7 Discipleship Principles from Jesus
Once Jesus was resurrected, He commanded His disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations.” But what does that discipleship look like? How does one go about obeying this command practically? How would the original apostles have gone about doing this? I think the answer is clear: Jesus had spent the past several years discipling the apostles, setting an example for how discipleship is to be done. In short, the apostles would have learned their discipleship principles from Jesus. And so should you.
In this post, I want to extract practical discipleship principles from Jesus by looking at how He behaved towards His disciples. This post will look at the Gospel of Matthew in particular. There are many different ideas and methods put forward today for how to disciple someone. But the most important and foundational principles are laid down by Jesus in the Gospels. You must internalize and meditate on how Jesus interacted with His disciples in order to be effective at discipling others in obedience to the Great Commission.
1. You must initiate the discipling relationship
While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he (Jesus) saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
Matthew 4:18-20 ESV, emphasis added
It goes without saying, but the 12 apostles didn’t choose themselves to become Jesus disciples. Jesus initiated the relationship. Jesus called the 12 from their different areas of life and commanded them to follow Him. Furthermore, in Matthew 4 Jesus states His goal with discipling Peter and Andrew: He will make these brothers fishers of men.
“Fishers of men” is an apt metaphor for discipleship. No one goes fishing by sitting at home and waiting for the fish to swim up on land and come to them. Fishing means going out and catching the fish yourself. If you want to disciple other people, you are going to have to initiate the relationship. If you sit around waiting to be swarmed by individuals dying to glean wisdom from you, you will be waiting a long time.
Fishing for men means taking responsibility to go out and find people to disciple.
Now, unlike Jesus who has all authority, not everyone you approach with immediately follow you as Peter and Andrew did Jesus. But this discipleship principle from Jesus still holds: if you want to have a discipling relationship with someone, you are going to have to take the first steps.
2. Discipleship involves both direct teaching and setting an example with your lifestyle
The 12 apostles were around Jesus for the length of His earthly ministry. During that time, Jesus both taught the disciples directly, and set an example by His conduct. The Gospel of Matthew contains several sections recording the teaching of Jesus, including the famous section “The Sermon on the Mount.” Beyond this formal teaching, the 12 apostles received teaching not given broadly, such as Jesus interpreting parables for them.
But it would be foolish to limit Jesus’ discipleship of the apostles to His teaching ministry. The apostles also:
- Witnessed Jesus’ miracles
- Watched Him respond to the Pharisees
- Listened as He answered questions from the crowd with wisdom
And more. Because the apostles were around Jesus constantly, they had the unique position to both hear what Jesus said and observe how Jesus acted. And this “hearing and seeing” is crucial to any discipling relationship. Certainly a good amount of time discipling others will involve teaching. But just as important is how you yourself behave and conduct yourself.
If you disciple someone, you are not only saying “listen to me.” You are also saying “imitate me as I imitate Christ.”
Just like Jesus, you need to model in practice what you teach in precept. You oftentimes have more opportunities to display godly character in action than you do communicating godly characteristics in word.
3. Discipleship is honest about the joy of following Christ and the cost of following Christ
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30 ESV, emphasis added
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:24-25 ESV, emphasis added
Jesus did not sugarcoat the cost of following Him. Neither did He undersell the peace and joy He provides. Discipling involves teaching this tension. Following Jesus will lead to suffering and difficulty in this world, but Jesus is worth it. If you lose either part of this tension, you will end up obscuring the Bible’s teaching.
A major part of discipling others is displaying for them the worth and value of Jesus. Since the Gospel is at the heart of the Christian faith, you always return to it. You show how it is Jesus and Jesus alone who gives rest for people’s souls. And this rest was only made possible by His sacrifice.
But at the same time, you don’t ever want to make Jesus sound like a “ticket to heaven” or a means to material gain or someone who demands nothing of His followers. Just as Jesus called His disciples to self denial and dying to themselves, so to you will make it clear to all you are discipling that following Jesus requires leaving behind much of what people hold onto in their flesh.
4. You cannot disciple everyone at the same level
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
Matthew 5:1, 10:1, 17:1 ESV, emphasis added
Jesus did not disciple every single person He came in contact with. Even amongst the 12 apostles, He chose three to disciple more intimately. Jesus on several occasions brought only Peter, James, and John with Him to witness key moments in His ministry. You can see these three “levels of discipleship” in the verses above:
- Jesus had a large crowd of disciples following Him who He taught formally
- The 12 apostles were specifically selected by Jesus to minister alongside Him
- Of those 12 apostles, Jesus chose three in particular to devote the most of His time
What is point here? You cannot disciple every single person at the same level. If you have been given an opportunity to teach formally at Church, that is a form of discipleship. Whether a pastor or a teacher, you disciple the congregation by expounding the word to them. But you cannot possibly have the entire congregation over your house every week. You will have to select a subset of the congregation to prioritize when doing that kind of discipling.
But even within that subset that you prioritize, you cannot go deep with every single person. You cannot live out all aspects of a discipling relationship with that entire group of believers. Within the subset of the congregation you devote your time to, there might be a handful that you really disciple at a deep level. And that is okay.
Don’t feel like you have to disciple every person you meet at the same level of depth in order to fulfill Jesus’ command.
