The King's Apprentices | On Being a Disciple Pt. II

The gospel of Mark begins in a hurry. After a brief prologue, Jesus get’s baptized and right off starts preaching. “Repent!” he’s heard telling people, “the kingdom of God is dawning!” Or, to put that another way, “Turn from your present allegiances people! A new king is moving in! Come, live under his reign!”

King and Country

Now, right away, that can loose it’s point; like a distant idea we quickly scan over. So perhaps looking at it like this will help bring things into focus. As Canadians, historically we have lived under the rule of the King or Queen of the British Empire. In time, as our own constitution and charter have been developed, the significance of this has greatly waned, but in former days, this was the defining reality for citizens of Canada. It basically meant that the “Crown” had total say over all the aspects of our life. We lived by it’s rule. We did everything “for King and country.” Everything. He told us the laws we needed to live by, where we could have a deed to a portion of his land (even today, we don’t really own our land - just the rights to borrow if from the Crown), how much money we needed to pay him to drive on his roads and till his fields, and he presided over every transaction (just look at the money you use) and every contract (which we also register with the crown). In other words, when Canadians lived in the King’s kingdom, we lived as his subjects - and in this he controlled our entire lives.

This was equally true in Jesus day; maybe even more so. He lived in the Roman Empire, and when he began preaching, the King was Caesar Tiberius. He called the shots, and the whole Empire lived under his rule and his law. He had total control, and ownership of everything. So when Jesus started preaching about a new Kingdom dawning, do you see the significance of what he was saying? Amidst the Roman Empire, right under Tiberius‘ nose, he was announcing a new Sovereign was breaking in. And in calling people to “repent!” he was inviting people to come and live now as citizens of this new kingdom; turning from their old allegiances, pledging their allegiance to a new Lord and King, and agreeing to live according to his rule.

He was, in other words, preaching the message of a revolutionary.

A Revolution?

Have you ever considered this before? Under the great kingdom of the world, Jesus came calling for a new order. But as he would go on to expand - and without getting to far ahead of ourselves - his would be a peculiar revolution. No swords would be called upon, no great rallies, no new thrones or state capitols, no hate fueled rhetoric, no written manifestos, no riots, no social media, not even any protests. None of the usual revolutionary devices would be employed. Which of course begs the question: without using any of these tactics, how did Jesus actually expect his revolution to take hold?

Fishmongers.

Obviously.

I’m chuckling as I type. Though I knew the answer was coming, the absurdity of it still strikes me as funny. What a stupid idea! All this vaunted talk about a new King and kingdom, and his actuation plan starts with a handful of fishermen? But this is exactly what we see next in Mark’s gospel. As Jesus starts talking about this new kingdom, he walks along the Lake of Galilee and calls three teenagers - reeking of rotten fish, dried scales on their forearms - to start following him. And together with nine more - most of whom don’t appear to be much smarter choices - Jesus begins his revolution.

Apprentices, Students, Learners

The Bible tells us that the twelve of them become known as the “disciples” of Jesus. It such a familiar expression - disciples - that we don’t really ever stop to think about it. It’s just one of those words we say. But in it’s familiarity we miss it’s genius, because bundled up in the word we discover the heart of Jesus strategy. The word disciple, in the original Greek, was “Mathetes” and it literally meant, “a student, learner or apprentice.” And this is the genius. These 12 oddballs weren’t just an ancient posse; like Fat Albert’s bumbling gang.

These were his students, his apprentices. Like young residences at the side of a master surgeon, or like apprentice electricians carefully watching a master, these 12 disciples had become apprentices of Master Jesus. They were the students of Lord Jesus.

And what was it that they were learning? They were learning from him how to live as citizens of God’s kingdom which was now dawning. They were listening to his kingdom teaching and story-telling; they were carefully observing how he acted, prayed and healed; and they were being sent out on trial runs, putting into practice what they were slowly learning. And through it all, they were learning how to live, act and walk, according to a new king and his kingdom ways.

Do you get this? Jesus came to start a revolution and his plan to accomplish this hinged on 12 apprentices being carefully trained in the ways of the new kingdom. The gospels point to this as his dominant focus. For three years of ministry he invested primarily in these 12 people as they learned from him everything they needed to function, and behave as citizens and ambassadors of this new kingdom. And at the end of his time with them, what did Jesus do? He told them to go out, and repeat what he did with them. He told them to go and make disciples of their own, learning from them, the way of the Kingdom of God, according to the Master Jesus. And as these 12 would go on to make apprentices of their own, and as those would then go on to do the same, the multiplicative power would begin to take hold, and slowly, like yeast in a batch of dough, the kingdom of God would emerge. And like a mustard seed growing into a huge tree, thousands upon thousands would soon be living as apprentices of Jesus, while apprenticing others themselves. Which is exactly what we see happen, as within 250 years the Roman Empire would be chalk-a-block full of people living as the citizens of God’s kingdom.

And with that in view, Jesus strategy suddenly sounds genius. Take 12, train them well, and release them to do the same. Under the power of the Holy Spirit, it was the recipe for a revolution.

A Novel Idea

So here’s an idea, call it novel if you’d like: what if the church adopted the Jesus way? What if we became apprentices Jesus, learning his way from other seasoned followers? And what if, having been apprenticed, we then invited others to be our apprentices, investing in them all that has been invested in us? And what if they then, did the same.... It sounds like the makings of a revolution.