What Did Jesus Educate about Discipleship?

This text is a part of the What Did Jesus Educate? collection.

Following Jesus

Mark 8:34 recounts Jesus’s most pointed instructing on the character of discipleship. This instruction applies to all (i.e., not merely the twelve) who need to comply with him and contains three parts:¹denying oneself, taking on one’s cross, and following him. Mark narrates situations of every of the three parts, permitting us to see what they seem like in observe. The primary is probably probably the most radical. One should deny not “issues that the self desires, however the self itself.”²In 2 Timothy 2:13, Paul speaks in regards to the impossibility of God denying himself, which might entail performing “opposite to his personal nature, to stop to be God.”³ Calling his followers to do what’s not possible for God, Jesus requires a “a radical abandonment of 1’s personal id and self-determination.” They’re to affix the “march to the place of execution.”⁴

The second factor, to take up one’s cross, is Mark’s first reference to “cross” (stauros) and the one reference outdoors the fervour narrative (Mark 15:21, 30, 32). It foreshadows the style of Jesus’s loss of life and graphically illustrates the price of following him—all the way in which to his loss of life. A be aware of willingly sharing Jesus’s disgrace can be current (cf. Heb. 12:2).⁵ Though this summons features a literal sense—that’s, being keen to endure bodily loss of life—the breadth of discipleship expertise within the Gospel means that it additionally contains the broader, metaphorical sense and “serves to bolster and intensify what it means to disclaim oneself.”⁶

Peter Orr

On this addition to the New Testomony Theology collection, scholar Peter Orr provides an accessible abstract of the theology of Mark, analyzing its relationship to each the Outdated and New Testaments. 

The ultimate requirement generates a round assertion: “If anybody needs to comply with after me . . . let him comply with me.”⁷ The sense is that following Jesus have to be an ongoing course of.⁸ Peter’s declare that the disciples have “left the whole lot and adopted” Jesus (Mark 10:28) elicits a optimistic response (Mark 10:29–30). By the point that Jesus goes to the cross, nonetheless, Peter has deserted him.

Jesus expands on his threefold name by offering causes and penalties in Mark 8:35–38. His paradoxical assertion reveals that this lifetime of self-denying discipleship looks like lack of life however truly saves it. To disclaim Jesus’s name to discipleship, to cling to 1’s life and keep away from his summons to loss of life, is absolutely to lose one’s life. “The one for whom the way in which of Jesus is extra essential than his personal existence will safe his everlasting being; however the one whose existence is extra essential than Jesus will lose each Jesus and his existence.”⁹

To not be neglected is Jesus’s insistence that his followers lose their life not only for his sake but additionally for the gospel’s sake (Mark 8:35). Discipleship as imitation of Jesus finds its counterpoint in mission.¹⁰

Cross-shaped discipleship, nonetheless paradoxical it would sound, is the way in which to life. In financial phrases, gaining the entire world is price nothing if it prices one’s soul (Mark 8:36), and an individual may give nothing to buy his or her soul (Mark 8:37). That’s, it’s not possible to regain your soul upon getting misplaced it.¹¹ Mark 8:38 strikes from economics to eschatology as Jesus speaks of the tip of the age and the approaching of the Son of Man in glory. When he comes, Jesus shall be ashamed of whoever has been ashamed of him and his phrases (cf. a reference to the gospel in Mark 8:35) in “this adulterous and sinful technology.”¹²

Jesus has moved from predicting his loss of life to reflecting on a lifetime of following him and carrying one’s personal cross. Mark illustrates this negatively and positively all through his Gospel. The twelve mannequin it negatively as Jesus’s personal loss of life approaches. Somewhat than deny himself, Peter denies Jesus 3 times (Mark 14:30–31, Mark 14:72). Whereas the others don’t deny him verbally, neither do they comply with him to the cross. They, too, abandon him (Mark 14:50). Nonetheless, we additionally discover optimistic fashions within the two Marys and Salome, who stay with Jesus to the tip, even when they watch the crucifixion “from a distance” (Mark 15:40).

