Discipleship (2):Ask the Right Questions to Yourself

1. God, how can you be this good, to adopt me when I’m still unsorted? Practice the discipline of consciously receiving the new identity that comes from adoption. This may not come naturally to you, and you might need to really practice it! But by practicing, we can start doing away with the belief that we have to earn something to be “in.”

2. How am I doing loving the people whom God has placed in my life? What do you notice? What thoughts come up when you consider this question? Where is Jesus out ahead of you, having prepared good works in advance, that you should walk in them like Ephesians 2:8-9 describes? Where and how, this week, is Jesus calling you to love your friends and neighbors in concrete, practical terms?

3. Jesus, what are you speaking to me through your Holy Spirit? Learn to discern how you hear the leading of the Holy Spirit, as you read Scripture and as you listen for his whisper in everyday life. Try to make your response as concrete as possible. If, for example, you sense a need for more rest and greater margin in your life, don’t just say, “I’m going to live slower,” but rather, “I’m going to take three slow, prayerful walks around my neighborhood this week.” The more specific and concrete, the more helpful it is! 

- Bill Hull & Brandon Cook, The False Promise of Discipleship, 2019 

Discipleship (1): Asking the Three Questions in A Small Group

1. The First Question: “How are you experiencing God’s goodness?” This provides space to keep people grounded in an awareness of God’s love, grace, and provision. It’s a way of considering God’s nearness, even in the midst of great challenges. If people are willing to be open and honest about their soul and the suffering they might be walking through, the results can be connectedness and empathy and a mutual sharing of one another’s burdens.

2. The Second Question: “How’s it going with loving the people Jesus has given you to love?” We have very specific categories for these groups, including loved ones (that is, family and friends), spiritual family (that is, our brothers and sisters in Christ), and our neighbors (that is, those around us). Asking the question, “How are you doing loving others?” is the best question for spiritual transformation that lines us up with the mission and heart of Jesus.

3. The Third Question: "What is Jesus speaking to you, and how will you respond this week?” By asking this question with two parts, we place a value on action that goes beyond mere reflection. We coach people toward specificity so that responding in the week ahead is clear and specific, not vague or ambiguous.

- Bill Hull & Brandon Cook, The False Promise of Discipleship, 2019 

The Way to Discipleship

The Jesus way is not only a message for those considering Christ as the answer to the human crisis. It is an explanation of what he is calling every person to do. It is not ambiguous; it requires a faith that gets your legs moving, your mind and heart engaged in learning and obeying. The way of Christ is the way of the disciple (Luke 14:27, 33). Salvation by discipleship alone expects all those called to salvation to follow, learn from, and obey Jesus throughout their lives—no exceptions, no excuses.
 

The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace.

 - DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP

Salvation is by discipleship alone. It is time to wrestle with what that means. That begins with a basic principle: The only way you will experience the fullness of your salvation is through your own discipleship to Christ. Salvation can only be lived through discipleship, and if you don’t live it, you don’t have it. 

 - Bill Hull & Brandon Cook, 

The Cost of Cheap Grace: Reclaiming the Value of Discipleship, 2020.

Discipleship is A State of Being

If we replace the word grace in “salvation by grace alone” with discipleship, we have an entirely different discussion. A disciple is a person who has chosen to position themselves as Jesus’ student or follower. Discipleship is a state of being created by the work of the Holy Spirit combined mysteriously with the human will.
 
Critics object to an emphasis on discipleship because it often functions as shorthand for an individual’s personal growth into Christlikeness. They worry about an inbred understanding of Christian maturity that functions at odds with the great commission. They prefer to emphasize “disciple making” over discipleship. We will set aside the question of whether you can be truly Christlike and not make disciples. But it’s highly doubtful that any significant movement of God has been inhibited by referring to discipleship rather than disciple making. Reasons for the great commission being diminished in the contemporary Christian imagination run much deeper than word choice. You can’t find a church that honors Christ’s words that would not agree that making disciples of all nations is crucial. They have had the language right, but they have used the right language wrongly. The church of cheap grace makes disciples, but the disciples they make are by and large practicing a watered-down, broadened-out discipleship, such that just about anything a church does hits the target.
 
Making new disciples is the starting point for multiplication and the fulfillment of Christ’s mandate to reach the world. In Matthew 28:18-20, the centerpiece of the great commission is the command to “make disciples.” The critics are right both about the priority given by Jesus to disciple making in his gospel, and about the failures of the contemporary church in making disciples. For our discussion, however, making disciples is inherent to discipleship: It is part of our ongoing interaction with Christ, learning from him and participating in his mission.
 
