 10,000. What else?' 'That's all I have.' 'Nothing more?' 'Well, I have a few dollars more in my pocket.' 'How much?' 'Let's see, $100.' 'That's mine too,' says the seller. 'What else do you have?' 'That's all.

Nothing else.' 'Where do you live?' the seller asks. 'In my house.' 'Yes, I own a home.' The seller writes it down. 'House. It's mine.' 'Where do you expect me to sleep?' 'In my camper.' 'Oh, you have a camper too.' 'That too is mine.' 'What else?' 'Am I supposed to sleep in my car?' 'Oh, you have a car?' 'Yes, I own two of them. They're mine now.' 'Look, you've taken my money, my house, my camper, and my cars. Where is my family going to live?' 'So you have a family?' 'Yes, I have a wife and three kids. They're mine now.' Suddenly the seller exclaims, 'Oh, I almost forgot. You yourself too. Everything becomes mine: wife, children, house, money, cars, and you too.'

Then he goes on, 'Now, listen. I will allow you to use all these things for the time being, but don't forget they're all mine, just as you are.

And whenever I need any of them, you must give them up, because now I am the owner.'" So maybe that can give you just a little picture of the cost of discipleship.

The other thing to remember is that there's a cost for not being a disciple.

Because if you're not going to be a disciple of Jesus, you're not going to be able to experience redemption. You're not going to have any hope. You're not going to have any eternal reward. You're not going to have fellowship with Christ, and you're not going to have any lasting peace.

And so Jesus is still extending this invitation to us. In Matthew 11, he says, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Well, how would Jesus' first listeners have heard his words about taking on his yoke? And this is a little bit different than how I've traditionally thought about this passage. Learning what a yoke meant in the writings and culture of Jesus' time will greatly clarify his words. In a rabbi-disciple relationship, the disciple is expected to place himself in a position of total obedience and dedication to his rabbi and his philosophy. It was his desire to become just like him. This was said to be taking on the yoke of the rabbi.

Certainly the impression of a yoke of oxen, for example, comes immediately to mind as burdensome. But in the proper context, taking on a rabbi's yoke was not negative. When one's desire is to pull the same load as his teacher, the best way to do it is to willingly bind oneself to his yoke and his cart.

And that's a quote from New Life on the Difficult Words of Jesus, Insights from His Jewish Context by David Biven. And I've quoted him several times, and probably will a little bit more. "The rabbis were sincerely interested in leading more and more people to take upon themselves the yoke of Torah, a rabbinic expression for accepting God's reign over one's life, to live according to His will."

And so this is the most beautiful invitation that's ever been given, I think.

If you're weak and burdened, there's a place you can go to find rest. And if you're willing to give yourself to following Jesus, to being His disciple, He has those answers for us. And He will give us peace and rest. Rest from fighting the way that the universe is designed to work. When you're not being a disciple of Jesus, you're fighting the whole universe because it's designed to work the way that God's made it to work. And when we try to do something else, we're just up against it. We get arrested from a guilty conscience. And the way that Jesus wants us to go is going to be a joy. That's why He means that the yoke is going to be light, because it's going to bring us joy as we do what Jesus teaches.

So what's our response to this invitation, amazing invitation of rest and joy? Well, it means if we're interested in being a disciple of Jesus, that eventually we're going to become a Christian. Maybe you'll start the journey of learning about Jesus, and that's going to lead you to be a Christian.

And to be Jesus' disciple, we must totally surrender our will to Him. There's no middle ground here. And one of my favorite passages about the new birth is in Romans, from Romans 10:8 to 17, which says, "But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scriptures says, 'Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.'

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things.' But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, 'Lord, who has believed our report?' So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.'" And so three things need to happen if you want to become a disciple of Jesus.

And I know some of you have been disciples for a long time. Some of you, it's a very recent decision. And it's a decision that you're maybe going to have to make every day, how much you're going to be a disciple. But if we want to get on board with this, three things need to happen. First, we have to believe that God exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

That's sort of ground zero. You've got to believe that God exists and that it's worth your while to seek after Him.

And then we need to believe that Jesus has been raised from the dead and that He's alive today. If you don't believe in our resurrected Jesus, what's the point of trying to be a disciple of a dead man?

