Disciple

By Phil Pringle

Our whole society relies on discipline. People going to work each day, doctors following procedures, pilots checking equipment, all rely on each person following a set of rules – a discipline. Following Jesus is synonymous with living disciplined. The current times demand disciples, not just churchgoers or Christians.

In this new book from Pastor Phil Pringle brings lessons from his 43 years in Church ministry, and serving the global Church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PaX Ministries Pty Ltd
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9789811829420

Book preview

Disciple

Disciple

PHIL PRINGLE

Disciple by Phil Pringle

Published by PaX Ministries Pty Ltd

ABN No: 97 003 162 392

Locked Bag No 8, Dee Why, 2099, Australia

Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

www.philpringle.com

Cover Art by Phil Pringle.

Cover Design and Layout by Ashleigh Meyer, Bark & Bear.

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means - electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise - without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by Australian copyright law.

Scripture taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture taken from the New King James version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982. By Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.

All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

Words in capitals, in bold or in scripture quotations are the emphasis of the author. The words him, his, he, or man are sometimes used generically to describe people of both genders.

Copyright 2021 by PaX Ministries Pty Ltd.

Second Edition: August 2023

All Rights Reserved.

International Standard Book No (ISBN) 97988003555 (Paperback)

International Standard Book No (ISBN) 9789811829420 (eBook)

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1 DISCIPLE-MAKERS

2 RUTHLESS COMMITMENT

3 DISCIPLINE

4 SUSTAINABLE DISCIPLESHIP

5 ASPIRATIONAL CHRISTIANITY

6 TRUE CHRISTIANITY

7 THE CULTURE OF DISCIPLESHIP

8 THE KINGDOM WAY

9 HUMILITY

10 EMPATHY

11 GENTLE

12 HUNGRY

13 MERCIFUL

14 PURITY

15 PEACEMAKER

16 PERSECUATED

17 SALT

18 LIGHT

19 RELATIONSHIPS

20 ADULTERY

21 PROMISE KEEPING

22 THE SECOND MILE

23 HONEST TO GOD

24 PRAYER

25 HIDDEN TREASURE

26 VISION, PERSPECTIVE AND VIEW

27 PURITY OF WORSHIP AND SERVICE

28 PREJUDICE AND FAULT FINDING

29 DISCERNMENT

30 ASK, SEEK AND KNOCK

31 THE GOLDEN RULE

32 DISCIPLINE, SELF DENIAL AND RESTRAINT

33 BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS

34 PILGRIMS

35 THE WISE BUILDER

36 LOVE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Big thanks to Courtney Trestrail helping me finally pull this book together which I’ve been trying to complete for around 15 years. Thank you for your editing and suggestions and pulling off another production in just one year.

Thanks also to Ryan Kerrison from our C3 College running his eagle eye over the copy, polishing our final draft.

Big thanks to my queen, Chris, also copy editing but also for having walked with me for fifty years, which anniversary we celebrated this year. You are the love of my life.

INTRODUCTION

'How should we then live?' Francis Schaeffer asked in his book of the same title from the seventies (yep, I was alive then…. barely!). Most of us do life with little idea how. Our educators, family, friends, TV, music, social media, endless offerings from the Internet, and of course movies, all show their paths, yet still we bumble along in Henry David Thoreau's ‘lives of quiet desperation going to the grave with our songs still within us’. Look around. How many families are working well? So many stresses over money, relationships, and time-poor living? How many you know ‘have it all together’?

‘Christ in us’ means we have fresh life, not just zesty energy, but a whole new way of doing life, different, very different to life without him, yet our ‘best life’, a life of divine purpose, a reason to breathe!

Read this!

Isaiah 55:8 (MSG)

'I don't think the way you think. The way you work isn't the way I work. For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.’

Receiving Christ kickstarts this upside-down life. Receiving Christ rebirths us, entering a new world called Kingdom – the Kingdom of God. New reactions opposing our natural instincts are normal to our new nature. Cursing once spewing from our mouth like a sewer now grieves us. Prayer instead flows from the same place.

Counter-intuitive living downloads as our new operating system making us different to the world around us. Not just different, but the reverse, like, 'You've been taught to hate your enemies, but I say, love your enemies….'. Now that's different, and hard to do.

No matter our culture, government or circumstances, life works when we live His ways. Love, forgiveness, grace, generosity, hospitality, all His ways resonate with every other human! Why? They’re the ways of the One who created us. We’re made just like Him, in His image.

Without Christ these ways are impossible. With Him, not just possible but 'natural'. Born of God, we have His nature. We get it. We see the Kingdom.

John 3:3-5

‘…unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.… unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’

Parking a skateboard in a garage doesn't make it a car. Parking someone in church doesn’t make them a Christian. Only Christ 'in' us makes us a child of God. A changed life is evidence we’re 'in Christ'. Being in Christ and being in a Christian organisation is not the same. Joining a church makes no-one a Christian. Yes, it would be good to see everyone in church. Healthy churches are where we learn to walk the walk. Church is not just a religious organisation though. Disciples living out the Kingdom of God together is church.

The boundaries of this Kingdom aren’t geographical. They’re attitudes. In His Kingdom I’m under the ‘dom’ of the ‘King’. Hating someone instead of loving them, seeking revenge rather than forgive them, I cross the border out of the Kingdom. Loving, not hating, taps the power of the Holy Spirit to do just that, power to live His way.

