The Master Disciple-Maker

By Hanna S. Shahin

Making disciples is the heart of the Great Commission. Yet today, so few Christians really know what it means to make a disciple, much less have any fruit to show for it. How sad is this! What are people going to say when they get to heaven and have never made a single disciple? God bless Hanna Shahin, therefore, for writing this book! His love for Gods Word and for teaching people how to obey it shines through on every page. There is no formula for making disciples, but the principles Hanna lays out from the Scriptures and his own practical experienceespecially in North Africa and the Middle Eastwill help anyone seeking to obey the Great Commission in this generation.

Joel C. Rosenberg, New York Times bestselling author of Epicenter and Inside the Revolution

Every now and then I appreciate reading a book by someone who gets it. Hanna Shahin has captured the essence of the impartation of ones spiritual pilgrimage to another person. He demonstrates that being a disciple is many times caught and not taught.

Ive spent over thirty years asking God to develop disciples and leaders. The Master Disciple-Maker resonates with the reality of personally seeing this happen.

Lauren Libby, international president, TWR International

Hanna Shahin delivers new and fresh truths from the disciple-making process of the greatest, most effective disciple maker everthe Lord Jesus Christ. Prepare to be challengedfrom the opening chapter where Hanna shares fascinating details of his own ministry development to the final and fresh insights regarding every believer's involvement in the ministry of glorifying Jesus Christto the ends of the world!

Stephen Davey, MDiv, STM, DD

senior pastor, Colonial Baptist Church

president, Shepherds Theological Seminary

principal Bible teacher, Wisdom for the Heart

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449731298

Hanna S. Shahin

Hanna Shahin began his full-time ministry in international Christian radio in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1971, and has since served in every country of North Africa and the Middle East. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology, philosophy, psychology, biblical counseling, and a PhD in missiology. He is the founder and president of Endure International, a church-planting ministry.

Book preview

Contents

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

THE MASTER DISCIPLE-MAKER

DEDICATION

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

DISCIPLESHIP OR DISCIPLE-MAKING

CHAPTER I

THE SOCCER CHURCH

CHAPTER II

NEW TESTAMENT DISCIPLES

CHAPTER III

THE TWELVE: JESUS’ MAIN FOCUS

CHAPTER IV

JESUS’ MODEL OF DISCIPLESHIP

CHAPTER V

THE COST OF BECOMING A DISCIPLE

TO THE DISCIPLE

CHAPTER VI

THE COST OF DISCIPLE-MAKING

TO THE DISCIPLE-MAKER

CHAPTER VII

THE VALUE OF SUFFERING IN DISCIPLE-MAKING

CHAPTER VIII

SETTING THE EXAMPLE IN FORGIVENESS

CHAPTER IX

THE LORD OF SECOND CHANCES

CHAPTER X

THE GREAT COMMISSION

AND THE GREATER COMMISSION

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

THE MASTER DISCIPLE-MAKER

Hanna Shahin delivers new and fresh truths from the disciple-making process of the greatest, most effective Disciple Maker ever—the Lord Jesus Christ. Prepare to be challenged—from the opening chapter, where Hanna shares fascinating details of his own ministry development, to the final and fresh insights regarding every believer’s involvement in the ministry of glorifying Jesus Christ—to the ends of the world!

Stephen Davey. MDiv, STM, DD

Senior Pastor, Colonial Baptist Church

President, Shepherds Theological Seminary

Principal Bible Teacher, Wisdom for the Heart

As a teacher of biblical interpretation, I am very pleased to recommend this book. I believe the Lord has given Dr. Shahin wonderful insights into the interpretation of Jesus’ life and ministry and especially His masterful plan of evangelism and discipleship. Not many of us are willing to take on the task of living with a group of new believers day and night as Jesus did. It certainly would disrupt family life! However, the principles are sound. Discipling as Jesus did it requires huge amounts of time spent with the learners. Daws Trotman learned that secret years ago and passed it on to the Navigators. Dr. Robert Coleman, in his book, The Master Plan of Evangelism, also emphasized that point. I especially like the concept of the greater commission of so living as to bring greater glory to God. This is the ultimate goal for each of our lives.

