Ayotunde had been meeting Daba every Thursday evening for four years. They sat on the same two plastic chairs on Ayotunde’s veranda in Gwarinpa, with a flask of tea and two Bibles between them, while the evening traffic on the expressway hummed in the distance. Daba had come to faith at a campus outreach in his final year. He came from a hard home, with a father who drank and a mother who had left, and when Ayotunde offered to meet him, he had clung to the offer like a drowning man to a rope.
Daba grew fast, or seemed to. He could quote whole chapters. He could summarise every series Ayotunde had taught him, often in Ayotunde’s own words. Other young men in the church admired him. Ayotunde, a civil engineer and an elder, was quietly proud.
There was one thing Ayotunde did not notice, or chose not to. Daba phoned him about everything. Whether to accept a job offer. Whether to visit his father at Christmas. Which of two verses “applied” to a situation at work. Whether he should buy a second-hand motorcycle. Once, whether it was a sin to skip a midweek service when he had malaria. Ayotunde answered every call. If he was honest, he liked being needed.
His wife noticed before he did. “That boy cannot buy bread without phoning you,” she said one evening. Ayotunde laughed it off.
Then his company posted him to a road project in a remote part of Taraba for six months. The network there was poor, and he could go a week without a signal. When he came back to Abuja, he learned that Daba had stopped attending church after the first month. He had stopped reading his Bible. When Ayotunde finally found him, Daba looked embarrassed and said, “I did not know how to do it without you.”
Ayotunde told me that he drove home that night and sat in the car outside his gate for a long time. “I made him a very good student,” he said. “Of me.”
PunchlineThis teaching is about the difference between that kind of discipleship and the kind that produces maturity in Christ.
Information is not maturity
Daba knew a great deal. What he lacked was the ability to stand on his own feet in Christ. Many churches produce believers like him: people who have attended every class, filled many notebooks, and can answer doctrinal questions correctly, yet who are still spiritually fragile, easily tossed about and unable to make a decision without someone else’s approval.
The writer to the Hebrews addressed a church in that condition: “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God” (Hebrews 5:12). They had been believers long enough to teach others, but they were still on milk. Paul warns that “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth” (1 Corinthians 8:1). James says plainly, “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). Information that does not become life can actually deceive us, because it makes us feel more mature than we are.
So what is the goal? Paul states it in his letter to the Colossians: “Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Colossians 1:28). The word perfect is teleios, meaning complete, full-grown, mature. Paul’s aim was a church of grown-up believers.
Notice the repetition: every man, every man, every man. Paul was not content with a few stars. He wanted every believer brought to maturity. Notice also that the means include “warning” as well as “teaching.” Discipleship involves correction, not just information. And it is done “in all wisdom,” fitted to the person and the moment.
Then Paul adds: “Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Colossians 1:29). Labour means toil to the point of weariness. Striving is the word from which we get agonise, used of athletes in a contest. Discipling people is hard work. But Paul does it “according to his working.” The energy is Christ’s. The mentor is a worker in God’s field, and only God makes anyone grow.
Christ formed in you
Paul’s letter to the Galatians reveals the heart of a spiritual father under strain. The believers in Galatia had been led astray by teachers who wanted to bring them under the law. Paul writes to them with deep emotion:
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.
“Until Christ be formed in you.” That phrase defines the goal of all discipleship. The word formed was used of an embryo taking shape in the womb. Paul wants the very character of Christ to take shape in these believers, so that their lives increasingly resemble His.
Notice what Paul does not say. He does not say, “until you think like me” or “until you are loyal to me.” The aim is Christ. A disciple who has become a copy of his mentor, with the same phrases, opinions and habits, has been shaped by a human being. Christ in him has not necessarily grown at all.
“I travail in birth again.” Paul uses the image of labour pains. He went through this once when they first believed, and now he is going through it again. Discipleship is costly. It involves agonised prayer and patience, and sometimes disappointment.
“I stand in doubt of you,” he adds, which means “I am perplexed about you.” Even Paul could not control the outcome. He could teach, plead, pray and write. Christ’s formation in them was the work of the Spirit, and their response was their own responsibility.
Gifts given to equip the saints
The clearest picture of maturity in the New Testament comes in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
Look first at the purpose of the gifts. Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry.” The word translated perfecting is katartismos. It was used of mending fishing nets and of setting broken bones. It means to equip, to restore, to make fit for use. Leaders exist to equip believers so that the believers themselves do the work of ministry. A church in which only the pastor ministers has misunderstood the arrangement.
Then look at the goal: “Till we all come... unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” The measure of maturity is Christ Himself. We will never outgrow the need to grow. But there is a direction and a destination.
Verse 14 describes what immaturity looks like: “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” Spiritual children are unstable. They are swept along by each new teaching, each new preacher on YouTube, each new prophecy. They are vulnerable to “the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness.” The word sleight comes from the world of dice-playing, of tricksters who load the dice. Immature believers are easy prey for manipulators.
Verse 15 gives the alternative: “speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.” Growth happens in an atmosphere where truth is spoken lovingly. And the direction of growth is “into him.”
Then verse 16 says something that matters greatly for discipleship. The body grows “by that which every joint supplieth.” Maturity happens in the whole body, as every member contributes, rather than in a private arrangement between one disciple and one mentor. A disciple who is connected only to his mentor is like a limb attached to one other limb and nothing else. He needs the whole body: preachers and teachers, friends and fellow servants, older women and younger men, the rich and the poor. Ayotunde had been Daba’s only joint.
NuggetMaturity is not measured by how much a believer knows, or how close he is to his mentor. It is measured by how fully Christ has been formed in him, and how well he can stand, serve and grow within the body of Christ.
Teaching that is seen as well as heard
Discipleship involves more than instruction. It involves example. Paul wrote to the Corinthians as their spiritual father:
I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you . For though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church.
“Though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers.” The word for instructers refers to the household servant who escorted children to school and supervised them. They could be many, and they did their job. A father is different. He gives life and takes personal responsibility for the child’s growth.
“Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.” That sounds bold, even arrogant, until we read it alongside his other statement: “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Paul invites imitation only insofar as he himself is following Christ. He points through himself to the Lord.
Notice also what Timothy was sent to do: “bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ.” Paul’s ways. Not merely his doctrines. The Corinthians needed to see how the gospel worked out in real life. Paul wrote to Timothy, “thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience” (2 Timothy 3:10). Doctrine came first, and the manner of life right after it. Timothy had watched Paul suffer, endure and love.
Jesus said, “every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40). A disciple becomes like his teacher. That is both a privilege and a warning. If you disciple someone, they will learn from your life as much as from your words. How you treat your wife, how you handle money, how you respond to criticism, how you speak about other ministers and how you behave when things go wrong will teach them more than your Thursday evening lessons.
Jesus Himself discipled this way. Mark tells us that He chose the twelve first of all “that they should be with him” (Mark 3:14), and only then that He might send them to preach. They walked the roads with Him, ate with Him, watched Him with lepers and Pharisees and children. On the night before the cross, He took a towel and washed their feet, and then explained what He had done: “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you” (John 13:14-15). The lesson was taught with water and a towel before it was taught with words.
This means a mentor must open his life. Paul told the Philippians, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do” (Philippians 4:9). Learned, received, heard and seen. Discipleship that only happens in a classroom misses half of what Paul describes. The disciple needs to see you pray, see you apologise, see you work, see you rest.
Practising His ways
Return for a moment to Hebrews 5. After rebuking his readers for still needing milk, the writer explains how people grow up: “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14).
The word exercised is gymnazō, from which we get gymnasium. Maturity comes through training, through practice, through repeated use. Discernment is like a muscle. It grows when it is used and weakens when someone else always does the lifting.
This is where Ayotunde’s discipleship went wrong. Every time Daba phoned for a decision, Ayotunde made it for him. Every time Daba faced a question about a verse, Ayotunde supplied the answer. With the best of intentions, he was lifting the weights while Daba watched. Daba’s senses were never exercised.
Think about how people learn to drive in Lagos. At first the instructor sits beside you with his own brake pedal. He grabs the wheel when a danfo cuts in front. But a good instructor gradually lets go. He lets you make small mistakes on quiet roads. Eventually he gets out of the car. If he never gets out, you never learn to drive.
Jesus trained His disciples like that. After they had been with Him for some time, “he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two” (Mark 6:7). He did not wait until they were flawless. He sent them in pairs, so that nobody went alone, and He gave them clear instructions. Then, when they returned, “the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught” (Mark 6:30). Practice, followed by an honest report, followed by more teaching. Later in the Gospels we see them getting things wrong, and Jesus correcting them. That is how the senses are exercised: real responsibility, taken in real situations, with a teacher who listens afterwards.
A mature disciple needs to practise reading Scripture for himself, praying for himself, making decisions with the help of the Word, the Spirit and wise counsel, and taking responsibility for them. A mentor helps by asking questions more than giving answers. “What does the passage say? What did it mean to the first readers? What do you think the Lord is showing you? What options do you have? What would love do here?” Questions like these exercise the senses.
The danger of dependence
Jesus warned His disciples against a certain kind of religious authority:
But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.
Jesus was not forbidding every use of the words teacher or father. Paul calls himself a father to the Corinthians, as we have seen. Jesus was warning against a spirit that sets one person up as the indispensable master over others. “One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.” The mentor and the disciple are brothers before the same Master.
John makes a related point:
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
John is not saying that believers have no need of teachers. He is writing a letter to teach them. He is reassuring them, in the face of false teachers who claimed special knowledge, that they already have the Holy Spirit. The Spirit Himself teaches them and keeps them in the truth. Every believer has direct access to the Teacher. A disciple must never be made to feel that he cannot understand God without a particular human being.
Jesus Himself prepared His disciples for His departure: “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you” (John 16:7). Even the perfect Teacher knew that His physical presence had to give way to a different kind of dependence, on the Spirit. Good mentors work towards the day when they step back.
What are the signs of unhealthy dependence? The disciple cannot make ordinary decisions without the mentor’s approval. He feels guilty or anxious when he disagrees. His faith collapses when the mentor is absent. He speaks of the mentor more than of Christ. And on the mentor’s side: he enjoys being needed, he resents the disciple’s other relationships, he expects loyalty, and he feels threatened when the disciple grows beyond him.
There is a darker form of this that must be named plainly. Some so-called spiritual fathers demand absolute obedience, control their followers’ marriages, finances and careers, isolate them from family and friends, and use spiritual language to justify abuse. That is not discipleship. If you are in a relationship like that, you are free to leave, and you should seek help from trusted believers outside that circle. Where there has been abuse of any kind, report it to the proper authorities and seek qualified help. No mentor stands between you and Christ.
Faithful men who teach others
Paul’s last letter was written to Timothy, his son in the faith, near the end of his life. His instructions include a principle that should shape every discipleship relationship:
Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
Notice where Paul begins. “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Timothy’s strength would come from grace, not from his relationship with Paul. Paul was about to die. Timothy needed to stand on something that would not be taken away when his mentor was gone.
Then Paul describes four generations. Paul taught Timothy. Timothy is to commit what he heard “to faithful men.” Those faithful men are to “teach others also.” The goal of discipleship is a disciple who passes on what he has received, which is a long way from one who stays near his mentor for ever. Maturity reproduces.
Faithful means reliable, trustworthy. Able means competent. Timothy is to look for people who will be faithful to the truth and able to teach it. That requires discernment. Attending a class does not make a person ready to teach.
Notice also the phrase “among many witnesses.” What Timothy received from Paul was public teaching, confirmed by others. Healthy discipleship happens in the open: accountable, connected to the wider church, glad to be examined.
The same pattern runs through the household of faith. Paul tells Titus that the older women are to be “teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women” (Titus 2:3-4). Women disciple women, and their example in marriage, motherhood, work and holiness is as vital as any sermon. Wisdom also suggests that close, one-to-one discipling relationships are usually best between people of the same sex, with appropriate openness, especially where there is a difference of age or authority. That is a simple safeguard for both people, and it protects the work itself.
Commended to God
When Paul said farewell to the elders of Ephesus, knowing he would not see them again, he said, “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up” (Acts 20:32). He handed them over to God and to the Scriptures. He did not tell them to wait for his letters or his next visit before making decisions. He trusted that God and His word were sufficient.
That is where every good mentor wants to lead his disciples. Luke commends the Bereans because they “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11), even when the teacher was Paul himself. A mature believer examines what he is taught. He brings it to the Word.
And a mature believer takes responsibility. Paul writes, “For every man shall bear his own burden” (Galatians 6:5). We carry one another’s burdens, as he says a few verses earlier, but there are some loads each person must carry himself. Nobody else can obey God on your behalf.
There is an opposite error to guard against as well. Some believers, having seen unhealthy dependence, swing to the other extreme. “I do not need anybody,” they say. “Just me, my Bible and the Holy Spirit.” That sounds spiritual, and it leaves a person just as immature as the one who cannot decide anything without his mentor. Scripture tells us to “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow” (Hebrews 13:7). It tells us to keep meeting together, to “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:24). The mature believer stands on his own feet in Christ and still gladly receives teaching, counsel and correction from others. Independence from one person is meant to lead into healthy interdependence with the whole body, under faithful pastors and alongside brothers and sisters.
PunchlineAyotunde did not stop meeting Daba. But he changed almost everything about the way they met.
He stopped giving answers and started asking questions. He gave Daba a passage to study on his own each week and asked him to come and teach it. He introduced him to three other men in the church, older and younger, and encouraged him to join a home cell that Ayotunde did not lead. When Daba phoned about a decision, Ayotunde would say, “What have you prayed? What does the Word say? What do you think? Tell me on Thursday what you decided and why.” The first few months were hard. Daba made some mistakes. One of them cost him money. Ayotunde let him make it.
Three years later, Daba leads a small group of three young men from his office. He still calls Ayotunde, but not to ask what to do. He calls to tell him what he has done, and sometimes to argue with him about a passage.
Last month, Ayotunde told me, he faced a difficult decision about his own church responsibilities. He was unsure what to do. He found himself picking up the phone and calling Daba. “I wanted his opinion,” he said, and he laughed. “He gave me a very good answer. He asked me what the Word said.”
That is the fruit of discipleship that produces maturity. Christ formed in a person. A believer standing on his own feet in grace. A disciple who teaches others also.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Do you know more than you practise? Where is the gap between your knowledge and your life?
- If you are discipling someone, are you asking questions or only giving answers? Are you exercising their senses?
- If you are being discipled, could your faith survive if your mentor disappeared for six months?
- How connected are you to the whole body, beyond one or two people?
- Who are the “faithful men” or women you could invest in, so that they can teach others also?
This Week
If you are discipling someone, this week ask them to study a short passage on their own and come and explain it to you. Resist the urge to correct every detail; ask questions instead. If you are being discipled, choose one decision you would normally take to your mentor and work it through yourself first with prayer, Scripture and the counsel of more than one person. Then share what you decided and why.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, You are my Master, and all of us are brothers and sisters before You. Form Yourself in me. Keep me from mistaking information for maturity. Exercise my senses through Your Word and Your Spirit. If I am leaning on a person more than on You, teach me to stand in Your grace. If I am making others depend on me, forgive me and help me to let them grow. Make me faithful to pass on what I have received to others who will teach others also. In Your name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.