(This article is part of a series that starts here.)

Thus far I have defined Christian disciple and then summed up Christian discipleship as Jesus’s call to “follow me.” I will further explore what being a disciple of Christ should look like, but first I want to take a moment to be clear about what I believe it does not look like. If we truly want to follow Jesus and help others do the same, we need to look at his word and the examples he gave us, and be careful who we choose to follow.

I will focus on two issues: one-on-one discipleship, and the concept that everyone should be making disciples. I have seen both of these in discipleship ministries, and I do not see either of them exemplified in the Bible. I do not believe these are prohibited, necessarily, but I believe they are grossly misapplied.

The first issue is the one-on-one discipleship method or model where a newer Christian meets with someone more mature (a mentor) to be discipled. Jesus was never shown to be discipling anyone one-on-one, he was always with at least two, if not three or four (Matt 26:37, Mark 13:3, Luke 9:28, John 21:20). And this makes sense, for accountability and transparency. I have previously posted about a former pastor of mine who I discovered was a fraud, and one of the things he would do in his one-on-one sessions was give disparaging information about everyone else. He made it seem like he was sharing confidential information because he trusted us. It was actually a way to control us by keeping him as our center and slightly at odds with (and superior to) everyone else. This is the danger in one-on-one time: it is much easier to be manipulated, and much more difficult to verify truth.

An argument for one-on-one may be that we are more willing to be open and honest in the security and privacy of a one-on-one meeting. Yet, if we are to live in community and build a trusting, loving relationship with one another as the Bible describes (John 13:34-35, Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-35, 1 Cor 12:12-27, Phil 2:1-5), would not this be better built by meeting in small groups? If we are to love one another with a love that surpasses our own blood family (Matt 12:46-50, Heb 13:1), we must act like a family.

Jesus picked twelve men to train into leaders, and he spent all his time with them, but the record indicates he spent more “private” time with Peter, James and John. I believe this is the model for discipleship, that we should find two to four other people (of the same gender) who have a desire to draw nearer to Christ, then develop this tiny group into a discipleship group. This tiny group is where we should be most open and honest with one another, confessing and praying for one another, studying the word and applying it together. Also, with a group this small, everyone can have an opportunity to share, so no one gets left out.

The second issue regards teaching that everyone should be making disciples, even young, immature or new believers. I believe this comes from what Jesus commanded before he left, “Go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt 28:19). I have two problems with this, that these ministries focus so much on becoming a disciple-maker that they skip the part about actually being a disciple, and that the Bible clearly shows designated teachers should do the teaching.

I have seen people who are new in their faith being taught about and encouraged to implement a “discipleship multiplication” system. This is when you invest in one person for a year, helping them to develop their faith, and after that year both of you separate and each pick another person to invest in, and so on. At the end of the first year you are left with two discipled Christians (including you), then after the second year you have four, and by the third year you would have eight. This would create more Christians over time than you ever could by “converting” 10,000 people a day. However, if you or the one you invest in does not have a verified, tested faith, this is the same as a multi-level marketing (MLM) scam.

I have been to a few MLM meetings, and one of them was about becoming a financial advisor. When I asked the guy recruiting me about focusing more on how to help people with their finances, he unabashedly expressed a greater interest in becoming a supervisor of advisors, recruiting others to do the work. In other words, he was more interested in the money and power, not the actual job. That may be ok in the secular world with your vocation, but not with Christianity and discipleship. We need to think more about our personal relationship with Christ than becoming a great Christian multiplier. (Jer 45:4-5)

The focus for any newer or less mature believer should always be on the basics of being a disciple, studying the Bible and prayer and fellowship and walking the walk. Showing others how to do this should come after the basics are solid and the understanding of the faith has grown.

This leads to the second part of my contention with this method, the emphasis on teaching. If you pressure people to be making disciples before they have even learned to walk the walk, you are putting them in the role of teacher before their knowledge and faith has been verified. This only leads to incorrect teaching and lifestyles being passed on to new believers.

I have heard discipleship ministries say something like this, “You only need to be one step ahead of someone else to help them.” I do not see this modeled in the New Testament, and it ends up causing many problems. Too many people fall away from the faith (Luke 8:14) or develop strange unbiblical ideas (1 Tim 1:3-4, 19-20) or slip into worldliness (Luke 9:61-62), and these people should not be guiding others in the faith.

One verse commonly used to argue for this one-on-one discipleship multiplication model is 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (NASB) Do you see the word “teach” in there? The letters 1 & 2 Timothy are one church leader giving another church leader guidance, a teacher telling a teacher to train other teachers.

James wrote, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” (Jam 3:1, NIV) Can you teach without knowledge? Can you be a leader before you are a follower? I have seen people new in the faith put into positions of leadership who created dissension, destroyed Bible study groups, and became a poison to the ministry. All this can be avoided if we are doing what Jesus did, meeting in small discipleship groups, and allowing people to be trained and tested into leadership.

I believe Jesus was speaking to a group of people he trained and tested into leaders when he spoke Matt 28:18-20, and that he did not intend every single Christian to be doing this. The work of leaders is to build us into maturity so that we are loving one another (Eph 4:11-32), not so that we are out doing the work of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Leaders need to be developed over time, which is what Paul was saying to Timothy in 2 Tim 2:2.

Yes, there are exceptions, I can cite a couple. But for the vast majority of us, we should be focusing on walking the Christian walk, not teaching others, and we should be doing this in small groups not one-on-one. We can share our faith, giving our testimony and being a witness, without the requirement to teach others how to walk the walk or develop others into strong disciples. Let us focus on loving one another in community, which is what Jesus said would indicate to the whole world that we are his children (John 13:34-35).

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant

Next article in series, Discipleship: What We Believe