Dr. David W. King, ThD, LLD

Making disciples is the heart of the Great Commission. Yet today, so few Christians really know what it means to make a disciple, much less have any fruit to show for it. How sad is this? What are people going to say when they get to heaven and have never made a single disciple? God bless Hanna Shahin, therefore, for writing this book! His love for God’s Word and for teaching people how to obey it shines through on every page. There is no formula for making disciples, but the principles Hanna lays out from the Scriptures and his own practical experience—especially in North Africa and the Middle East—will help anyone seeking to obey the Great Commission in this generation.

Joel C. Rosenberg, New York Times best-selling author of Epicenter and Inside the Revolution

Have you ever thought why our methods of discipling new believers do not work as well as we have hoped? Have you ever thought why these new believers were not more up to Bible reading, study, and prayer? Have you ever asked yourself why the first generation of believers in Jesus in New Testament times have turned the world of the Mediterranean Basin upside down? If you have asked yourself such kind of questions, then this book is for you!

Dr. Hanna Shahin, from personal experience with the Soccer Church in F’heis (Jordan), shows how Jesus meant it to be: the interaction between disciple and discipler, trainee and trainer, or mentoree and mentor. What he shows is the difference between propositional discipling and incarnational discipling. The cost for the trainer is high, but the results are worth the efforts. This book is bound to leave a changing impact on many who are active in the missions field, allowing them to come back to more biblical approaches of discipler for making disciples, the Jesus style: this process involves a radical lifestyle change for the discipler.

Jurg Loeliger, MS, PhD

Corseaux, Switzerland

Hanna Shahin opens new vistas in our consideration of Jesus ministry and objectives. While God has used evangelistic methods to reach unbelievers, the preparation of young believers one to one or in small group settings seems to be an effective method of teaching. By His words and life, Jesus taught the Word and the passion of His mission here on earth. Indeed, He was a master disciple maker!

Tom Lowell, D Litt

Chairman, Trans World Radio Board of Directors

Every now and then I appreciate reading a book by someone who gets it. Hanna Shahin has captured the essence of the impartation of one’s spiritual pilgrimage to another person. He demonstrates that being a disciple is many times caught and not taught.

I’ve spent over 30 years asking God to develop disciples and leaders. The Master Disciple-Maker resonates with the reality of personally seeing this happen.

Lauren Libby

International President, TWR International

As a committed discipler of men for the Kingdom of our Lord and having known Hanna Shahin and his family for over three decades, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Master Disciple-Maker and gained new insights on the teaching of Jesus on what He Himself was committed to during His lifetime on earth. Hanna, who was born and grew up and played and walked in the very same towns and cities as our Lord Jesus did, and with his lifelong experience in discipling men and women for Jesus, will give you a fresh look on the very stories and parables Jesus used in discipling the first apostles of the church. You will get the feeling you are reading them for the first time ever.

Henri Aoun

Director, LifeAgape International

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4). How does that happen and what does that really mean? Reading this book to me was a clear illustration of what we as followers of Christ should do: study, meditate, take time, and let the Word of God water our souls. We hunger for spiritual fulfillment but often don’t do anything to obtain it. We seek in all the wrong places, and that is why we don’t find it. This book is a great study in what Jesus and the disciples had to do and why. It is a call to all of us back to the founding principles of our faith.

Salem Shahin, MD

DEDICATION

To my friend and former pastor, the Reverend Fawaz Ameish of Amman, Jordan, and his wife, Ruthie, who opened their hearts and home to our family, and who modeled in their lives the love and life of Christ before us.

PREFACE

The book you are holding in your hands was much easier for me to write than for you its reader or for me to apply. This is the case, because words, voided of their day-to-day application, are, after all, simply words, letters combined together to make sense. But unless they translate into life, the residual effect of writing or reading them can be very minimal.

