In the light of the Resurrection, Jesus commissioned His followers with a great task before ascending to the Father in glory (Mt 28:18–20). Just as Adam and Eve were to be fruitful and multiply, we as His followers, are to fill the earth with His disciples by proclaiming the good merits of His Death and Resurrection and commanding all peoples to have faith in and follow the Risen King.

But how do you ‘make disciples’? Discipleship, or the process of making and growing disciples, may be likened to chin ups.

I’m not a huge fan of chin ups. My strength lies more in my legs than my arms and I find it easier to run than to lift my body weight. Reaching the chin up bar is a challenge. Yet this is the illustration my friend uses to describe discipleship and one that depicts a phrase in the Bible that I’ve often likewise used to describe it, truth and love.

God the Father has given us the perfect standard of His Royal Law. Matthew 5:48 says, ‘Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” His holy standard—all that He expects and commands of us in His Word—is really high. Far from lifting ourselves up to the bar, we can’t even jump high enough to reach the bar!

As disciplers we hold the bar just as high as the Father, but we also help people reach the bar. Like a coach we don’t blast the trainee for not knowing how to do it, or doing it properly, or failing to attain it. Nor do we say, ‘oh it’s ok that you haven’t attained to it,’ Instead we say, ‘there is the bar, now let me help you be able to reach it.’

The Bible has the same word—depending on context—that can be meant for both challenge and encouragement. It is parakaleo (παρακαλέω) and means to call+beside. It can be translated exhort, urge implore or comfort, encourage and invite.

For unbelievers we do not shrink from sharing the bad news of judgement apart from faith in Christ, but we also encourage by sharing our testimony, by declaring how good the Lord is and that He doesn’t cast off any who come to Him.

For believers, we likewise maintain that Jesus has commanded us to do X, Y and Z, yet do even this in ‘gentleness and respect,’ reminding them of the forgiveness our Lord offers when they fall and continuing to call them to yield to the Spirit and the Word. The Lord has given us the Helper, God’s Law is no longer a threat but a promise—I will get you there!

I’ve owned two Border collies. While they somewhat train themselves, they do require training, or discipleship. My present dog is 7 months. He is a work in progress! My previous dog died at 12 years of age, travelled the world with me and was very special to me. Throughout her life people would often comment, ‘your dog is so affectionate and obedient, you must have taken her to obedience school, how did you do it.’ By grace (for I’m not professional dog trainer), I’d say, “no there were only two ingredients: love and discipline. I’d reinforce positive behaviour and dissuade negative behaviour.” Humans are much superior to dogs, however, this principle is the same essential principle that I use for raising my son and also what I’ve used in Christian discipleship. In fact, with variation, this is what we see consistently (and effectively) used throughout Church history.

The Lord has set the bar high for His people—we musn’t shrink away from it. Yet the bar is so impossibly high that not even we have attained it. In humility we help each other by the Spirit to rise to the high calling our King commands.
​
That is chin up discipleship. 

 ​*This blog seeks to speak into a conversations I’ve heard many Christians wrestle with in our post-Christian age.

For most secular Canadians today, Easter is a nice spring holiday to eat chocolate while enjoying time off work. Its imagery of bunnies and chicks speak of spring and new life (themselves pagan symbols). This is a far cry from conjuring up images of the cross and empty tomb, which alone offer true life. Because Easter and Easter don’t mean the same thing anymore, perhaps it is time for a change, to rename Easter? We have further warrant. Easter itself, or Eostre, was a Germanic pagan fertility goddess.* Her worship was popular in Northern Europe to mark the spring equinox. When Christianity came to the now countries of England and Germany, the pagan festival was subsumed into the Christian festival that remembered Jesus’ death and resurrection. However, the name Eostre was retained (a form of evangelistic rebranding).  Wherever German or English has gone in the world the name for the season has remained Easter for some 1000+ years.
​
However, the non-Germanic Christian world (i.e. Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Greek, etc) calls the season Pascha or Passover in continuity with the Old Covenant feast when Jesus died and rose. This was the wording of the Church Fathers. While Good Friday, Holy/Passion[1] Week or Lent wasn’t developed in early Christianity until c. 4th century, Passover (Easter) has been celebrated the first Lord’s Day after the lunar Old Covenant Passover since the earliest church period; officially standardized since AD 325.[2] This all makes perfect sense. Jesus was the Passover lamb (1 Cor 5:7), fulfilling the Old Covenant festival of Passover, giving it new meaning for believers and simplifying it under the New Covenant as the Lord’s Supper (Mk 14:22–25; 1 Cor 11:17–34). The weeklong Passover in the Old Testament wasn’t just about remembering God's judgement upon the firstborn passing over those with the blood of a lamb (i.e. Good Friday)  but the Exodus from slavery to new life in the Promised Land. Likewise, the New Covenant Passover remembers the believers' rescue from slavery to sin (Cross) and into new spiritual life (Resurrection).[3]

 To distinguish ourselves from secular and medieval paganism, and unite ourselves to the flow of Scripture, the witness of tradition, we ought to join the rest of the Christian world in calling the season of Easter ‘Passover.’ Passover would then be broken into the two pillar days:

* https://www.etymonline.com/word/Easter​

[1] Passion means suffering.

[2] Prior to the Council of Nicea there were two traditions: the churches in Asian Minor followed the Jewish pattern of the 14th of Nissan (lunar), whereas the churches in Palestine, Egypt and Italy followed the first Lord’s Day after the 14th of Nissan (weekly). (Nick Needham, 2000 Years of  Christ's Power, vol. 1 [2016], 80).  As such it is the day of the week and not day of the month that is commemorated. 

[3] Egypt=sin; Passover lamb= Jesus; Red Sea= baptism; wilderness= our life before glory; the Promised Land= the New Heavens and New Earth.

[4] I call it a season vs. a festival or a holiday (holy day) because there is only one holy day commanded under the New Covenant and that is the Lord’s Day.

[5] We are not commanded to observe Good Friday under the New Covenant as we are the weekly Lord’s Day, however, given the weight allotted to the event in Scripture and its integral part in the establishment of the New Covenant, it is warranted.

[6] It is difficult to escape paganism entirely as even our days of the week are named after Roman gods. Good is in the sense of holy or special, because of what is remembered.  

[7] Tertullian, in the 3rd century, said something like, ‘not to be ashamed of calling it Sunday for it was the Day of the Son.’ ​

Yet to be posted:(

A chapel message from Grey Gables on Rev 1:8, et al.