Mere Discipleship – What Disciples Believe

Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World

Part 2 of 3: What Disciples Believe

According to Camp a disciple believes in 3 things…

1. The Gospel
2. The Savior
3. The Church

Here are 3 quick quotes to unpack what he means by these three things.

The Gospel…

It is this proclamation that stands at the heart of the gospel message. The Gospel writers record that in preaching the Good News, Jesus proclaimed the presence of the kingdom: “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The long awaited day had appeared, the long awaited rule of God had come, the very kingdom of God was on the scene. “My kingdom is not from this world,” John 18:36 recounts Jesus saying. But that his kingdom was not from the world in not the same thing as saying his kingdom is not in this world. Indeed, it had invaded the rebellious creation, and consequently all hell broke loose, or so it appeared. The “kingdom” announced by Jesus was no mere “spiritual” idea or a new “religion” or a new “personal relationship with God” or even an “opportunity to go to heaven,” but a kingdom that threatened the very fabric of the political and social and religious status quo. After all, that’s why the proclamation of the kingdom was always accomplished by the admonition to repent. Repentance, metanoia, does not mean feeling badly about one’s sins, kicking or shaming oneself for one’s wrongdoing. Instead, repentance means change, and without change, without deep, thoroughgoing change, one could not enter and participate in the kingdom.

The Savior…

So both in Jesus’ day and in ours, the preferred mode of effecting “God’s will” or “good” or “protecting civilization” or “fighting evil” is that of the rod of iron. The accounts of Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion and the Gospel accounts of is own self-understanding show us most clearly that the “God” invoked in “God and country” is not the God of Jesus Christ – because that God is invoked so we might raise up our rods of iron and show our enemies who’s who. But Jesus transformed the meaning of “Son of God,” and transformed the meaning of “king of Israel.” The “crucified God” stands in judgment upon the kings, the corporations, the nations, the emperors, the rulers, the presidents, the prime ministers of this world who seek to wield power, to control and dominate.

The Church…

Thus “church,” biblically speaking, is much more than “doing church right.” Being church means embodying God’s interntions for the world as revealed in Christ. “Church” is not about showing the world how to be “religious,” but showing the world how it is supposed to be a world that reflects the intentions of its creator. The body of Christ, by simply being the church, exhibits to the world “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the churches wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:9-10). The church embodies the new social order, the new-world-on-the-way; the church exists as an outpost of the coming kingdom.

What would you add or subtract from “what a disciple believes?”