The
Passage
John
1:35-51
"35
Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. 36 And looking at
Jesus as He walked, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God!"
37 The two
disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 38 Then Jesus turned, and
seeing them following, said to them, "What do you seek?"
They said to
Him, "Rabbi" (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), "where
are You staying?"
39 He said to
them, "Come and see." They came and saw where He was staying, and remained
with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour).
40 One of the
two who heard John [speak], and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's
brother. 41 He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, "We
have found the Messiah" (which is translated, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus.
Now when
Jesus looked at him, He said, "You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall
be called Cephas" (which is translated, A Stone).
43 The
following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and He found Philip and said to
him, "Follow Me."
44 Now Philip
was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and
said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the
prophets, wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
46 And
Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
Philip said to him, "Come and see."
47 Jesus saw
Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite
indeed, in whom is no deceit!"
48 Nathanael
said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus answered and said to him,
"Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw
you."
49 Nathanael
answered and said to Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King
of Israel!"
50 Jesus
answered and said to him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig
tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these." 51 And He
said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven
open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."
A
Little Background
Discipleship
was not unique to Jesus. The Greed word
for “disciple” is mathetes, and means
pupil or learner. Ancient teachers
attracted disciples who learned from and followed them. Plato was a disciple of Socrates and
Aristotle was a disciple of Plato. Pious
Jews discipled under well-known rabbis. This passage tells us that John had disciples. Jesus had many disciples who followed him
throughout his ministry. In Luke 10:1
Jesus sent out seventy disciples to minister.
However, Jesus Himself chose out twelve to follow Him. Eleven of these were to be the foundational
apostles
who would establish the teachings of Jesus in laying the foundation of the
church (Eph. 2:20). We are here at the
very beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, but we can take a peek, jumping
ahead to the end of His life on earth in John 17. In verse 6 we learn that it was God the Father
Who gave these twelve disciples to Jesus. Jesus prayed for them just minutes before His
arrest, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of
the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”
John 17:6
Some
Explanation
In
John 1:35-37 we see John again pointing out Jesus, “Look! The Lamb of God!” In essence, John was releasing his disciples
to follow Jesus. One was Andrew; the
other disciple is not named. Since it is
characteristic of the disciple/apostle John to anonymously reference himself in
the Gospel of John, it is not out of bounds to consider that the second
disciple of John the Baptizer here might be the Apostle John himself, the
writer of this Gospel. Since these two
were John’s disciples, it is also reasonable that they would likely have
witnessed Jesus’ baptism. If so, they
would also have witnessed heaven opening, the appearance of the Holy Spirit
alighting on Jesus, and God’s voice from heaven proclaiming God’s
identification and favor on Jesus.
They
asked Jesus where He was staying and Jesus invited them to “come and see”. I cannot help wondering how Jesus must have
felt calling these first disciples to Himself.
There must have been some excitement as He shared about Himself with
them that day. They recognized that they
had found the Messiah. Andrew quickly
found his brother, Peter, whom Jesus called by his Aramaic name, “Cephas”. Both of these mean stone or rock.
The
next day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee.
It seems like Jesus is purposeful in His intent—to find Philip. Philip, in turn, found Nathaniel. We often recognize Peter’s impetuous and bold
nature. But here we see a similar trait
in Nathaniel. Jesus commented that
Nathaniel was unique among the Jews because he was a man who had no guile. This did not mean he was sinless. Jesus simply recognized that Nathaniel did
not hide what was really in his heart.
He was forthright and honest. He spoke
exactly what he was thinking. He said,
“What? Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
Perhaps Nathaniel was thinking that the Messiah should come from
Jerusalem or another more notable city.
Nazareth was small and insignificant.
Jesus’
told Nathaniel that He saw him “under the fig tree”. This is apparently a phrase used by rabbis to
describe one who is in meditation on the word of God and prayer suggesting that
Nathaniel was a devout man studying the Scriptures. Nathaniel was amazed that Jesus saw him. It isn’t clear why this amazed Nathaniel. Perhaps the setting was not in an open place,
but private. The fact that Jesus “saw”
him would indicate Jesus’ omniscient nature.
In
any case, Jesus told Nathaniel that it was a small thing—for Nathaniel would soon
see “the heavens open and the angels ascending and descending on the Son of
man”. That phrase was in reference to
Jacob’s dream of a ladder with angels going up and down between heaven and
earth. Most commentators see Jesus’
statement revealing that He would be the ladder that would provide the way to
heaven. Other commentators remind us of
John 20:30, 31 and 21:25 which says that it is not possible to record all of
Jesus’ works while on earth, and that it is possible that Nathaniel and the disciples
may have seen such a vision.
Observations
and Insights
Discipleship
isn’t often talked about today. Mentorship
is much trendier. Is there a
difference? Are the two words
synonymous? (Before I answer that
question, I want to say upfront that I am “old school” and the older I get, the
more I often feel like an old fuddy-duddy!
