In our last few chapters together, we have been laying the foundation of having a true encounter with Jesus. If you are wondering when that happens, we have already begun. Let’s continue into this next chapter as we continue to lay the foundation.

Having examined what Christianity truly means, now we turn our attention to another central element that piggybacks on the revelation in Chapter 2, adding another layer on top.

In this chapter, we will focus on what it means to be Jesus’ first-century disciples in the twenty-first century… and why that really matters.

I mean, it is kind of an interesting predicament that we are in. Living squarely in the timestamp of the twenty-first century, all the while trying to follow this ancient way of Jesus that is found within a first century Jewish context.

Is that significant? Is it a moot point?

As we have already pointed out numerous times and reiterated (on purpose), there are so many different expressions of what people say being a follower of Jesus actually is, means, and looks like. I have given so much attention to this specific point thus far in our journey together because it is important that we do not settle for a form of following Jesus that does not resemble what we see in the lives of His disciples in the Scriptures.

While there is room for variance due to contextual and cultural differences, the heart of the matter is still the same, and the fruit of following certainly has not changed.

Are there going to be ways that Jesus speaks to us in the twenty-first century that may differ slightly from the first century? Probably so. But not ways that deviate from His doctrine, our direct obedience and fulfillment of His commands, or the types of spiritual experience, fruit, and signs that Jesus said would follow those who believe (Mark 16:17–18).

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but my grandma’s version of following Jesus isn’t my template. She was awesome and had a tremendous walk with Jesus, but her life was the fruit of the same template that I have access to today. Beyond grandma, I don’t want John Wesley’s, Charles Spurgeon’s, or C.S. Lewis’s version of following Jesus. I don’t even want my own.

I want His! I want Jesus’ version of following Jesus. The original blueprint.

Full stop. Period. End of story.

And yes, this matters… a lot.

As we learned in the previous chapter, there is only one Jesus. And this Jesus is the only way to God. And since there is only one Jesus, and thereby only one way to God, consequently there is only one way to truly “follow Jesus.” And that way is a first-century way that we read about in the Bible, carried out in our twenty-first-century culture and context.

There is a danger in attempting to become Jesus’ disciple without this frame of mind. Without this understanding, in our modern Christian context we might end up following followers of Jesus instead of Jesus Himself.

Have you ever played the game of telephone?

Yes, the game where everyone sits in a circle, and one person starts by picking a word and then whispers that word in the ear of the person sitting to their left. And then that person whispers what they heard from the person on their right into the ear of the next person, with the cycle repeating until the word makes its way all the way around to the last person in the circle, who then has the task of saying the word out loud. This generally generates quite a bit of laughter.

I used to love that game as a kid. Especially because at the end of every game, the word that the last person at the end of the circle would blurt out would often be hilariously different from the initial word that was given by the person who started the game.

If we are not careful to continue to refer back to the initial design of Jesus’ church and what discipleship looked like in essence in the first century, then we risk what happens in the game of telephone happening to us as disciples of Jesus today.

Oftentimes, the final pronouncement of the word given in the game of telephone will be a word that closely resembles the first one given in a phonetic sense, but often an entirely different word, carrying an entirely different meaning.

It would be a travesty for us to follow Jesus in a way that sounds and looks close to original, but when you begin to explore its definition, it is a million miles off course. Even a mile off course would be a total miss of the mark, especially when we have the clarity that the Bible provides us.

I am not suggesting that following Jesus is about perfection. But I am suggesting that following is about following. And when you lose sight of the path of the one whom you are following, the danger of ending up somewhere other than where they were trying to lead you significantly increases in probability. We all know that taking wrong turns leads to wrong destinations… which, on a journey as important as this one, we would all do well to desire to avoid.

Just like in the game of telephone, the process the message passes through has a probability of altering the meaning of what was initially given to be passed on. This is why just a few chapters ago I made the statement that while we appreciate church history and traditions, we do not look to them as our source of final authority for what it means to be a disciple and follower of Jesus in today’s present moment.

This observation is not to put doubt in your heart, but instead to bolster your commitment to the Scriptures above all else. God is powerful enough and faithful to preserve His word.

