Do I know you? Have you ever been asked that question? Sometimes the resulting conversation uncovers a long-lost acquaintance, and sometimes it remains a mystery.
I am part of a book club which is currently reading “Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus” (by Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg. It’s a fantastic book!)
The chapter on discipleship has been eye-opening for me. I learned that discipleship in Bible times was very similar to the way an apprenticeship used to work in Victorian times.
The student or disciple would leave their home and go live with the teacher as a servant because the original goal of true discipleship was to absorb everything about the teacher.
Everything from how they looked and acted in unguarded moments, to what they ate and their personal preferences, until you knew them intimately and could imitate their life and habits perfectly from ‘insider’s knowledge’ – not just regurgitate what they taught.
The disciple was to learn from the teacher by becoming their personal servant, not by being put in a protégé position. They would absorb the teacher much more than the teachings. Like our children imitate our actions more accurately than what we tell them.
This is a very different understanding than we have of teacher/student / disciple relationships in Western culture, and it explains so many other verses. Like, “imitate me as I imitate Christ…”
Or the more sobering one …
“Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven …When Judgement Day comes many will say .. “Lord .. in your name we spoke God’s message, by your name we drove out .. demons and performed many miracles! Then I will say to them, I never knew you. Get away from me, you wicked people!” Matthew 7:21-23
I have always wondered about these verses, but in light of the understanding of discipleship from an Eastern cultural perspective, it makes sense.
The word “know” in Greek is ‘ghinoceko’, meaning to know absolutely, which implies the level of knowledge gained as a result of discipleship.
I am guessing the people Jesus was speaking to in Matthew 7 were repeating his teachings they had learned from the crowd perspective, but hadn’t committed to knowing Him at a discipleship level.
Anyway, back to the book.
One of the examples of discipleship in the book was how mind blowing it was for the Jesus to wash his disciples’ (learners) feet at the last supper.
The culture of discipleship was that they were to serve the teacher’s every need. Yet at the last supper, they were quietly arguing among themselves about who would be the greatest and what place of honour they would achieve in His Kingdom – who would sit on his right hand and his left?
Jesus, who had spent 3 years modelling humility and that the least would be the greatest, did the unthinkable in the culture of Eastern discipleship.
In one last object lesson, He became the servant they refused to humble themselves to be and washed their feet.
Peter apparently got the message because when I read 1 Peter chapter 5 today through this lens of understanding, I saw it in a completely new light. He was passing on what he had learned as Jesus’s disciple.
Verse 2 … be shepherds of whatever flock God has given you. Do it willingly, from a true desire to serve.
Verse 3 … Don’t try to rule over those in your care. Lead by example.
Verse 5 … Submit to your elders. And EVERYONE must put on the apron of humility to serve one another. He refers to another scripture about God resisting the proud. (Sounds like that last supper lesson was still fresh in his mind years later)
Verse 6 … Humble yourself. God will lift you up, if / when He is ready.
Verse 7 … Leave all your worries with Him because He cares for you. (He knew this because he had lived with Him.)
Also
Verse 8 … Watch out for our enemy the devil because he wants to swallow you up and destroy your relationship with God.
Verse 9 … the key Peter had learned to fight off the devil was to be firm in his faith.
Firm faith fights off the devil.
That’s interesting.
It brought to mind the verse where Jesus tells Peter, I have prayed for you … “That your faith doesn’t fail”
Recently Pastor has been teaching on the armour of God in Wednesday night Bible study. We are even memorizing it. (Ephesians 6:10-18)
Verse 16 says …. “ABOVE ALL, taking the shield of faith with which YOU WILL be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
All the fiery darts.
All put out or quenched or made of no effect by faith.
What fiery darts does he launch, trying to take us out?
Bitterness, doubt, fear, the list is endless.
But all are defused with faith.
Faith in what?
“Without faith it is impossible to please God. Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God existsand that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.” (Hebrews 11: NLT)
Seekers (those who come to believe God exists) will also then learn something of His goodness and character in the process.
The very process of seeking turns you into a disciple.
Which means the seeker / disciple will start learning his ways, His thoughts, His responses.
The ‘fiery darts’ of the wicked one will have no effect because the disciple can refer back to their knowledge of the Master, and their faith is built on the rock of the knowledge of His character and promises that He never changes, never fails to deliver, and His word is true.
This exposes the lie in the fiery dart – because we know the truth (through discipleship) and the truth sets us free from the harm/lie of the dart. (John 8:32)
Who knew the crucial question is, “Do I know you?”
Do we know Him and more importantly, does He know us?
