notes on salvation 4

Are We Making Disciples or Just Converts?

In Matthew, Jesus closes out his physical time on this planet by exhorting his followers to make disciples of all men. According to Webster’s Dictionary, a disciple is “a person who is a pupil or an adherent of the doctrines of another”. In New Testament times, the Hebrew word for disciple would have been Talmidim, a term that, much like our modern day understanding of disciple, would have defined somebody who, not only understood the teachings or doctrines of his teacher or Rabbi, but a student who would have also had the commitment to, quite literally, live out the doctrines of his Rabbi or, to become like the Rabbi. This would explain Peter’s attempt to walk on water, just as his Rabbi had done. And while it is easy to pick and choose verses, as I have done over these related posts, that would support the idea of social justice being at the very heart and soul of Jesus’ doctrine, I feel confident in saying that an unbiased read through the gospels and the prophets will confirm Jesus’ words and my belief that all of the law and the prophets really do come down to loving God and loving our neighbour.

And so, for me, the idea of “just getting them saved” is a good one as long as it includes a full understanding of what, in my opinion, the gospel was meant to be; not just a moment of personal conversion, but a more encompassing reform of our culture’s morals, i.e. sense of justice, and the church’s theology. I fear, however, that when most of the church uses the phrase “just get them saved”, they are speaking of an understanding of salvation, born out of the great revivals where, like cattle, we herd people through a service, coerce them into repeating a prayer, and send them on their way, “saved” and ready to face eternity. Rather than Paul’s understanding of salvation, that it is a process meant to be worked out, this theology of salvation is much more convenient because it takes all the responsibility of social justice out of our hands and leaves us with only the responsibility of, at most, telling our friends about salvation from hell or, at the very least, inviting them to church so that our pastor can tell them.

In conclusion I believe that, just as Old Testament law was meant to govern social justice into action, so was the full gospel of Jesus. To bring it back to Wesley’s Means of Grace, the night of the last supper was meant to be an analogy of the gospel or The Good News. In one night Jesus summarized the entire gospel plan. However, the evening did not end with the drinking of the wine and the eating of the bread, meant to symbolize Jesus’ redemption of sins, it ended with Jesus washing his disciple’s feet, an act meant to demonstrate how God’s Kingdom on Earth had arrived and was meant to reverse the injustices that so many around the world were experiencing. Without this part of the story, God seems impotent and powerless to do anything in this dimension and outside the realms of a spiritual heaven, somewhere up above the clouds, where the streets are gold.

I also believe that, while their methods may have differed, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, and Barth would have rebuked much of our modern day theology of salvation and clearly encouraged the making of disciples rather than just converts. And for me, the making of disciples, or discipleship, has to include our part in fighting social injustice because without it we are only becoming converts rather than true disciples of Jesus Christ. And though, in the end, all we may ultimately be able to do is throw all of our good deeds at the feet of Christ and admit that we are not fit to wipe off His shoes, it is still our mission, not as converts, but as disciples, to have good deeds to throw.

(the end)