Following Christ isn’t just adopting beliefs. It’s adopting behaviours. Not just a belief system, it’s a do system. Loving people is what we do, not just thinking, talking, or praying it. We do it.

Branches in the Vine bear fruit. Not in the Vine, no fruit. Abiding in Christ means living in prayer, not visiting Him, but living in Him.

Paul completes this picture of abiding ‘in Christ’ post resurrection. Two books I’ve written on this are, 'Who We Are and What We Have’, and 'In Him: The Devotional'. Rather than repeat them here, I'd urge you read them as complete works.

Evangelistic success is not getting a person to just ask Christ into their life, the first step in a very long journey. Disciple-making moves new believers to living in Christ.

Decisions for Christ focus on a point in time. Making disciples focuses on lifestyles.

While decision-making and disciple-making are not the same, each supports the other.

Making disciples I form relationships with, eating with them, engaging with their family, praying and doing life together.

Teaching others grows ourselves. Even Jack Welch, the famed leader of GE for 25 years, found this out improving his golf game. ‘My wife was a lawyer in New York, and one of the first weekends we went away together, I went out and played golf. She looked at me like - she got the weekend off and I went out and played golf? I'd done that all my life and I didn't know any better. She said, 'Wait a minute. This isn't the way it's going to be'. And so, she said, 'I've got to learn to play golf with you. You've got to teach me how to play golf’. So, I did, and she's now a single-digit handicapper. In eight years. By teaching her, I focused on golf in a way that I'd never done. And I've got to a whole new level. It's amazing, isn't it?’¹

Disciples live by disciplines, not feelings. Following the Son of God, disciples learn from Him. Webster's Dictionary defines 'disciple', a 'pupil or follower who accepts and helps spread their master’s teaching'.

Disciple (Greek - 'mathéteuó'), means learner, pupil, a student. The root word, 'math' indicates 'thought by endeavour'. By doing, the disciple learns. This is the same for every area of life.

Accumulating information in a classroom doesn’t form disciples, action does. We learn best when we do.

A disciple does life 'in Christ', not theorising, reading, or studying about it, but doing it, giving time and money to people in need, telling people about Jesus. Disciples do and so bear fruit.

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FOOTNOTES

¹ Jack Welch, interview with author, Fairfield, CT, July ³, ¹⁹⁹⁷.

1 DISCIPLE-MAKERS

Matthew 28:18–20

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.

Jesus is with us when we ‘Go and make disciples’. ‘Go’ means I am intentional. Houses don’t build themselves. Gardens don’t thrive on their own. Disciples don’t just happen. Someone makes them, like Jesus did with His twelve. He chose them right from the start so they wouldn’t miss a thing. Disciples are made, not born.

‘Go make disciples’ means make disciple-making your intention. We do what we determine to do. What are you determined to do? That’s what you’re going to do. What is your deep intention? That’s what you are going to do. Focus on making disciples. Don’t be distracted.

Disciples live by the ways of the Kingdom. We enter the Kingdom of God when we are ‘born again’.

John 3:3-5

Jesus answered and said to him, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.…Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Discipleship is the core of true Christianity. Great leaders are disciples first. I’m a leader in His church because I’m a disciple in His Kingdom. I am not a disciple of Christ because I am a leader. My leadership relies on me being a disciple.

All that we do in our Church, Bible Colleges, Schools, Church planting, albums, arts courses, leadership training, television production is because we are first disciples. We do what He leads us to do and don’t do what He doesn’t.

We are not limited to one profession. Whatever we do we are still disciples of Christ. From plumbers to lawyers, carpenters to inventors, artists to entertainers, Uber drivers to sportsmen, mothers, fathers, students, we are disciples.

I am an evangelist because I am first a disciple.

I am a pastor because first I am a disciple.

Whatever He’s called me to do, I’ll fulfil it because I am His disciple.

In the early days of our church, I told our team ‘Let’s be fellow disciples before we are professional Ministers doing church work’. We are still doing life together, 40 plus years on. We have all occupied so many different positions and roles, Children’s Ministers, Location Pastors, General Managers, Bible College Directors, National Overseers. The roles are inconsequential. We try to not be precious about positions, titles, privileges. Being a disciple is what matters.

Disciples are what make churches healthy at the grass roots level. Not great preachers, events, or whatever gathers crowds. Disciples serve, tithe, and attend church. But it doesn’t stop at church. Disciples do life together beyond church walls.

We are in danger of creating ‘Churchianity’ filled with ‘Churchians’.

We may wrongly imagine the high expression of our Christianity is working at church. This is a high calling but just as high a calling as the disciple who is a teacher in a school, a dentist, a real estate agent, an accountant, a hairdresser, a rubbish collector, a painter, a politician, and any other profession. Only about 3% of Christians will be on the stage of a church preaching, singing, or leading services. The rest of us are not second-class Christians. Don’t think the stage competes with the pew. If the highest aspiration of the people on the floor is to one day be on the stage, we miss the point. The pulpit equips the pew to be effective for Christ in the marketplace.

Speaking of the disciples call, our highest call is pursuing Jesus and to know Him. If we are the only ones on Earth ready to follow Him, then we will. ‘I have decided to follow Jesus…no turning back’. No matter how many