“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matt 28:19-20)
The above passage is often read to emphasize the need for believers to carry the gospel to all nations or the call for every believer to be baptized. While both aspects are fundamental to the Christian faith, the original Greek imperative emphasizes neither baptism nor the call to go to all nations. More than anything else, this statement of Jesus is calling all believers to make disciples in our daily walk. A more accurate rendering of the passage might read, “in your going, make disciples of all nations.” The responsibility of making disciples is not delegated to the few. Every believer must “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have,” (1 Pet 3:15). According to the Talmud, “Who teaches Torah to the son of his fellow-man has it ascribed to him as though he had begotten him,” (Sanh 19b).
Believers are called to become disciples and to make disciples, but most believers have no idea of what discipleship means. Like many concepts in the Bible, the term disciple has been watered down in our culture to the point where it means a part time student or novice, and not the biblical life changing call of dedication to walk as Jesus did in all aspects of life. The goal of discipleship is best defined by Jesus, “A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master,” (Matt 10:24-25). The goal of discipleship is to become like the teacher in all aspects of life, “to walk in the same manner as He walked” (1 John 2:6), and to teach others to become like us after we have become like Jesus. Paul told his followers, “I pray that not only you but all who are listening become what I am,” (Acts 26:29). Paul could only make this statement as he became transformed into the pattern of Jesus.
The concept of disciples is not unique to the ministry of Jesus. Most rabbis in the first century had disciples, (Mark 2:18), in Hebrew called “talmidim” or “talmid” for a single disciple. John had disciples that left him to become disciples of Jesus, (John 1:37)(Acts 19:1-7). Some of the early conflicts in the ministry of Jesus were actually disputes arising between the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of John. The disciples of John were concerned that Jesus was becoming more popular that John, (John 3:25-26). It was the disciples of John who asked Jesus, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” (Matt 9:14). When scripture speaks of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law questioning Jesus, it was probably the disciples of other rabbis who did the questioning.
By the beginning of the first century, the rabbi/disciple model of teaching was highly developed from centuries of refinement. When Ezra and the men of the Great Assembly began returning to the land of Israel around 500 BC, they sought to instill a method of teaching that would protect the hearts of the people from turning back to idolatry. What they did is detailed elsewhere, but summarized by three overriding principles that they gave to those who followed after them:
• Be deliberate in judging,
• Raise up many disciples, and
• Make a hedge for the Torah.
The call to “raise up many disciples” is a principle that most believers recognize in the earthly ministry of Jesus.
THE FIRST CENTURY HEBREW EDUCATION SYSTEM
Discipleship was a natural extension of the education system of first century Israel that sought to infuse knowledge of the Torah into every individual so that the name of God would be remembered; “Where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you,” (Ex 20:24). In the words of Boaz Cohen, “To study the inspired Writings, to meditate upon them, to extract from them all they could be made to produce was, accordingly, the chief privilege…the greatest duty of the Jew.” (Everyman’s Talmud, page 125). The study of God’s word is more than an intellectual pursuit, study brings life, as the common saying goes, “The more Torah the more life.” This concept carries into the apostolic text where John referred to scripture as the “Word of life,” (1 John 1:1), and Jesus said, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life,” (John 5:24). The pursuit of understanding scripture is a lifelong journey. In the words of the Talmud,
“Turn it (the Torah) and turn it over again, for everything is in it; and contemplate it, and wax grey and old over it; and stir not from it. You can have no better rule than this.”
When a Hebrew child was five years old, they began to memorize the scripture. This may have occurred in the home or possibly in a Yeshiva (school), adjacent to or part the local synagogue. Girls generally learned the Psalms, Proverbs, and Deuteronomy. Boys memorized all scripture beginning with the Book of Leviticus as it is written, “Since the children are pure and the sacrifices are pure, let the pure come and occupy themselves with things that are pure,” (Lev R 7:3). Scripture memorization was important for two reasons. From a practical standpoint, most towns could only afford a single copy of scripture that was kept at the synagogue. For this reason, the public reading of scripture was fundamental to the teaching of individuals who otherwise had no access to scripture, (1 Tim 4:3). Further, since chapter and verse notation did not exist until the Middle Ages, scripture references where given by reciting the first few words or sentences of the intended passage. The listener had to be familiar with the passage being quoted to gain the deeper understanding of the principle message being taught.
The typical method of quoting only a portion of scripture is used in the apostolic text. Often the Hebrew text being quoted is just a partial reference and the reader is expected to be familiar with the greater content of the passage. The reader who does not know scripture will miss many of the deeper truths being taught. In the present age, we have the luxury of looking up the quoted passage. Although convenient, chapter and verses references remove the responsibility of the reader to be familiar with the context of the passage. In the first century, the listener had to be able to fill in the blanks by memory or he would miss a significant portion of the rabbis’ teaching.
Memorizing scripture also molded the believer into a life of obedience to the commandments, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you,” (Psa 119:11). The Sages summarized the importance of knowing scripture in order to put scripture into practice.
“Where there is no Torah, there are no manners; where there are no manners, there is no Torah. Where there is no wisdom, there is no fear of God; where there is no fear of God; there is no wisdom. Where there is no knowledge, there is no understanding; where there is no understanding, there is no knowledge. Where there is no meal, there is no Torah; where there is no Torah, there is no meal,” (Everyman’s Talmud, page 128).