Paul didn’t tell Timothy that all tradition was profitable for doctrine. Very specifically, he said, “All Scripture,” which we thank God for preserving throughout history so that we may know with surety the way we are to follow.

The Scriptures are the template that never changes. They can constantly be pulled from no matter the culture or context that you find yourself in. They provide the recipe that, when referred back to, produces a beautifully baked chocolate cake every single time (I’ll explain the chocolate cake reference later).

While we may do our best to use Scripture as our baseline, instead of what people say about it… is the concept of following people who are also following Jesus wrong?

No! Most certainly not.

In fact, in 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul instructs the church of Corinth (made up of a cluster of disciples of Jesus who were under His oversight and spiritual care) to _“follow me as I follow Christ.” _ It is a good and godly thing to follow the spiritual leadership that God has placed in your life. And yes, you should have spiritual leaders in your life whose guidance you are actively following and oversight you are sitting under. But only if the scenario is as Paul described in the verse mentioned above… following them as they follow Christ.

We will take a moment in the following chapter to go more in depth on this subject and speak to the epidemic of shepherd-less sheep arising in the modern Christian movement. So pin that thought, we are coming back to it shortly.

Would it shock you to learn that there are quite a few mainstream doctrines and practices that are widely accepted in the general twenty-first-century Christian movement that are not found in the context of the first-century church or in the Scriptures?

There are, in fact, quite a few.

For example, in many churches across the world today, people are told that if they repeat a certain prayer, accepting Jesus into their heart, that in that very moment, they are saved.

This is often referred to as a “sinner’s prayer” or a “decision for Jesus.”

And while the desire to receive Jesus is great, and the reality of sinners praying to a God who is both able and desirous to forgive them is absolutely to be celebrated, this modern experience of simply praying a prayer, and boom, that’s it, I am saved… is not found in the Scriptures. Jesus instructed no one to do this, and there are no such accounts of this being done by Jesus’ disciples in the Book of Acts. Nope. No decisions for Jesus in the Bible.

This presents a dilemma if we are trying to follow Jesus, twenty centuries removed, in a context where a large swath of Christianity has been largely influenced by the proverbial game of spiritual telephone. Rather than looking to church history, creeds, and traditions to see what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, and somehow finding a way to get the Bible to affirm a particular way of thinking, we should go to what the Bible has to say for itself and adopt its expression as our own.

Here’s the truth: it doesn’t matter who says it. If Jesus didn’t say it, and His disciples didn’t do it, or it isn’t written contextually in the Scriptures, it is not authoritative.

This is why we must always turn to the Bible, where we have what Jesus said Himself and what His disciples both said and did, in alignment with His instructions.

Not only can we live as first-century disciples in the twenty-first century, but I’d say we ought to.

This continual reference back to the ways of Jesus and His disciples in the first century is a safeguard for us as we pursue to meet and follow Jesus today. When we use this as our baseline, point of reference, and template for meeting and following Jesus, it serves as a guide, helping us understand how we ought to function and live as disciples of Jesus, twenty centuries removed.

After all, if our aim is to become like Jesus, then making reference to Jesus Himself and the disciples that He trained and sent seems to make a lot of sense. Becoming like Jesus, who we read about in the Gospels, while using the template of the life of His disciples as an example. Examining the experience that they had with God and, in turn, pursuing to have that same experience for ourselves. Believing and proclaiming the same message that they believed and proclaimed, expecting to see the same demonstration of God’s kingdom and glory that they did.

The Bible isn’t meant to be read as mere history that can never repeat but as an example and template that tells us what is possible for us to see and experience in God ourselves… right here and right now.

As we said just a moment ago, our benchmark for Christianity is not what happened last century, last decade, or even last year... but what happened in the Scriptures. If we don’t believe this, then unfortunately, we will end up settling for a diluted version of Christianity that struggles to reconcile the lack of its present experience with the abounding one that we read about in the Bible.

Sadly, this is what so many people settle for today.

Don’t settle.

In my nature, I am a restorationist. What does that mean? I am in pursuit of restoring the reality of the experience of the first-century disciples as the present personal experience of all disciples of Jesus Christ right here and now in the twenty-first century.

