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Jun 23, 2025 06:00am

From Disciple to Disciple-Maker

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The school administrators received a letter from the Board of Education. It was what they had feared.

They were being placed on academic probation.

They weren’t meeting the standards set by the state for academic performance. If they didn’t improve, their school could close.

Part of the probation also included an overseer for the improvement plan. He would join them on campus, help to lead the efforts, show them the changes that needed to be made, and document the progress. However, if even with his help and example, the school didn’t make the improvements, his report would reflect that, and the school would face closure.

Parents were concerned. They wanted to make sure their children were given the best opportunities and were learning what they needed to in order to thrive and succeed.

1 Corinthians 4:17
“17 For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.”

For this reason… what reason? Well, let’s take a look back at what Paul has been saying. He wrote a letter to the believers in Corinth. He wanted to encourage them but also correct them. They had been allowing the influence of the “world” around them to infiltrate their worship. They were bickering about who had the best “spiritual father” and were causing division in the church. In this letter, Paul was essentially giving them an improvement plan. It was vital that the people within the church followed all that he had taught them in order to be able to pass that on to the next generations.

And to make sure they were doing what they needed to, he sent Timothy, his disciple, to oversee the improvements. He would be an example to them, just as Paul was, of how to follow Christ.

God has given us wonderful examples to follow in Scripture— incredible men and women of God that showed great faith and obedience to the Lord. He also shows us the challenges that they all faced and how they handled them, how they trusted Him, how they wrestled with Him, and the end result.

He has also called all of us to be His disciples— to learn what it means to follow Him, and then… there’s another step. He didn’t just call us to learn; He called us to share.

In Matthew, Jesus said, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” He didn’t just say, Follow Me. He didn’t just say, I’ll teach you all you want to know. He ended with action. He said, “make you fishers of men.”

We are all called to be disciples of Christ. But we are also all called to be disciple-makers. We have learned about how to follow Jesus, and now it’s time for us to show others how to do the same.

Just as Timothy did for Paul.

Want to learn how? Go to follow.Lifeword.org and begin learning how to become a truly devoted follower of Christ. And then turn around and use this free resource as a way to disciple someone else. We now have it in Spanish as well at follow.lifeword.org/spanish.