Around the age of ten, boys began to the study the Mishnah, the Oral Traditions of the Rabbis first handed down to Moses at Mount Sinai. Somewhere between the age twelve and fifteen, the student entered the Beit Midrash (House of Interpretation) to study the rabbinic commentary on the Bible and Oral Traditions (Gemara). The Hebrew Talmud is the combination of both the Mishnah (Oral Traditions) and the Gemara (Rabbini Interpretations). For the average student, his formal education was complete around the age of fifteen and he began to learn an occupation, while the average girl became eligible for marriage sometime around this age. The fact that Jesus found most of his disciples already pursuing worldly occupations, tells us something about their ability as students. The disciples of Jesus were not exceptional scholars, they were “uneducated and untrained men,” (Acts 4:13), who had given up their educational pursuits to learn a profession until they met Jesus.
The few students who were blessed to have an exceptional ability to memorize scripture and learn the related oral teachings sought out a fulltime teacher (rabbi) to further their study of the Torah. The more prestigious the rabbi, the more difficult it was for a student to find acceptance “sitting at the feet” (Luke 8:35), a Hebrew idiom for studying under a great scholar. Paul stated that he was, “brought up…at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers,” (Acts 22:3, KJV). Since the student became a reflection of the teacher, the rabbi only sought out individuals who were in the image of the teacher possessing the greatest ability to learn and the best demeanor to teach others.
Somewhat analogous to applying to a prestigious university, only the best found acceptance, while the remaining were saddled with rejection. Many of Jesus disciples were not seeking him because they felt intellectually inferior or spiritually inadequate; after all they were called tax collectors, sinners, and fisherman. Jesus called his disciples, contrary to the normal process, and later reminded them “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last,” (John 15:16). In choosing his disciples, Jesus was conveying their sufficiency or more likely, the ability of Jesus to overcome their insufficiency. To a group of individuals who had been rejected and come to terms with their rejection, their acceptance by a rabbi who had already performed several miracles must have seemed like a miracle in itself. Yet the same statement is made about all believers, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him,” (Eph 1:5). Jesus chose us because he knew we could be just like him, “holy and blameless.”
NOT YOUR TYPICAL DISCIPLES
Why did Jesus choose those men and women he did to be his disciples? These individuals were probably not gifted with the greatest natural abilities. Men who had been gifted studied under the greatest rabbis of their day like Gamaliel the Elder. Paul was his disciple, but Jesus did not initially choose Paul and we might wonder why not? Paul was actually handicapped by being too studied, too indoctrinated in the ways of the Pharisees, unable to be retrained in the wisdom of Jesus. Even after Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, it took an additional seventeen years in the desert to retrain Paul’s thinking. Jesus did not have seventeen years to teach, he only had three and one-half years. He did not have time to retrain, only time to train. Jesus needed disciples who had not been preprogrammed in the dogma of the day.
There were probably many individuals trained in the Yeshivas of the Pharisees who wanted to learn under Jesus, but these were rejected. When asked why his disciples did not follow the traditions of the other rabbis, Jesus responded by telling a parable.
"No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'" (Luke 5:36-39)
In this parable, Jesus is equating the dogmatic teaching of some Pharisees to the old wine, while his teaching is the new wine. People who have been indoctrinated into a certain way of thinking do not easily gravitate to a new teaching even when the new teaching is closer to the original truth. The modern vernacular for this phenomenon might be expressed in the saying, “you can not teach an old dog new tricks.” The rabbis of Jesus day told held a similar view.
“Elisha ben Avuyah said, ‘He who studies as a child, unto what can he be compared? He can be compared to ink written upon a fresh sheet of paper. But he who studies as an adult, unto what can he be compared? He can be compared to ink written on a smudged (previously used and erased) sheet of paper.’” (m.Avot 4:25)
In the words recorded by Luke (Luke 5:36-39), Jesus is not arguing against the words of Torah spoken by the mouth of God or demonstrating the supremacy of grace over the Law. Jesus argues the limitations of those already indoctrinated in the interpretations of men (old wineskins) because they often do not accept the original intent behind the word, “but from the beginning it has not been this way,” (Matt 19:8). Because the apostles were largely “uneducated and untrained men,” (Acts 4:13), they were not burdened with the existing dogma of their day. They were fresh sheets of paper, blank pages, if you will, that the Master could write on and the disciples would receive. The great news is that you and I can also be fresh sheets of paper for Jesus to write on if we do not hold fast to the religious dogma of this world.
The disciples of Jesus were probably a mixture of younger and older men. Younger men had the advantage of being fresh sheets of paper with fewer preconceived notions and did not yet have the obligations of family and work. “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” (Mark 10:14). Most disciples of rabbis began their study around the age of fifteen and would potentially study until they reached the age of thirty. By that age, a disciple would be sufficiently learned to become rabbis himself capable of teaching his own set of disciples, “Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry,” (Luke 3:23).
Unfortunately, Jesus did not have fifteen years to teach his disciples. He was only among them in the flesh for a little more than three years. This necessitated the need to have older disciples capable of teaching after the departure of the Master. Although we do not know the specific ages of the disciples, Peter was at least old enough to have a wife and pay the temple tax (Matt 17:24-27), which was required of every Hebrew male living in Israel who was twenty years and older, (Ex 30:13).
Although we generally think of disciples as being male, a few first century rabbis allowed women to be disciples, including Jesus. Mary was said to be “seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word” (Luke 10:39). Some of the women who followed Jesus were major supporters of his ministry. Luke tells us, “The Twelve were with him, and also some women…Mary (called Magdalene)…Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means,” (Luke 8:1-3).
Scott (to be continued...)
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