This isn’t Jesus’s solely instructing regarding discipleship. We’ve got seen that one of the vital widespread titles utilized to Jesus is “instructor.” Important instructing within the first half of the Gospel contains his parables (Mark 4:13–34), his clashes with the Pharisees and scribes over the character of purity (Mark 7:1–23), and his warning to the disciples to keep away from the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod (Mark 8:11–21). However the center part of the Gospel—from when Jesus begins to show on his loss of life and resurrection (Mark 8:31) till he enters Jerusalem (Mark 11:1)—kinds probably the most concentrated part of instructing. Mark 8:31–10:52 kinds a coherent part of the Gospel as indicated by its framing with accounts of Jesus therapeutic blind males (Mark 8:22–26; Mark 10:46–52) and the repeated use of the phrase “on the way in which” (en tē hodos in Mark 8:27; Mark 9:33; Mark 9:34; Mark 10:32; Mark 10:52).¹³ As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, “the themes of self-sacrifice and willingness to serve change into even stronger, whilst Jesus’s predictions of his impending loss of life change into even clearer.”¹⁴ He calls his disciples to surrender the whole lot—riches, houses, and households (Mark 10:17–22, 23–30).¹⁵ Disciples are to be servants. In actual fact, “whoever can be nice amongst you have to be your servant, and whoever can be first amongst you have to be slave of all” (Mark 10:43–44)—illustrated most powerfully within the lifetime of Jesus himself who, because the Son of Man, got here “to not be served however to serve, and to provide his life as a ransom for a lot of” (Mark 10:45). Jesus’s countercultural instructing thus “isn’t merely a blueprint for others however kinds the idea for a way Jesus will conduct his personal life.”¹⁶

This central part is structured round Jesus’s three ardour predictions (Mark 8:31; Mark 9:30; Mark 10:33–34). The sample of Jesus’s first ardour prediction repeats within the different two. Every is adopted with instructing on the form of discipleship—as it’s exemplified within the narrative of the Gospel.¹⁷ As Aernie factors out, the disciples react negatively to Jesus’s ardour predictions with “insolence (Mark 8:32–33), fearful silence (Mark 9:32), and misplaced conceitedness (Mark 10:35–41).”¹⁸ Nonetheless, in every case Jesus corrects their response by instructing on the character of discipleship— “cruciformity (Mark 8:34–38), inversion of social hierarchies (9:35–37), and self-sacrificial service (Mark 10:42–45).”¹⁹ Every failure to understand the importance of Jesus’s loss of life proves that “a incorrect view of Messiahship results in a incorrect view of discipleship.”²⁰

Disciples are to be servants.

Within the midst of this part about following Jesus to loss of life, about promoting the whole lot one has to comply with Jesus (Mark 10:21), about leaving household for Jesus’s sake and for the gospel (Mark 10:28), Jesus teaches that divorce opposes God’s unique intention for marriage (Mark 10:7–9) and that remarriage following divorce equates to adultery (Mark 10:10–12). As Mark Strauss notes, “Jesus’s followers should not abandon troublesome marriage relationships just because they don’t seem to be assembly their private wants. Genuine discipleship isn’t about self-gratification, however about giving oneself in sacrificial service for the dominion of God.”²¹ He additionally means that the entire part “connects to the passages earlier than and after with the theme of God’s love and concern for the bottom members of society, since within the historic world girls (Mark 10:5–9) and kids (Mark 9:36–37, 42; Mark 10:14–16) have been among the many most weak to exploitation and abuse.”²² Moreover, this passage domesticates (within the non-pejorative sense of this phrase) Jesus’s radical instructing of Mark 8:34–38. Following Jesus, denying oneself, and carrying the cross for Jesus’s sake and for the gospel doesn’t imply abandoning one’s marriage or kids.

In actual fact, discipleship means greater than sacrifice—those that depart earthly ties will discover them changed “a hundredfold now on this time” and can obtain “within the age to come back everlasting life” (Mark 10:30). The checklist of issues deserted for the sake of Jesus and the gospel is matched a hundredfold—apart from one’s father (since God is to be their solely Father)²³ —with the addition of persecutions (Mark 10:29–30).

This instructing widens discipleship past the expertise of the primary disciples. For the twelve, discipleship meant actually following Jesus to his loss of life. They failed totally as all of them deserted him and Peter denied him. However bodily following Jesus to the cross is now not attainable. This transformation thus qualifies how we must always apply the decision to depart household (Mark 1:16–20) to up to date discipleship. The decision to discipleship, nonetheless, stays radical. It nonetheless incorporates the decision to loss of life, however that is expressed in a different way now that Jesus is now not bodily current. Mark 9:38–41 anticipates the post-resurrection expertise of discipleship. The disciples recount how they tried to cease somebody casting out demons in Jesus’s identify as a result of “he was not following us” (Mark 9:38). As Robert Stein wryly observes, “This can be the primary time, however definitely not the final, through which ecclesiastical leaders have sought to hinder those that would minister within the identify of Christ independently of their authority.”²⁴ Nonetheless, Jesus insists that nobody who does a miracle in his identify can converse in opposition to him, after which he lays down the precept, “The one who isn’t in opposition to us is for us” (Mark 9:40). He guarantees a reward for anybody who offers even a “cup of water” to one of many disciples as a result of they “belong to Christ” (Mark 9:41). This final phrase is essential. Jesus speaks not merely of “benevolence and charity” however of aiding his followers as a result of “they belong to and work for Jesus the Messiah.”²⁵ Supporting God’s servants results in reward.

This text is tailored from The Starting of the Gospel: A Theology of Mark by Peter Orr.

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