Why? Because I am deeply convinced that the church that Jesus started is the church that He intended to continue. And while there are some who say otherwise, Jesus didn’t say it, nor did His disciples. And that is the point.

If our present experience with God today is not homogeneous with the experience of the disciples of Jesus that we read about in the Bible, then who is right? I mean, we both can’t be right, can we?

I would venture to say that since the Bible is our benchmark for life, truth, and more, if our experience is different from the experience that we read about in the Scriptures, in its essence, it is not those we read about in our Bible that need evaluation and adjustment. It’s us.

When we stop having the same experience with God that we read about in our Bible, we immediately begin living below God’s intentions for our lives. And why would we ever settle for that?

Far too often what happens when our experience doesn’t match that of the Scriptures is that we, instead of pursuing the more that Jesus has for us in faith believing, choose instead to change our doctrine—what we believe is possible—to match our experience.

This reality has happened all throughout church history. But we can’t settle for it. How can we, when we know that God has so much more?

Can I tell you something today that I want you to let sink to your core?

Your experience with God is completely connected to what you believe about Him and what you believe is possible in Him. Yes, your doctrine will either limit or propel your experience with God.

This is why people have sat in churches their whole lives, living in a lesser experience than God has available for them. Not even always because that is what they desire, but because this is what they were taught to believe. That what they are presently experiencing is all that there is to this Jesus thing. And thus, consequently, and unfortunately, they never experience more.

But there is more. So much more.

Will you enter into it?

Is that you? Are you the one that has been faithfully serving Jesus for years, all the while acutely aware of the stark disconnect between your personal experience with Jesus and what you read about as the experience of His disciples in the Bible?

Did someone put out the fire of your hunger with a cold bucket of water one day, telling you that what the Bible records that the disciples experienced was just for a time gone by? And that this was not anything for us to experience today?

If so, my encouragement to you is to believe.

Believe that there is more. And believe it enough to pursue it. That whatever you read about in the Bible can be your experience if you choose to believe it.

Believe that it wasn’t just an experience for Jesus’ church 2,000-ish years ago, but that it is the absolute will of God for you to experience right here, right now.

Accept nothing less.

God wants your experience to look just like what you read about in the Bible. I would even venture as far as to say that He is desperate for you to step into that reality. He is desperate for all of us to step into it. Because when we do, the church that He designed and intended to thrive and move throughout all generations, crossing all cultural barriers, will continue beyond the confines of the first century, thriving through the life of His disciples, right here in the twenty-first century.

God wants signs to follow you as you believe. God wants you to operate in the gifts of the Spirit. God wants to work miracles through your life. God has visions and dreams to give you. God has authority and spiritual power that He wants to cause to operate in your life, through His Holy Spirit. God wants you to share the gospel with every person you meet and see them experience the supernatural new birth that comes through responding to His gospel in faith.

We can and should have the essence of the same experience that the disciples of Jesus had and is recorded in the Bible.

Yes, we may live in a starkly different, technologically advanced society, but our experience with Jesus, of whom the Bible declares “is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), does not have to be very different at all.

As a matter of fact, I would venture as far as to tell you today, it shouldn’t be.

The message they preached should be the one that we proclaim. With no difference.

The signs that followed them as they believed are the same ones that should follow us. With no difference.

The experience that they had with God is the same one that we should walk in. With no difference.

For the sake of purposeful redundancy, let me say it again. This is not just for the first-century disciples! But for the disciples in the twenty-first century and beyond!

Their doctrine. Their experience. Available. Through the very same Christ that was for them, is for you and me.

I implore you today, desire that, and settle for nothing less. Because truly, anything less is indeed just that. Less.

Believe that more is possible, and in faith begin to believe that God wants to fill your life to overflowing with His supernatural possibilities. And maybe, soon, somewhere in the near future, when you set out to read the Book of Acts, instead of once again reading pages of a personally unfamiliar narrative, you will find yourself reading stories by which you have become personally acquainted because their experience has now become yours too.

Will you choose to become Jesus’ first-century disciples in the twenty-first century with me?

Reflection Questions: