Acts - What Does "Disciple" Mean?

 When I first became a Christian, I wondered, "what is a disciple, and what is an apostle?". 

I wondered why in some places of the Bible, the twelve men who Jesus chose to follow Him were called disciples, and in other places they were called apostles.

So, before we proceed any further, since we are studying the book of "Acts", also known as "The Acts of the Apostles", I think it is necessary to define what a "disciple" is and what an "apostle" is. 

Let's look first at what a disciple is:

According to dictionary, the definition of a disciple is a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher. 

This definition aligns with the Biblical definition. The Bible uses the word "disciple" as both a follower or student of Jesus or a Jewish rabbi, and as the twelve men whom Jesus chose to follow Him.

During the time that Jesus was on earth around Jerusalem which was largely a Jewish culture, young Jewish men who wanted to become a Jewish teacher would ask an existing teacher to disciple them.

These men had to meet certain qualifications in order to be selected, which probably included demonstrating devotion to Judaism and knowledge of the Jewish law and traditions. They also had to agree to totally submit to the teacher's authority of interpreting the Scriptures for his life.

Jesus was born to a Jewish mother and earthly father, so he grew up practicing Judaism, therefore He understood the Jewish method of making disciples and used a similar technique when He called His disciples to follow Him.

However, there are at least three notable differences regarding the method Jesus used and the method the Jewish teachers used: 

1) Jesus was not a Jewish teacher. He was raised Jewish and knew the Torah, but He did not go through the Jewish discipleship program and become a Jewish teacher. He was a carpenter by trade. 

2) Jesus invited His disciples to follow Him, they did not ask Him to disciple them like the Jewish model did. The men Jesus chose to disciple were men God the Father had instructed Him to choose. 

3) The men Jesus invited were not the typical candidate of becoming a Jewish teacher's disciple. These were ordinary working men who were not studying to have a career as a Jewish teacher. 

In Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible, we read that there were multitudes of people following Jesus at the peak of His ministry. Because these people were following Jesus, they were called, His disciples.

However, Jesus prayed throughout the night to seek God about who the men would be who would be willingly obedient to apply everything He taught them, and grow the Kingdom of God which was about to come.

Of all the people who were following Jesus, He chose only twelve to intimately teach and invest His time and knowledge in. This is a principal we call, "pouring deeply into the few".

Jesus was willing to pour deeply into the few because He knew that eleven of the twelve men He chose to follow Him would be faithful to continue His mission of establishing His Kingdom after He went back to heaven.

These men would witness Jesus's life, death, resurrection, and ascension so that they could tell others about it.

We do not know much about the twelve men Jesus called to follow Him, but we are given some information about some of them in the Bible.

What we do know is that they were ordinary, uneducated men who worked regular jobs. We also know that they were waiting and watching for the arrival of the Jewish Messiah, and that they recognized Jesus as being the Messiah when He arrived, unlike many other Jews who were there at the time.

Out of the twelve men whom Jesus invited to follow Him, there were three who He poured even more deeply into probably because they demonstrated faithfulness to Him and to God and because He knew they would become the leaders. These three were Peter, James and John. 

The principal of "pouring deeply into the few" like Jesus did with the twelve and with the three, is something we can apply when we are making disciples.

When we find people who are interested in hearing and learning about God and being obedient to Him, we should pour deeply into them by investing more time, energy and knowledge into them. We should not waste our time, knowledge or energy on people who are not interested in God or obeying Him.

Practically, a disciple of Jesus is someone who follows Jesus wherever He Leads and who submits to His Lordship and teachings.

They are humble and have a teachable spirit which gives them the ability to surrender their own opinions, beliefs and lives to Jesus.

We like to say that a disciple is someone who hears from God, obeys God from a heart of love and shares God with others. Many Christians have a lot of knowledge of God, but they are not obedient to Jesus's commands and they do not share Jesus with others. This causes us to be unbalanced, so we need to do all three in order to be balanced and grow in our relationship with God.