So if you think I sound curmudgeonly, you are probably right. But also, the older I get, the more I see how
different the visible church today looks from 30 years ago. Not all the changes are good, in my opinion.)
The
results of a google search of “discipleship vs. mentorship” are
interesting. Most of the results stated
either that discipleship and mentorship were basically the same thing or that
mentorship was an extension of discipleship or “the next level” of
discipleship. In every case, any
distinction made between the two was opinion or experience-based; no dictionary
definition or technical source was given.
Does
it really matter? Am I nit-picking? The answer to that question is exactly the
point that I want to make, so please bear with me while I take a slight rabbit
trail; I hope you’ll soon see my point.
Thefreedictionary.com defines nit-picking as “minute,
trivial, unnecessary, and unjustified criticism or faultfinding”. That is exactly how we most often use that
phrase. But when I typed it (admittedly,
perhaps the first time ever) I realized something interesting. What is a nit, and why would anyone want to
pick it? Nits are nasty creatures—the
egg or young of lice. Eeeww! I don’t know about you, but if I became
infested with lice, I would certainly WANT someone to pick my nits! (Sorry to be crass—but who wouldn’t want to
get rid of every single disgusting creature?)
So how did the use of the term get twisted around?
English
is a dynamic language. Words change in
meaning. Sometimes those changes are
incidental and inconsequential.
Sometimes the changes are purposeful and agenda-driven. Social scientists use a concept known as the dialectical process to engineer change
in human behavior. The dialectical
process is a way of bringing two opposing ideas into agreement. In other words, it is possible to take a
concept that once was wrong and gradually over time make it right. In the dialectical process darkness becomes
light, up becomes down.
Back
to discipleship...in my very unscientific google research, I noticed that none
of the distinctions between discipleship and mentorship contained any Biblical
reference. Perhaps that is because the
word mentor is not found in the
Bible! Mentor was a character from Greek
mythology dating back many centuries before Christ. Since Greece was at one time Israel’s
oppressor, and our New Testament was written in Greek, why wouldn’t Jesus use
this term to describe His relationship with His followers? The answer may be rooted in pagan
mythology. The mythological goddess
Athena transformed herself into an old man named Mentor in order to advise the
character Telemachus in Homer’s Odyssey.
Wikipedia states, “Because of Mentor's
relationship with Telemachus, and the disguised Athena's encouragement and
practical plans for dealing with personal dilemmas, the personal name Mentor has been adopted in English as a term
meaning someone who imparts wisdom to and shares knowledge with a less experienced
colleague.” One website also sites An Encyclopedia of Psychic Science describing
a spirit entity called Mentor who possessed a psychic medium in séances. His purpose was to step in and explain areas
of confusion.
Both of these examples describe Mentor
as a spirit guide.
The
point that I am trying to get to is this: Jesus gave explicit instructions to
His followers when He left earth, “Go and preach the Gospel. Make disciples, teaching everything that I
taught you.” (Mark 16:15; Matt. 28:19-20).
When believers look to someone to mentor them, they are looking to become
like that leader; they want an example to follow. In my own personal experience and in every
case where mentorship is defined and encouraged, mentoring focuses on a human
leader to model behavior. But the Bible
tells us to make disciples by teaching believers to be like Jesus. I won’t
say that the shift from the Biblical term discipleship to the secular term
mentorship is agenda-driven; however, I do believe that the difference is
significant and makes sheep more prone to error.
The
idea that mentorship is an extension or “the next level” of discipleship is
equally troublesome. Again, it has no
basis in the Bible. The lure of climbing
up levels of spirituality is Gnostic in nature.
Jesus taught that those who would be the greatest in the kingdom would
be servants. There is no Biblical structure
to ascend to levels of spirituality. We
are, of course, to grow in our faith, but that is not the same as levels of
spirituality.
We
would agree that certainly Jesus imparted wisdom and shared knowledge with His
disciples. There's nothing wrong with that. But this old fuddy-duddy sees that
the subtle dialectical shift over the years from discipleship to mentorship is
making fewer converts and less Biblically-knowledgeable believers. So, while my argument may sound like my fault
finding is minute, trivial and unnecessary, I would rather think of it as picking out nits that are
infesting the body of Christ.
When
I started reading a harmony of the Gospels, I began to enjoy a new faith in my
walk with the Lord. I began to love Jesus
more. I noticed areas that I had strayed
in my thinking. As I am reading through
now this second time, I am enjoying sharing insights with you. My goal is to focus on Jesus. As we begin now to see Jesus’ ministry unfold,
we also walk with Him in discipleship. I
don’t know about you, but my tail is wagging.
I’m ready to follow my Great Shepherd!
Next: John 2:1-12
