Why Disciples?
– by Kent Wagner

Advancing the Kingdom by Living for God and Loving People

What’s in a name? 

My dad said he and my mom named me “Kent Alexander Wagner” because he had always worked at radio stations and had dreamed of being a big-time DJ.  He thought, “Kent Alexander” had a really nice ring to it for a DJ’s name.  When I was in high school, I actually DJ’s for a while, I was terrible at it – talking to a microphone pretending people were listening was not my cup of tea.

Names matter.  From the origin to a name, to someone remembering or forgetting your name.  A name is who we are.  Shocker, but I’ve been Kent for my entire life (except for a short period when I went by George at the age of 4 – but that’s a story for another time).  Kent is how I think of myself and, at least in my world, I define what it means to be a Kent.

I was thinking about this idea and what it is that we all call ourselves in this faith journey we take with Jesus.  The name Christian.  But do you know where that name came from?  The name was a name given to us early on in the history of the global church – nearly 2,000 years ago.  You can find the first time Christians were called Christians in the bible in Acts 11:26b “So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”

What had happened was persecution had broken out in Jerusalem and the early followers of Jesus were dispersed throughout the Roman empire.  Some of those who had been scattered arrived in Antioch, a Roman city off the coast of the Mediterranean sea.  Non-Jewish people started coming to salvation in Jesus in large numbers for the first time.  It is this group of non-Jewish people who get tagged by the citizens of Antioch as “Christians”.

What I want you to notice is Christian is not the name they gave themselves.  It’s what they were called by the people of Antioch.  It is a Greek name meaning “little anointed ones” or “little Christs.”  I won’t go into all the details*, but in essence, the term Christian was a way of referring to those who belong to Christ.

But what was it that these early Christians called themselves?  Did you notice it?  “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”  How early followers of Jesus thought of themselves was as disciples.  A disciple is someone who wants to learn to live, teach, and be like their rabbi.  They want their life to be exactly like the one they follow – which is probably why the Greeks said, “they belong to Christ” in their name-calling.

But a subtle shift happened in that name exchange.  The word disciple denoted something you were working on becoming – you were engaged in the process, active in it.  Don’t get this confused with salvation and how we don’t work for that.  Entering into the discipleship relationship is a free gift that comes by faith.  Continuing in it as a disciple takes work and effort – we don’t earn salvation, but we do effort our way as disciples.  This is why Paul says in Philippians 2:12 that we are to be working out our salvation with fear and trembling.  You were not saved as an end unto yourself, you were saved to become a disciple.

Actually, the way the New Testament describes a disciple after the cross of Jesus is only in terms of discipleship to Jesus.  I don’t disciple you, you don’t disciple someone else.  We are all disciples of Jesus.  He is our Rabbi – I am alongside you learning to be like Him, learning His teaching, His way of life and rhythms of grace, learning to be like Him in everything.

John will say in 1 John 2:6 “Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.”  John is explaining to his audience that your faith is not simply a journey of belief, it is also a journey of action.  You actively engaging in becoming like Jesus.

The whole reason the disciples called themselves disciples is because it’s LITERALLY the marching call Jesus gave them!  Listen to Matthew 28:19-20 – this is after the cross after Jesus has risen from the dead, it is the way Matthew closes his good news of Jesus  with a final commission for Jesus’ current disciples:

“18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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.”

What does Jesus want them to do?  Make disciples!  How do you do that?  You go, you baptize, you teach them to obey everything I’ve commanded you – ie. teach them that I’m the Rabbi and they need to be like/follow me.

So, maybe you’re sitting there going, “Ok Kent, I get it, but why all the hubbub bub?”  Here is why all the hubbub.  Because the name Christian describes what I am, disciple describes how I live – and in our modern world – those two things can be worlds apart.  How many people do you know wear the name Christian and NOTHING is different about their life from those who don’t wear that name.  Probably a lot of people.  It’s because “Christian” doesn’t require a whole lot of you other than at some point you made a decision and said some words out loud.  Disciple requires everything of you.  It requires your thought life to start to change and submit to Jesus.  It means the way you talk, the way you treat your family, how you care for strangers, and whether you will love or hate your enemy.

Listen, Jesus’ invitation to salvation was a gateway into His Kingdom where He is Rabbi and King.  He wants to join with you in your life and move you into a deeper way of life – He invites you into something more.  It will require that you make one monumental shift that will affect everything else.  What is it?  What is the one change you make as a disciple that changes everything?

You seek first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness (rightness/way of doing things).

This is “disciple”.  Seek Him first.  It’s kind of like that old idea of “WWJD?” (what would Jesus do?).  It is you saying in your everyday life, I want everything I do to be like Jesus’.  It means getting to know Him, actually studying and meditating on the gospel accounts in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John – if you haven’t read these, don’t read anything else in the bible till you do).    It means reading the book of Acts and asking yourself, “what is different about these early disciples from the way I live?”

Literally, making that one shift in your thinking will change everything.

Names matter, today you can go from simply being a Christian to living as a disciple, and let me tell you, once you make that shift, you will never go back, never!

Serving Jesus,

Kent A Wagner

Kent A. Wagner

FOOTNOTE(S):

*In Studies in Jewish and Christian History: Part Three, Elias Joseph Bickerman wrote,

All these Greek terms, formed with the Latin suffix -ianus, exactly as the Latin words of the same derivation, express the idea that the men or things referred to, belong to the person to whose name the suffix is added. In Greek as in Latin the suffix -ianus is a substitute for the possessive genitive… The term Καισαριανοί corresponds to the ellipse Καίσαρος (Caesaris servus [“a slave of Caesar”]) in other documents. The “Christians” belong to Christ, they are οί τοῦ χριστοῦ [“those of Christ”] as Paul says.

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