In my previous two posts, we’ve examined (1) some of the problems with the primary focus of contemporary disciple-making pathways, (2) the primary focus of the Scriptures in disciple-making, (3) some of the reasons that shade tends to get thrown on the gospel-centered approach to discipleship, and (4) the faith commitment that we are called to embrace in all of this.
And yet some of the questions related to what this looks like are still unanswered. The reason for this is because it’s sometimes difficult to answer those questions without dealing first with the primary hesitations that we tend to have with them. Nevertheless, the Scriptures do give us direction as it relates to how the local church makes disciples from context to context. And as I’ve claimed throughout, rather than being rooted primarily in an attempt to prescriptively apply a descriptive account of the life of Christ, I believe we would be better served in seeking out the prescriptive instructions that we find in the Scriptures on the basis of what Christ has accomplished for us. When the indicatives of the gospel are proclaimed and applied, what imperatives then emerge in the Scriptures? When we seek the answer to that question, we find at least three areas of focus for discipleship in the local church that come with many implications for our ministries. That will now be our focus.
Three Areas of Focus for Discipleship
1. Gospel Proclaimed (Yes, Preaching Makes Disciples)
There’s something of a myth that we find to be currently pervasive in much of evangelical culture. It goes something like this: “All of this religious skepticism that we find in the world around us is mainly because the church has failed to move beyond preaching as a method of reaching a lost culture.” I’d argue, however, that the opposite is actually true. When both the biblical and historical evidence is consulted, we come to find that the statement is flipped around. The current state of religious skepticism isn’t the result of failing to target people in a more relevant way than preaching, but rather a failure in our belief that the means of preaching that God has given us actually makes disciples.
As J.I. Packer writes in one of his essays,
“I suspect that the widespread perplexity today as to the relevance of the New Testament gospel should be seen as God’s judgment on two generations of inadequate preaching by inadequate preachers rather than to anything else.”
While his charge here seems particularly condemning, we actually find it supported in the history of Christian revival and growth. In his two-volume work entitled A History of Preaching, Edwin C. Dargan writes,
“Decline of spiritual life and activity in the churches is commonly accompanied by a lifeless, formal, unfruitful preaching, and this partly as cause, partly as effect. On the other hand, the great revivals of Christian history can most usually be traced to the work of the pulpit and in their progress they have developed and rendered possible a high order or preaching.”
In other words, as D.A. Carson summarizes, “preaching can stimulate revival under God, and benefit from it. Want of biblical preaching is an announcement of death and is, in fact, also killed by lifelessness.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones also believed the evidence to be overwhelming, writing that
“all this is fully confirmed in Church history. Is it not clear, as you take a bird’s-eye view of Church history, that the decadent periods and eras in the history of the Church have always been those periods when preaching had declined? What is it that always heralds the dawn of a Reformation or of a Revival? It is renewed preaching. Not only a new interest in preaching but a new kind of preaching. A revival of true preaching has always heralded these great movements in the history of the Church. And, of course, when the Reformation and the Revival come they have always led to great and notable periods of the greatest preaching that the Church has ever known.”
There is little doubt that Lloyd-Jones is correct in noting that throughout the periods in church history in which preaching thrived, the church thrived, and throughout the periods in church history in which preaching was devalued or diminished, the church has declined.
And yet none of this should surprise us, since the epistles that instruct the life of the local church in terms of how they are to go about the business of disciple-making place the emphasis on this preached Word. We’ve already seen in 1 Corinthians that Paul places the fulcrum of his effort in gospel proclamation, and we’ve seen his theological justification for doing so, all in chapter 2. And so when Paul asks rhetorically in his letter to the Romans, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they are to hear without someone preaching?”, he’s instructing the church to send preachers do the work of preaching, as this is what enables all that he describes above. And then he concludes, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news” (Rom 10:14, 15)! This is also why Paul’s final charge to Timothy, knowing that death was immanent, was simple, serious, straightforward, and to the point: “Preach the Word” (2 Timothy 4:2). As Paul makes clear in this final charge, this is serious business. We are called to preach because preaching makes disciples. Don’t let anyone tell you that it doesn’t.
The reason it makes disciples is because this act of preaching assumes that what everyone in our context needs at every stage of their discipleship journey is repentance and faith in the gospel. Everyone has the same foundational need. The gospel provides the answer for everyone’s need. Rather than simply assuming this, our pathway should be intentionally explicit in making it known that this is the way everyone grows—not just non-believing people. Preaching is the foundational need for both believes and non-believers.
