Discipleship

What does it mean to be a true disciple?  I find myself frequently evaluating my life and wondering why I am not more like the one whom I claim to be following. Recently I listened to a series of lectures by Dr. Ray Vander Laan that a friend let me borrow. The series was interesting because he was attempting to give the audience insight into how the Jews heard scripture and ultimately the teachings of Jesus.

A portion that particularly caught my attention was when he began describing how seriously Jews were about learning the Scripture. They memorize the entire Pentateuch and eventually, if they are selected to continue their education under a Rabbi, will memorize the Old Testament.

RVL (Dr. Ray Vander Laan) challenged his audience by asking how can one claim to be a follower of Jesus if one does not daily spend time with Him or truly know His teachings. RVL then challenged the audience to read through each Gospel once each month in addition to one’s daily Bible reading.

I have to confess that the Gospels are not the pages that are becoming worn in my Bible. As a good member of the Church of Christ most of my time has been spent in Acts and the Epistles. Those are great books and should be read; after all they are in the Bible and we believe them to be inspired by God. But if I, we, claim to be Christians then we should spend more time learning and imitating the life of the Christ whom we claim to follow.

For the past 13 weeks I have been reading a Gospel each week. In some ways I am embarrassed that only now have I begun to do this. But then again this is part of the process of daily becoming more like our Savior.

RVL mentioned that there is a saying that is common among Jews which is: “May you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi.” The meaning behind this is that a disciple would follow so closely behind his Rabbi that by the end of the day he would be covered in the dust that was kicked up by walking behind the Rabbi.

May we, as disciples of Jesus, be covered in the dust of our Rabbi.

Transitions

Life is full of transitions and mine has had its share of them. After living in Dallas and working at the Highland Oaks Church of Christ for a year I have now picked up and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. This move has brought a mixture of emotions. As most of you know I have been planning, for some time, to move to Niteroi, Brazil to be a missionary. In April I learned that the Pleasant Valley Church of Christ in Little Rock had decided to be my sponsoring congregation. I feel very blessed to have PV as a sponsoring congregation. My move to Little Rock will give me an opportunity to get to know this church while still continuing to prepare for the impending move to Niteroi.