As a team, our goal is to reach four generations of disciples within multiple streams of work that, they themselves will go on to make disciples and churches that will make disciples and start new churches. Our work focuses on several different groups of people whether they be African or Asian immigrants into Europe, by mobilizing native Europeans to do this same work, or by sharing the Gospel and mobilizing others in further locations, back in the countries from where many of the people that we reach here in Europe have come.
The plan to make four generations of disciples isn’t simply based on an arbitrary plan to reach this number. Instead, we see this number of generations as Paul writes to Timothy in his second letter to encourage him to continue in his faith, making disciples of people who will go on to teach others.
Similarly, as believers and followers of Christ, we believe that the role that Christ has left us with until he returns is to live out the life of the new creation that Christ has given to us, producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and then going on to teach others to do the same.
But there is an additional important lesson that we learn from Paul as we read his letter to Timothy. We shouldn’t only teach others to do the same, but instead Paul says that Timothy must teach others to teach others.
And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.
2 Timothy 2:2
So how can we describe the chain of disciples that we see in this case? We can understand it in this way:
Paul has already taught Timothy in the presence of many people.
Timothy should now go on to teach others, the “reliable” people.
And those reliable people will be taught to such an extent that they can go on to teach others.
So in all, we see four generations of disciples in this example:
- Paul
- Timothy and witnesses
- Reliable people
- Others
This generational disciple-making is really no different than what we see in other places in Jesus’s teachings as well. For example, as Jesus was praying for his disciples just before going to the cross, he said:
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message
John 17:20
Jesus is referring to his disciples, but he says he isn’t just praying for them. He is also praying for those who will come after them, those who will believe through their message. It was important that Jesus demonstrated through his teaching how the disciples should also teach others, and teach others to teach others!
Or we could even also look at the Great Commission:
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20
Jesus tells his disciples to go and make disciples, but then he says that they are to teach those disciples everything he has commanded his disciples to do.
And what had he just commanded his disciples to do? To make disciples! So the disciples are not only to make a disciple, but they are to make disciples who are to make disciples. They must not only be disciple makers and make disciples, but they are to make makers of disciple-makers.
Why this emphasis?
We should ask ourselves… why do we see such an emphasis on this pattern of making disciples who will make disciples? Why do both Jesus and Paul make a point of doing this and teaching this as they perform their ministries?
I believe that there are three main reasons:
First, our desire is that the movement toward Christ and the growth of the kingdom of God will continue to spread even if persecution comes and someone, even the primary leader, is killed or somehow taken out of action in the work of the kingdom. By making disciples who can make disciples, it becomes impossible to stop the work because it is decentralized. There is no primary person, no primary focus except for the worship of Jesus himself.
This is why the work of the kingdom continued after Jesus returned to heaven to be with the Father. The kingdom didn’t stop growing. No, in fact, it was only at that point that it had begun.
In a similar way, as Paul is put in chains, the work of the early church continued to expand. We see that other people continued in sharing the Gospel, making disciples and starting new churches even when Paul was not there. They had learned what to do and now they carried on the work even when Paul was no longer in their midst.
Second, as a corollary to the first reason is that having a primary person around whom you are building an organization or a movement will likely create division. Despite being Christians and redeemed in Christ, there are still many situations where competition enters the picture, whether because someone desires to take the place of another as the leader of a movement, or those who are following begin to name their preferred leader. This selection of a leader creates division where there should be no division, but instead unity.
This is the type of situation that we saw in Corinth where some people in the church said that they followed Paul, some said that they followed Apollos, others Peter, and still others, Jesus himself.
Jesus taught his disciples that they should not vie for authority or power, seeking position over one another. Instead, he taught them that there should be love and submission to one another, all under the authority and headship of just one who is the creator, savior, and lord of all: Jesus, and him alone.
Third, as we think about the expansion of the Gospel, Jesus and Paul both taught the relatively slow, yet deep and thorough process of making a disciple. The multiplication effect of making disciples who can make disciples provides the possibility that more people, more quickly, can hear the Gospel and can follow Christ. The kingdom of God also becomes geographically unbound and unleashed as the Gospel runs along relational lines instead of being connected to a geographical location as we see in many of our churches today. In short, while making disciples in a particular moment can appear to be a very slow process, and in reality it is a slow process, the multiplicative effect of making disciples who can make disciples can move faster and go farther than any megachurch across the face of the earth when viewed over a period of time.
How does this happen?
Making several generations of disciples is the pattern that we see both in Jesus’s teachings as well as that of Paul, so we should ask ourselves: How does that happen?
This only happens by making disciples in a way that is Biblical and reproducible.
We must follow the teaching of the Bible. The examples that we see in the Bible are both what we must teach as well as a pattern that we should follow. We should seek out both the message as well as the method of teaching. At the very least, we should take principles from the method so that we can do the same. We not only should seek the theology from the scriptures but also understand the practice.
As a good friend of mine says, should I believe that the theology that I can learn in the Bible is inspired by God, but not believe that the practice is also inspired by God?
Our disciple-making practice must also be reproducible. The teaching that I give must be able to be done, and done simply, by the person that I am teaching. They must be able to do what I have done in a way that the next person can reproduce that same practice with yet another person, teaching them to do the same.
In these ways, ways that are Biblical and reproducible, we can see disciples of Jesus that are made from one person to the next, from generation to generation for the expansion of the kingdom of God, for his glory alone.