Forgive the fact that this series is so spread out: Dave and I have a lot of changes going on right now and are doing a lot of work discerning what should change and how and when and where. That’s draining. I love blogging, but I’ve been too tired to make sense or be creative lately. I also sense that the decisions we’re making are important and sacred, and to be given space and time and not relegated to a quick decision or a musty corner.
The New Testament records story after story of Jesus telling people to follow him. He asks them to give up all sorts of things and take on all sorts of other things in that process. In the discussion that sparked this series, the gentleman I was talking with used the phrase, “Follow me” to argue for evangelism in lieu of formation. His argument was that Jesus wanted people to come with him and do what he was doing, which was leading people to belief in him. It was interesting, then, when one of my commentors (the same one who took the picture that’s now the header–thanks, Monica!) used that verse to argue for the opposite position. So my question? What did Jesus mean when he told people to follow him?
Overall, it seems like he wanted people to buy into who he said he was and what he said he was doing. He wanted them to believe that he was the Son of God and to follow that up with their actions, to give things up for that belief. Some were to give up their money, some family relationships that were distracting them. He called Matthew away from his tax collecting and The Thunder Bros. away from fishing.
As I read through the passages where Jesus calls people to follow him (I looked them up at BibleGateway.com), it seems like the key thing he’s calling them to do is to turn aside from what they are focusing on and focus on him. Instead of focusing on making money for themselves through whatever means they usually do, he calls them to walk with him. Instead of focusing on the relationships that mean the most to them, he calls them to now be with him first.
The more I read, the more I become convinced that this phrase isn’t used to call them to anything more or less than a relational belief in who he really is. They are to believe he is God’s Son, turn away from worldly loves, and be with him. I’m not sure that this phrase stakes a claim for the primacy of either formation or evangelism. If it does, though, it doesn’t seem to be for evangelism.
There seems to be a relationship inherent in “follow me,” because if these people follow him, they will get to know him better. They will see what he does and how he walks through life. They will experience him in all sorts of different moods and doing all sorts of different things. This experience will be their formation. Knowing Jesus will make them able, later, to do things like evangelism, and like helping others be formed in his image. So while it is the leaving of formerly primary things that is highlighted when Jesus asks people to follow him, formation is also inherent in that. As is living for Jesus later on, in things like evangelism. But, at least here, the formation comes first.
