The making of disciples, which discipleship represents, forms the nucleus of Gods salvation plan for humankind. In line with this noble objective, Jesus made this his main task while on Earth. He attached great emphasis on quality discipleship and consequently commanded total obedience to this great kingdom work. The Mark of Discipleship aims to open our understanding to the real meaning and scope of the divine task of drawing and winning a lost and directionless world to God, through painstaking and costly sacrifices. It helps highlight the positive roles divine grace, wisdom, prophecy, prayer, and the Holy Spirit play in achieving the discipleship work of Gods kingdom. It also restates the compelling need for both quality control and urgency in the course of finishing this huge task. This book offers some biblical and contemporary models to help the church effectively build this kingdom work of discipleship.

The book explores what it means to follow Jesus - to be a disciple. It presents a study of the gospel of Mark, identifying the gospel's unique message about the discipleship journey. It follows the journey of Jesus's first disciples, tracing how they moved from being blind to being able to see, but not clearly, to seeing clearly. It unpacks Jesus's teachings to explain what being a follow of Jesus entails. It describes the discipleship journey of moving from how the world trained us to think and live to allowing the ways of God that Jesus taught to shape our thinking and living. It lifts up the radical transformation of life that is the result of being a follower of Jesus.

This volume reimagines the first-century reception of the Gospel of Mark within a reconstructed (yet hypothetical) performance event. In particular, it considers the disciples' character and characterization through the lens of performance criticism. Questions concerning the characterization of the disciples have been relatively one-sided in New Testament scholarship, in favor of their negative characterization. This project demonstrates why such assumptions need not be necessary when we (re-)consider the oral/aural milieu in which the Gospel of Mark was first composed and received by its earliest audiences.

An exploration of discipleship in Mark's gospel relating to Jesus' own mission and purpose.

Katherine Joy Kihlstrom Timpte addresses a gap in scholarship by answering the question: “how is a child supposed to be the model recipient of the kingdom of God?” While most scholarship on Mark 10:13-16 agrees that children are metaphorically employed because of their qualities of dependence, Timpte argues that it is more specifically an image of the disciple's radical transformation, which both mirrors and reverses the traditional rites of passage by which a child became an adult. Timpte suggests that Jesus, by insisting that one must enter the Kingdom of God as a child, invokes two interlacing images. First, to enter the Kingdom of God, one must be fundamentally transformed and changed. Second, this transformation reverses the rite by which a child would have become an adult, removing the adult's superior status. Beginning with a summary of the scholarship surrounding children in the Bible, Timpte explores the perception of children in the ancient world, their rites of passage and entrance into adulthood, and contrasting this with the processing of entering the kingdom of God, while also highlighting childish characters in Mark. Timpte concludes that to enter into the kingdom as a child means that one must strip off those things one gained by leaving childhood behind: wealth, respect, family, much like Jesus, who throughout Mark's Gospel moves from powerful to powerless, respected to despised, and accepted by all to rejected even (seemingly) by God. Jesus models transformation to childhood in an emphasis on what the Kingdom of God is like.

Redaction criticism attempts to identify biblical authors' theological interests by examining their adaptation of sources. Focusing on representative studies of Jesus' disciples in the Gospel of Mark, this pioneering book by C. Clifton Black has become the standard evaluation of that method's exegetical reliability. Comprehensively reviewing recent scholarship, Black identifies three distinctive types of redaction criticism in Markan interpretation. He demonstrates that diverse redaction-critical interpretations of the disciples in Mark have bolstered rather than controlled scholarly presuppositions to a degree that impugns the method's reliability for interpreting Mark. The book concludes by assessing redaction criticism's usefulness and offering a more balanced approach to Mark's interpretation. This second edition includes a substantial, detailed afterword that revisits the book's primary issues, converses with its critics, and provides an update of Markan scholarship over the past twenty-five years.

Students of the Bible are generally comfortable with their understanding of the command “make disciples” (Matt 28:19). Indeed, most of them would argue that the Gospel writer, Matthew, spells out very clearly the meaning of the term in the Great Commission (Matt 28:16–20) by utilizing three key words, viz., “go[ing],” “baptizing,” and “teaching.” This point of view is the result of centuries of scholarly opinion that has looked primarily, if not solely, to these three adjacent participles of “make disciples” (Matt 28:19), and not to the entire Gospel of Matthew, for the meaning of the command. This book does not suggest that “going,” “baptizing,” and “teaching” are not to be considered in determining the essence of Christian disciple-making. Rather, it contends that the three terms should not be our only source of meaning. This problem is tackled herein by demonstrating that Matthew establishes a framework within the Great Commission itself that points to a fuller meaning of “make disciples” in the broader context of his Gospel, and that the Gospel writer expects his reader to draw on his entire Gospel to grasp the full meaning of this important command.

The primary responsibility of the church, its raison d'etre, is to make disciples by sharing the "good news" of salvation and teaching believers to grow in maturity in Christ (Matt 28:16-20; 1 Cor 3:2-3; 14:20). What does it mean to grow in discipleship and maturity in Christ? What are the required ingredients for such growth and maturity to occur? Answers to both questions are provided in the book you're about to read. Growing in Discipleship is wide-ranging in scope, from biblical studies to systematic theology, focusing on a sample of fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. The book is written for both new and old believers who are seeking a deeper engagement with and understanding of the good news of salvation in Christ. Daniel Dapaah has broken down the complex theological concepts to present them in a concise and accessible format to readers who have no background in biblical studies. Beginning seminarians will also find this book useful. But true discipleship is more than an intellectual assent to the doctrines of the church. It is also a personal commitment to the life and teachings of Christ. It involves growing spiritually to reflect the image of Christ (Latin, Imago Dei). The book includes an "Individual or Group Exercise" guide at the end of each chapter, focusing on sample questions from the study, a "Personal Application" for reflection, and a "Commitment" to grow and mature in Christ through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. This book is a useful resource for individual and group Bible study.