June 10: Discipling God

After some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night so that they might kill him; but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. (Act 9:23-25)

A lot of people have a lot of problems with Paul (here he is still being called Saul). He can come off as egotistical… passive aggressive… outright aggressive. He uses big words and heady theology… he can be hard to read or listen to. And with the difficulty of knowing what he wrote and what others wrote in his name there is quite a bit he’s credited with writing that are messages we don’t like to hear or repeat.

Let’s say Paul has some issues.

But there are some things you just have to admire and this text points out one of those if you see it. It’s a little phrase easily passed over in the midst of a story that is about Paul being in pursued. But read for all the wealth of good news that is in the text there is an whole different untold story.

“…but his disciples took him by night…”

Do you see what I see… what is so amazing about this line?

Paul has disciples.

I don’t know who these disciples are. We never learn any more of about them. Maybe they are the people he traveled to Damascus with – though that seems hard to believe as they were all companions for rounding up and persecuting Christians. Who knows – maybe they all converted as well. Whatever the case is… in a time when he was stopped cold in his hatred of Christianity, blinded and humbled by his encounter with Jesus, and had to have the men he was traveling with lead him into the city (and intriguing bookend to his Damascus stay that people had to help him into and out of the city) Paul has clearly not been idle.

He spends a few days with the disciples there in Damascus (apparently learning from them a bit more about Jesus I would guess) and then starts preaching and teaching about Jesus… and making disciples of his own.

It is of course something we are commanded to do. “Go therefore, and make disciples.” (Mathew 28:19) But did anyone ever do it with such passion and proficiency as Paul? New to the faith (though with deep knowledge of the Jewish faith from which it is born) Paul moves right along with making disciples. He takes the same passion he brought to binding up Christians to making new ones.

Christianity isn’t – by intention – a faith that flourished and grew by mass conversions. Sure they exist – from early Acts to our own day… but at its heart it is a single teacher calling twelve disciples and teaching and shaping them until they are ready to go and do the same… each with twelve new disciples.

Paul takes that model to heart as he travels the Roman Empire. He plants a church by forming disciples – equipping them for ministry and then leaving them to keep sending that growth outward while he travels onward to a new place far away.

We aren’t all headed for missionary journeys like Paul’s. But that doesn’t mean our lives aren’t mission fields... that we don’t have plenty of opportunity to make disciples. What that looks like may be hard to figure out. It doesn’t necessarily mean converting people, or getting new members at our churches. I think in the end it means being good news in their life. It means making your relationship help nurture a love of God, a love of community, and a love for the work of Christ in the world.

And we do that with our children… our neighbors… our co-workers… we do that in all the mission fields of our life.

Does your faith include a passion for God and God’s good news?
What are your mission fields?
Does your life witness to God’s love and nurture discipleship in others?


Discipling God,
You have drawn us in and called us to live kingdom lives. You send us out to make our lives a testimony of your grace and love. Help us God to make our lives invitational to others to join you in the wonderful journey of discipleship. Amen.