• Thanks for Participating in This Class• What Has Happened Thus Far in the Course • Our LIVE Session Content• Your Questions and Interaction (by email or chat)• What Is Occurring This Final Week of MINS 120

Our LIVE Schedule

• Thank You For Joining Us Today. You can begin sending your questions about the Christian Life (Discipleship) at any time via seminary@soapbox.network

• For Participating in This Course– at various levels

• If you missed some things, you can continue and re-take the course in September, as it’s ‘rolling over’ at the beginning of the month

Welcome

• Welcome and Thanks for Participating in This Class• What Has Happened Thus Far in the Course • Our LIVE Session Content• Your Questions and Interaction (by email or chat)• What Is Occurring This Final Week of MINS 120

What Has Happened In This Course

• Units 1 and 2: Set Up (your feedback will be helpful if you went through 1 & 2)• Week 1: Units 3 (Listen) and 4 (Learn)• Week 2: Units 5 (Listen) and 6 (Learn)• Week 3: Units 7 (Listen), 8 (Learn) and 9 (Today’s LIVE Session)• I worked to include classical discipleship content, church history, and appropriate

repetition, and the class was designed with the best excellence we could give, trying my best to incorporate simplicity but ample details to answer your questions

Weeks 1-3

Our LIVE Session

Introduction to Discipleship

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, by Caravaggio, was made in 1602 with oil paint on canvas. The Baroque period was from about 1600-1750. It followed the Renaissance period where things were more classical and more detached and formal. So this was a period of surging into greater emotional and boldness. But it was also a time of more reliance on the new fields of “Science.” As such people wanted to know things, prove things, and experience things. That’s what we see in this portrait– proving Jesus is who He said He was. The Baroque period was one of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, theater, and music.

In this painting, what is depicted is Jesus, having just risen from the dead, visiting his apostles and proclaiming to them that he is risen by the power of, and his faith in, God. Saint Thomas, and what appears to be Saint Peter and one other saint, have hidden in a house, doors locked so they aren’t discovered and crucified like Jesus. And when Jesus appears before them Saint Peter thinks he is a ghost, not a living man. He doesn’t believe Jesus when he tells Thomas he is flesh and blood, so Jesus guides his hand to his spear wound on his ribs. After putting his hand in his wound does Thomas believe and asks for forgiveness from Christ, since it is preferable to believe without first seeing… rather than seeing THEN believing, because seeing then believing does not require faith.

Thoughts About Discipleship/Christian Life

• Disciple = pupil, student, learner, ‘one who sits at the feet of’, apprentice • Ship = meaning "quality, condition, skill”

• Being (pupil, student, learner) and Making (pupils, students, learners) of Jesus

• Key Verses: Matthew 28:19-20 and 2 Tim 2:2

Disciple-ship

• Discipleship is initiated the moment of salvation (the result of a punctilear process of God’s Sovereignty)

• Salvation is in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone (Eph 2:8-9; Titus 3:5)

• This is ‘justification’ (Rom 5:1) or being ‘born again’ (John 3:3)

How Discipleship Works

• To Have the Character of Jesus formed Inside Us (Gal 4:19)

• For us to help others be formed through life-on-life Christian love (1 Thes 2:8)

• Meta-morph = change or ‘trans’ form (“changed lives”) = caterpillar

The Goal of Discipleship (meta-morphosis]

• “Mystery of godliness” 1 Tim 3:16

• Not a result of our own direct efforts (Titus 2:14) but God’s grace and our discipline (spiritual disciplines)

• Spiritual Disciplines are ‘catalytic’ (required agents of change, but not what does the actual work)

How Life Change Happens

• Soul: Mind, Emotions, and Will or Volition (the ‘heart’, Pov 3:5-6; Mk 7:21-23)

(1) Surrendered Minds (Rom 12:2): cognition, reflection, imagination, thoughts, ideas, knowledge, beliefs, discernment through mind subject to things of God

(2) Surrendered Emotions (Ps 51:10) feelings, desires, passions, affections, attitudes, values, convictions surrendered to God

4 Ways to Gauge Transformation

(3) Surrendered Wills: Volition is the deep well within our innermost being where our choices are made; moral choices, ethical decisions, bodily actions, choices, lifestyles

(4) Changed Relationships (Matt 22:37): Real transformation affects us and, in turn, others. Primary is our relationship with other believers (What Francis Shaeffer called the “Mark of the Christian”– they will know you are mine by your love for one another); In addition, we should ‘love others as Christ loved us’, pointing to the importance of happy, healthy, whole, and holy relationships, whether platonic, familial, romantic– and even those with our enemies

• Knowing Christ• Loving Christ• Living for Christ• Loving Others

• Great Commandment and the Royal Law (love thy neighbor as thyself)

Discipleship Simplified

Rome did not fall because of external forces such as the invasion by the barbarians. Rome had no sufficient inward base, the barbarians only completed the breakdown – and Rome gradually became a ruin.

• Please Share Comments About Our Course

• Begin to Ask Questions Now About the Christian Life and Discipleship

• E-Mail (seminary@soapbox.network) Your Questions OR Share Via “Chat”

Your Turn

E-Mail (feedback@soapbox.network) OR Share Them Via “Chat” in the Webinar

Q: What Have You Enjoyed About Class?

E-Mail (feedback@soapbox.network) OR Share Them Via “Chat” in the Webinar

• Ask Practical Questions• Ask Theological Questions• Ask Biblical Questions… whatever is on your mind. Just send them in!

Q: What Questions Do You Have About Discipleship?

• Decide if you’re going to continue and re-take the course to complete any content you didn’t get to, and to learn the hang of some underused resources like Forums (discussion groups), or to master content or apps, etc.

• Provide us feedback through email (how to improve the experience)• Provide any word of recommendation on Session 11• Share about the audio/online with friends by word of mouth and by social media

This Final Week of the Course: The Best Yet!

• Session 10: A Special Bible Reading Devotional Tool, great church history resources, a new journaling approach and challenge• Session 11: A Special Audio from Bill Bright (Cru Founder), the Virtual

Confessional devotional tool, and Recommendation Form• Session 12: Our Final Exam! Important questions to test your knowledge of this

course and of biblical discipleship.• Class re-begins next month. Session 3 is due on Sept 5. Others coming soon!

Sessions 10-12

Thanks for Joining Us!

Start Studying for the Final Now by carefully reviewing your course notes and ‘thinking’ through them and about what they mean