There is a breadth to discipleship to be sure, but there is also a depth of getting to really know a few Christians at the level where you feel comfortable sharing your struggles against sins, your doubts, your spiritual victories. Jesus discipled many people during His ministry, but not all at the same level. We would do well to take this lesson to heart when we strategically plan who to disciple.
5. Discipling others involves both asking questions and answering questions
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 16:13-16 ESV, emphasis added
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Matthew 24:3 ESV, emphasis added
This discipleship principle from Jesus you see throughout the gospels. Jesus is an expert question-asker. His questions get right to the heart of whatever issue or whatever person He is dealing with. Questions are tools to make the other person think and to confront someone else’s thinking. Matthew 16 gives a great example: Jesus asks a general question to frame the discussion and then asks His disciples directly “what do you think?”
If you want to disciple someone else, you will have to become good at asking questions.
It is always tempting to simply tell someone else what they should think. But the goal of asking questions is to lead the other person to see the conclusion for themselves. It takes a lot of practice but no tool is more useful in discipleship, besides prayer and Scripture, than asking good questions.
Of course, the opposite is also true: you will have to answer questions if you disciple others. This leads to another key principle: discipleship is not one-sided. You don’t get to ask all the questions; sometimes you will have to answer hard questions yourself. In Matthew 24, Jesus is asked about the end of the age and ends up teaching for some time before finally answering the question directly. Since you don’t have all knowledge like Jesus, you will often have to consult Scripture yourself as you are asked tough questions from those you are discipling.
6. Discipleship requires patient perseverance
Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Matthew 16:16-17, 22-23 ESV, emphasis added
I love the juxtaposition of these verses in Matthew 16. In verses 16-17, Jesus blesses Peter because of His confession. Soon after, Jesus rebukes Peter for adopting a satanic mindset with regards to Jesus death and resurrection. Why would Peter rebuke Jesus in the latter verse when he just confessed Jesus was the Son of God in the former verse? These verses illustrate a vital reality to keep in your mind: discipleship involves both encouraging and discouraging moments.
Think of your own life: is spiritual growth for you a never ending ascent into further and further godliness? Or is it more of a “one step forward, two steps back” kind of a process? Discipleship aims at teaching others to “observe all that Christ has commanded” but when you invest your time and life into others you will be hurt and disappointed often. One moment you will feel encouraged by the other person’s spiritual growth only to weep when you hear about a besetting sin this other person fell into.
What will you do when you get the discouraging news? Give up? Resign yourself to the fact that “it must not be working?” If you learn your discipleship principles from Jesus, you will take none of these options. Jesus persevered with Peter, despite Peter’s frequent mistakes, sins, and setbacks. Discipleship takes perseverance and patience. There is no other way. People don’t change overnight and sanctification is a life-long process. Don’t be discouraged when there are setbacks and issues to deal with. Instead, these setbacks are reminders to persevere in discipling since your work is never done “until Christ is formed” in the other person.
7. Discipleship requires involving someone in your life for a period of time
Stepping back for a moment, you realize that Jesus only had a handful of years to disciple the apostles. During that time, Jesus called them, the apostles went everywhere with Jesus, and Jesus taught them. But that time of walking with Jesus ended. It didn’t end Jesus’ death since Christ conquered death. Rather, Jesus sent out His disciples after His resurrection and then ascended into heaven.
The takeaway here is if you want to disciple other people, you are going to have to involve them in your life. Discipleship is not the occasional coffee shop meet up to catch up on life. Discipling also means inviting people to your home, being willing to talk when it is inconvenient, chatting as you do dishes, coordinating your schedules so you can frequently meet, including your family in discipling interactions, and a host of other things.
Discipleship is less about scheduled occasional meet-ups and more about constant continued closeness between believers as they live their lives week by week.
But don’t think every discipling relationship is a life-long commitment. People move away. Life-circumstances change. There is change and loss. A brother who discipled me in high school I stay in contact with, but I see him only occasionally. So he cannot be my primary means of being discipled. The brother who discipled me in college moved away a year or so ago. When he visits, we talk and go deep. But I need to be discipled by someone physically close to me, someone who can be involved in my life and I in his.
Enter each discipling relationship with a “season” mindset. What I mean by this is don’t assume you have an infinite amount of time to build up this person. You don’t. Instead, start the relationship with the mindset of “in this season of life, God wants me to invest in this person.” Then embrace the season, apply these discipleship principles from Jesus, and when that season ends, find the next person God would have you disciple.
Conclusion: Imitate Jesus, the ultimate disciple-maker
There is much more to say about discipleship and how to go about discipling others. In fact, future posts will look at what other Scripture teaches on the subject. But these 7 discipleship principles from Jesus in Matthew are a helpful and necessary starting point when thinking about how best to obey the Great Commission.
Don’t feel discouraged if you don’t live up to Jesus’ example. Remember: Jesus in giving the Great Commission also promised to be with His Church as they endeavored to obey it. Trust in Jesus, the ultimate disciple-maker, and rely on His strength as you go out and teach those around you what it means to live as a Christian.
This post is part of an ongoing series called “Becoming a Discipling Christian.” Read previous posts here. If you benefited from this post, share and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.