John on Discipleship

Maybe I should explain John’s entry. Just, we were talking one day and he was saying how discipleship is the Great Commission. And by “discipleship” he means a particular method of one on one mentoring. And, we’re obviously not against it, I was just saying how it’s probably not accurate to say that that particular method is the Great Commission. Then you get weird implications. Like that Billy Graham, certainly the greatest public evangelist of our generation, did not at all fulfill the Great Commission. He might have paved the way for others to “disciple”. But he himself didn’t, so he himself didn’t fulfill the Great Commission, which is a bold implication.

So, John was viewing the phrase “make disciples of all men” as meaning a particular method known as “discipleship” and was stunned that we didn’t think it was a given. He was also annoyed that I mentioned a Rich Mullins article where he refers to discipleship as a fad.

Anyway, that’s what he’s talking about. None of us were saying discipleship is bad. On the contrary, we’re all for it. I just thought it was overstating things to say that “discipleship” is the Great Commission. That’s all.