Becoming a Community of Disciples

Introduction

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brothers in Christ and those with whom we interact each and every day. We need to become disciples together. There are different ways that we can choose to learn things. For example, you have a minor repair issue on a car and you are convinced you can fix it yourself. In the past you may have just gone for it. Just dive in and see what you could figure out using your own “know-how” and experience. Or you could have bought or borrowed a printed car repair manual that was unique to your vehicle. With the Internet you can probably look up that manual or even one on the car manufacturer’s website. Now, though, with websites like YouTube we can watch a video that some nice person posted, walking us step by step through the necessary repair. Something similar is true when we think about how to learn to be Christian disciples together. We can jump right in and figure things out as we go. Or we can turn to the Scriptures, which have so much to teach us about being a disciple of Jesus Christ. And we can also read other books that have taken the teachings of the Scriptures and used them as their foundation to describe how we are to be Christian disciples. This book is an example of the last way. That is, I will use the writings of Basil of Caesarea (d. 379) and Benedict of Nursia (d. 547) to illustrate how we can become better disciples of Jesus with one another. Let me be completely clear: I do not think these authors are saying something better than what we can learn from the Bible, but I do think that they take what is in the Bible and make it practical for those of us who are in relationship with others and who are called to be faithful followers of God.