The LIVE Session for our Podcast Seminary LIVE Session, MINS 120, Introduction to Discipleship

2. • 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

3. • 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

4. • 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

5. • 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

6. Our LIVE Session

7. Introduction to Discipleship

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. Thoughts About Discipleship/Christian Life

11. • 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

12. • 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

13. • 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]

14. • “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

15. • 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

16. (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

17. • Knowing Christ
• Loving Christ
• Living for Christ
• Loving Others
• Great Commandment and the Royal Law (love thy neighbor as thyself)
Discipleship Simplified

18. 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.

19. • 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

20. E-Mail (feedback@soapbox.network) OR Share Them Via “Chat” in the Webinar
Q: What Have You Enjoyed About Class?

21. 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?

22. • 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!

23. • 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

24. 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