2. Gospel Echoed (No, Sunday Morning Isn’t Enough)
The gathered people of God is not only instructed in Scripture, but we are commanded not to give up in doing that because to do so places the believer on dangerous ground (Hebrews 10:25). The reason that it’s dangerous for believers to neglect gathered worship is because the gathering is primarily for the purpose of gospel repetition in everything that the people of God do together in their worship, from the reception of the preached Word to the singing of spiritual songs and observing of ordinances. Everything we do together is meant to remind one another of the gospel of Jesus Christ—the very gospel that we are prone to forget should be proclaimed in every aspect of our church life. We reverberate the gospel back and forth to one another in our songs, prayers, confessions, and even in the order of the service itself. The gathered people of God is given to us for gospel repetition. And again, the reason for this is that everyone is called to repent and believe the gospel, but it must be regularly repeated because we are so prone to forget the gospel and to trust in our own efforts. Gospel-repetition re-stories us and re-centers us on the grace that actually can change us.
Some of the ways in which we utilize gospel repetition in our gathering can be seen clearly by our people in (1) the liturgy, or organized structure, of our service, as that liturgy tells the story of the gospel, (2) the weekly observation of the Lord’s Table, as this is a Jesus-instructed picture of the gospel for our people to declare to one another (1 Cor 11:26), (3) the use of catechism in both the repeated statements of our liturgy and in new forms for our people to learn and grow in the gospel together, and (4) the intentional gospel-theology in the songs that we sing. There are many ways to practice gospel repetition, and the gathering is a primary means that we have been given by Christ for disciple-making.
3. Gospel Extended (Absolutely, the Gospel Changes Everything)
When the Word is being effectively preached and the gospel is being repeated among the gathered people of God, our efforts should then move toward the application of that gospel in the lives of unbelievers (for salvation) and believers (for sanctification) in all of life. This is because, if we are going to see spiritual growth in the life of the believer, this is the only means by which it might actually happen.
After giving specific disciple-making instructions to a young church planter named Titus, the Apostle Paul grounds all of the efforts of that discipleship in gospel application, saying, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11-14). This echoes what we see throughout the Scriptures—the grace of the gospel not only saves God’s people, but it actually trains them to become more like Christ when applied to the heart of the believer. And so Paul concludes this section by saying, “Declare these things” (v. 15).
This is our task. We seek to apply the proclaimed gospel to the hearts and minds of believers that they might become more like Christ. As many have recently noted, the heart of Christian discipleship isn’t found in primarily moving people from spiritual discipline to spiritual discipline along a pathway of progress, but rather moving people from unbelief in the gospel to belief in the gospel in all of life. The best pathway to specifically create for the ministry of the local church isn’t a continuum of growth based on the acquisition of fruit but rather a gospel grid that we help our people apply in every area of their life.
Gospel Reverberation
This is the process of we call “Gospel Reverberation,” to borrow a little bit from Jonathan Leeman. God’s Word goes out. The Spirit of God working through the Word of God speaks the gospel to the heart of God’s people (gospel proclamation in our preaching). That gospel then reverberates among the people, both in the gathering, as it is repeated (gospel repetition in our gathering), and then in their lives outside of the gathering as it is applied (gospel application in everything). As Leeman explains,
“Somebody has to pick up a Bible and read it. And someone has to explain it so that people will understand it. When this happens, the Spirit begins to work upon people’s hearts, causing them to believe the words and give a proper weight to them. The people then repeat the words in their songs and prayers. They discover, most remarkably, that they can speak to God as guided by these biblical words. They also repeat the words of God to one another throughout the week. They help each other discern His will for their lives. Then their lives begin to be shaped by the words, so that they begin to live differently at work and at home. They discover that these words are life-giving, hope-giving, and love-producing. So they run and call others who have not yet heard these words to hear them. Words produce actions, and then those actions and words work together to give witness to the power of God to salvation, a salvation that begins now and stretches into eternity.”
So the gospel doesn’t just stop at proclamation. It echoes back and forth among God’s people in such a way that it can then be applied as the great source, power, and motivator for the Christian life. This is the pathway for gospel growth as we see it on the pages of Scripture. Rather than a pathway for people to demonstrate growth by a checklist of fruit, it’s a pathway for the gospel into the heart of God’s people for his glory and our joy in him.
A Freeing Conclusion
One of the reasons we get excited to talk about disciple-making in this way is that it brings so much joy and freedom. The joy comes from the reality that we rejoice in our identity rather than our activity as disciple-makers. The freedom comes from the reality that, knowing that each context is different, we are called to apply the gospel to every context uniquely. In other words, the freeing thing about this kind of gospel application pathway is that outside of working to utilize these means of discipleship, you can and should apply these things to the life of any church and in any context. While we recognize that churches will often look different in the style or culture of their framework, the commonality that unifies us is that gospel-centrality must be applied in every circumstance.
Are the ministries of your church proclaiming the gospel in its preaching? Is it echoing that gospel in its gathering? Is it applying that gospel relationally from person to person in the life of the church? These questions go beyond the oversimplified continuum approach to disciple-making. Essentially, they cut to the core of how Jesus instructs us. They center us on the cross and force ourselves to ask ourselves the degree to which our ministries are based on the gospel. And in this we find joy, freedom, peace, and efforts in which we can actually place our trust—the efforts of Christ.