We will learn in this book—without going into every little detail—what it meant for the Lord to make disciples out of the twelve men He called to follow Him. For while they were called disciples early on, yet it took more than three years of teaching, of prodding, and most important, of living the message of the Kingdom before their very eyes before they could be entrusted to carry that message to the world. And even then, were it not for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they probably would have bickered among themselves, as they did while their Lord was still with them, that they would have failed in their mission even before starting.

This book outlines the method that Jesus uniquely used, which was to teach by example rather than propositionally. He lived out His teachings with and before His followers in the same way that we, as fathers and mothers, also live out our lives before our own children. We prayed with them and played with them before teaching them how to pray or play. We walked and talked before them and with them before actually teaching them how to do either. Yet, somewhere in the course of life, we forget these basic principles and rather than follow the same pattern of living out the message—of becoming the message—we begin to carry it on our tongues or present it in books, and thus, the message loses its power.

As you make your way to the last chapter or two, a shocking surprise awaits you. In those last pages, I unpack the Great Commission for us, confront us with what Jesus was really commissioning His disciples to do, and then connect that with what I call the Greater Commission that the Father commissioned the Son to do, which, according to John 17:4, was making disciples.

As you conclude reading this book, you will begin to wonder whether the Twelve really understood their mission, and as important, you will begin to ask yourself whether you and I have understood our true mission in life thus far. My prayer is that through the reading of this book, you will gain a better understanding of what that mission is and that you will have the same passion to go out and make it happen. I hope you will reach the same conclusion I have reached as you read this book, which is the fact that evangelism alone will not win the world to Christ. Making disciples does.

Hanna S. Shahin, PhD

President and Founder

Endure International, Inc

INTRODUCTION

DISCIPLESHIP OR DISCIPLE-MAKING

Definitions of the term discipleship are not lacking in Christian circles. Generally speaking, discipleship is understood to mean helping younger Christians mature in Christ, whether by gaining a better understanding of the Word of God or by becoming more committed to the cause of Christ and His church, thus being better equipped to serve Him. Another way of stating this would be that discipleship purposes to assist younger Christians to become more like Christ.

The notion of discipleship has gained traction and emphasis in the last couple of decades, which has led a number of Evangelical para-church organizations, as well as denominations, to design and/or compile materials they identify as discipleship courses. These are usually steps or lessons that a mentor, a discipler, or a mature Christian guides a newer or younger Christian to complete. They cover topics such as learning how to hear God speak, discovering the principles of spiritual growth, how to have a happy marriage, and other important aspects in the life of a Christian.

The term disciple-making is used less in Christian circles than the term discipleship. And when used, it mostly refers—though not always—to similar processes and procedures as in discipleship, thus making both terms almost interchangeable. The question is whether this is a proper biblical understanding of what disciple-making really involves.

One big difference this book seeks to demonstrate is that, contrary to the general perception and practice, biblical disciple-making is a process that is initiated with nonbelievers first. Only secondarily does the discipleship process develop into assisting younger believers to mature in Christ. Another big difference that this book will advance is that biblical disciple-making is incarnational rather than propositional. This important aspect will become very clear, as we study the model that Jesus set before us in the four Gospels.

This book looks exclusively at the disciple-making process that the Lord Jesus Christ used with His Twelve. It does not go into the book of Acts to see whether Peter, Paul, or the other disciples applied the same methodology or part thereof in their ministry. Needless to say, the book of Acts is not disciple-making material. This is not the emphasis that Luke sought to present. However, this does not take away from whatever disciple-making principles a Bible student may glean from that book.

It also needs to be said that this book does not look into ways and means of getting better results from the disciple-making process, nor does the book guarantee the model that was used by the Lord according to the Gospels will bring about the type of disciples hoped for. The next paragraph will touch on that.

While this book is not about promoting the Person or the Power of the Holy Spirit of God, it ought to be stated and restated up front that outside an infilling of the Third Person of the Trinity, no amount of discipleship or disciple-making, regardless of the means used—whether incarnational or propositional—would ever bring forth the desired fruit. This