Fox Fever

The word “disciple” describes a learner, pupil, a student, a scholar, an intern, an apprentice, an adherent (who binds himself like adhesive tape to another, to capture his heart and his vision and to learn his expertise and his skill). In the New Testament, a disciple is a Christian-in-training, enrolled for the school of Christ, and under the tutelage of a maturing discipler. At least one text in the book of Acts indicates that a new believer in Christ was expected to become a disciple at the moment of his faith in Christ (Acts 14:21, where the word translated “taught” in the KJV is the Greek word for “discipled”).

From the moment of his conversion, the new believer is expected to maintain a student attitude throughout his remaining life on earth. Thus, his very first vocation is to “learn to learn”. It is amazing to note how many college graduates were never taught somewhere along the way how to study and how to learn. It is equally amazing to see the difference in the life of a person who knows how to study, how to learn, and how to maintain studying and learning as lifetime habbits after graduating from school (in fact, many accelerate the pace of their learning after graduation). Blessed indeed is the believer in Christ who has had a Christian discipler who has early-on introduced him to the basics of the Christian life and walk him through the learning process with a Bible, a notebook, a prayer list, and books for basic Christian reading. Hopefully, these exercises will lead him to a lifeitme vocation of learning, one of the distinctives of a true disciple of Jesus Christ.