When we use the phrase “salvation by discipleship alone,” we mean that there is only one way to fully experience your salvation, and that is via a lifetime of discipleship to Christ. Everyone who is called to salvation is called to discipleship—no exceptions, no excuses.
 

- Bill Hull & Brandon Cook, 

The Cost of Cheap Grace: Reclaiming the Value of Discipleship, 2020.

The Threat of Discipleship

The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace.

- DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP

 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes this assertion as a way of reconciling two seemingly incompatible ideas, at least according to the spirit of the age: grace and discipleship. It is the person who has given the most to his or her salvation, Bonhoeffer recognizes, who understands best that only by grace could they have lived it out. Here Bonhoeffer echoes a powerful call from the apostle Paul: “Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear” (Philippians 2:12, NLT). The more you place yourself at risk, the more profound are your experiences of grace and mercy—you come to know, at a bone-deep level, that it is all by grace. This is a knowledge that is never gained by semiobedient people or by the majority of Christians.
 
Bonhoeffer was significantly influenced by Martin Luther. He agreed with Luther’s emphasis on “justification by faith alone” (a companion assertion to the clichéd “salvation by grace alone”) and defended it. In fact, Bonhoeffer lamented the damage that had been done to Luther’s teaching:
 

Nonetheless, what emerged victorious from Reformation history was not Luther’s recognition of pure, costly grace, but the alert religious instinct of human beings for the place where grace could be had the cheapest. Only a small, hardly noticeable distortion of the emphasis was needed, and that most dangerous and ruinous deed was done. . . . Luther knew that this grace had cost him one life and daily continued to cost him, for he was not excused by grace from discipleship, but instead was all the more thrust into it.

 

- Bill Hull & Brandon Cook, 

The Cost of Cheap Grace: Reclaiming the Value of Discipleship, 2020.

 

透过泪水织就的棱角，在宝石红的远方

当火车驶离文森特童年的草地和溪岸时，思乡、愧疚和愤懑一股脑儿全涌上了文森特的心头。当时，他恰巧发现了一首能够完美捕捉当时心情的诗歌。他把这首诗寄给了提奥，表示“它深深打动了我”：

一个受伤的魂灵跌撞在……

人生第一个逍遥谷，在那儿，年少无忧的你，

总爱聆听自己沉默中的歌唱。

我的心，你是怀着怎样苦痛的热忱迷醉在

给予你生命的家园……

但妄念，你总生生把我们欺骗！

在你斑斓的幻境中，一个五彩的未来

正生成一张滑轮织就的网，好似一个灿烂的夏日，

那震颤的耳朵不就是无数个太阳吗？

你撒了谎。但这样的魅力谁人能挡，

透过泪水织就的棱角，在宝石红的远方，

依稀可见闪耀着霓虹的鬼魅。

取自：《梵高传》

http://reader.epubee.com/books/mobile/c8/c89c4e987ce4d1091b2550bd4c81935e/text00007.html

阅读力

土耳其著名作家帕慕克对阅读文字的好处有过一番很有趣的理解，他在《白色城堡》一书里写道：“人生犹如单趟车旅，一旦结束，你就不能重来一次了。”“但是假如你能一卷在握，不管那本书多么复杂或艰涩，假如你愿意的话，当你读完它时，你可以回到开头处，再读一遍，如此一来就可以对艰涩处有进一步的了解，也会对生命有进一步的领悟。”阅读是一件多么美好的事情，它可以使得我们对生命有过很多次的体验和领悟。

对于识字的人，阅读很自然会成为自己生活的一部分。西班牙大文豪塞万提斯一直酷爱阅读，甚至连丢落在街道上的碎纸片他都会捡起来读。著名英国女作家弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙每年都要重读一次莎士比亚的《哈姆雷特》，而且都会将读后感记下来。“这实际上便是在记录自己的传记，因为我们对生命所知更多时，莎士比亚就会进一步评论我们对世界的理解。”

而识字的人一旦孤立独处，想到的第一件事情往往是阅读。我国著名诗人、翻译家绿原先生，在20世纪50年代遭遇冤案入狱七年，他竟然借此孤独的遭遇在监狱里自学德语，出狱后翻译了德国文学经典名著《浮士德》和不少德语文学作品。奥地利著名作家茨威格有一部著名的中篇小说《象棋的故事》，写的是一个银行职员落入德国纳粹的监狱，监禁使他孤独得几乎发疯，一个偶然的机会他偷到一本书，却是他从不感兴趣的棋谱书，是国际象棋著名对局，在百无聊赖、孤苦无援下他只好用阅读这部棋谱度过牢狱中的日日夜夜，岂料从此陷入独自对弈的魔怔。