And so then, if we believe those things, we need to make a confession with our lips and with our life that Jesus is the Master now. And then third, we have to repent, turn our back on sin. And we call this the new birth because God gives us a new nature which radically changes our desires and actions. And a good illustration of the new birth is the butterfly. When it starts out as a caterpillar, it crawls around on the ground. It eats leaves and flowers and tomatoes, I don't know, whatever they like to eat.

But then it experiences metamorphosis, a complete metamorphosis. Some insects only get a partial one, but the butterfly gets a complete one. And it's a radical transformation that completely changes that thing. It has a different appetite, a different way of getting itself around, and a whole different purpose.

And that's what happens when you become a disciple of Jesus. There's a radical change, a radical change in your diet, in your purpose. And I just want to read what Lee Strobel writes at the end of his book, The Case for Christ, about his conversion.

And of course, he had gone on a journey to find out if Christianity is for real. He thought he could disprove it because he was an atheist. He was an investigative journalist. And he set out to discredit Jesus and His teachings. And he wasn't able to do it. And he realized there was far too much evidence that he could not discredit. And so he writes, "As soon as I reached that monumental verdict, the implications were obvious. If Jesus overcame the grave, He's still alive and available for me to personally encounter. If Jesus conquered death, He can open the door of eternal life for me too. If He has divine power, He has the supernatural ability to guide and transform me as I follow Him.

As my Creator, who has my best interest at heart, He rightfully deserves my allegiance and worship." Unsure what to do, I turned to a Bible verse I had encountered earlier. John 1:12 says, "Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God."

Essentially then, the formula for becoming adopted into God's family is believe plus receive equals become. Because of the evidence, I now believe Jesus to be the Son of God. But to become His child, it was necessary for me to receive the free gift of forgiveness that He purchased with His life on the cross. So on November the 8th, 1981, I talked with God in a heartfelt and unedited prayer, admitting and turning from all my wrongdoing and receiving the free gift of forgiveness and eternal life through Jesus. I told Him that with His help, I wanted to follow Him in His ways as best I could from that moment forward.

Some people feel a rush of emotion at such a moment. For me, there was something equally exhilarating, the rush of reason. After taking that step, I knew from John 1:12 that I had crossed the threshold into a new experience. I had become something different, a child of God, forever adopted into His family through the historical risen Jesus.

Said the Apostle Paul, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come." Sure enough, over time as I endeavored to follow Jesus' teachings and open myself to His transforming power, my priorities, my values, and my character were and continue to be gradually changed. Increasingly, I want Jesus' motives and perspectives to be my own. To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., "I may not yet be the man I should be, or the man with Christ's help I someday will be. But thank God I'm not the man I used to be." Maybe that sounds mystical to you. I don't know. Not so long ago, it would have to me.

But it's very real now, very real to me now and to those around me. In fact, so radical was the difference in my life that a few months after I became a follower of Jesus, our five-year-old daughter Alison went up to my wife and said, "Mommy, I want God to do for me what He's done for Daddy."

Here was a little girl who had only known a father who was profane, angry, verbally harsh, and all too often absent. And even though she had never interviewed a scholar, never analyzed the data, never investigated historical evidence, she had seen up close the influence that Jesus can have on one person's life. In effect, she was saying, "If this is what God does to a human being, that's what I want for me."

Looking back nearly two decades, I can see with clarity that the day I personally made a decision in The Case for Christ was nothing less than the pivotal event of my entire life.

And that's the power of becoming a disciple of Jesus.

And so in conclusion, I'd just like to recap what it looked like to be a disciple in AD 30. Following the rabbi, getting his dust on you, pooling your resources to buy the next meal, hoping someone would open their house up so that you can have a roof over your head to sleep, having discussions with your rabbi and submitting yourself to his teaching.

That's what it looked like in the first century to be a disciple. What does it look like today?

In 2026, it is a little bit different to be Jesus' disciple. You likely won't get his dust on you. You'll still need to spend a lot of time learning about his teaching. And submitting yourself to his teaching, that part has not changed. He still has the final word on every topic that you will confront.

There is no middle ground. If you are a Christian, you will be a disciple of Jesus, and you'll submit to Him in very practical ways. And so I want to invite you to join me in taking up my cross and following Jesus. Let's be disciples of Jesus. The cost is too high not to be. Jim Elliott said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

Is there any response to the message?