A disciple was someone who followed a rabbi around not only to learn doctrine but also to see its application in life. Jesus was one such rabbi, as we see in the familiar story reported in Luke 10:38–42 (ESV throughout):
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Martha offers hospitality, preparing meals and hosting Jesus and his disciples. As we see in Jesus’ ministry, this too was part of discipleship. Yet Jesus, the Word incarnate, found nothing greater than hearing and delivering his Father’s words, the “one thing … necessary.”
The chief mark of discipleship is receiving Jesus in his Word, as Mary does. There is a time for a disciple to do “many things,” but attentiveness to Christ is first. Jesus is delivering himself to Mary as her Savior. The instruction Mary is receiving “will not be taken away from her.” She will cherish these hours, for these words of life will fuel her many works.
A disciple is first and foremost a recipient of good news. Following the example of Jesus is an important part of discipleship in the Gospels, but it is not the gospel.
Yet many today are equating discipleship with the gospel. John Mark Comer focuses his recent book, Practicing the Way, on discipleship. Comer reports that many people told him they had never heard about discipleship before in their evangelical churches.
This is surprising to me. I grew up in an evangelical world in which Dallas Willard—the preeminent name on spiritual formation—made a significant impact. Everyone was talking about discipleship. A translation of Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ (circa 1418–1427) was a well-marked-up volume in my mother’s library. In His Steps, an 1896 classic by Charles Sheldon, was on the shelf too. In that book, Sheldon, a Congregationalist pioneer of the social gospel movement, asked the question “What would Jesus do?”
For 19th-century evangelist Charles G. Finney and other revivalists, in fact, following Christ’s example edged out Christ’s saving work in their preaching. Evangelicalism is an activistic version of Christianity, which has its pros and cons, as Jesus’ words to Martha and Mary suggest.
One evangelical theologian who focuses on Christian activism is Scot McKnight. I appreciate his emphasis on Jesus himself being the gospel. But I think McKnight’s reactions against a genuine problem of evangelical reductionism (found in such resources as the “plan of salvation” tracts) lead him to another oversimplification.
Comer, too, emphasizes the active nature of Christian practice, but he lacks McKnight’s nuance. Comer acts as if no one had thought about discipleship and the kingdom of God until he came along.
As I see it, the problem with Comer’s emphasis is equating discipleship with the gospel. In Practicing the Way, Comer says, “And through apprenticeship to Jesus, we can enter into this kingdom and into the inner life of God himself.” But even if we were to adopt this approach—doing all the things Jesus said—that is not salvific. Jesus taught that a person enters the kingdom through the new birth, which is an entirely supernatural gift of grace (John 3:1–8).
But there is nothing really about grace in Comer’s Practicing the Way. In fact, there is a lot about Jesus as example, but the main point is “What would Jesus do?” Part of what is done seems to be a “rule of life.” Comer’s emphasis on a rule of life may echo the Benedictine Rule, but it is a decidedly modern monasticism, both in its view of salvation and in its individualism. His “nine core practices” can be done without any particular accountability to a local church. Like many who emphasize Christ’s example over his achievement, Comer seems to think that God’s work is something he accomplishes merely through us rather than for us.
But Jesus is not just a preeminent rabbi. He is also the Father’s incarnate Son, who descended in flesh to redeem us from condemnation and death. Jesus is the gospel.
So while the message of Christian formation according to Jesus’ example is entirely appropriate for Christian growth, it is instead made into the gospel itself. It isn’t.
Jesus himself summarized loving God and neighbor as the fulfillment of the whole law (Matt. 22:37–40; Gal. 5:14). Jesus exemplifies the perfect human, not only in his birth but also in his obedient life and sacrifice.
The “What would Jesus do?” (or WWJD) gospel is not a gospel at all. It is the law—the good law. We have it not only prescribed in the Ten Commandments but also fulfilled in Christ. The Good News is not “Give your life to Jesus” or “Surrender all”—actions we take—but the truth that the incarnate Son gave his life and surrendered all for you. Apart from this Good News, the example of Jesus leads us either to despair or to self-righteousness.
This truth is abundant not only in Paul’s writings but also in the Gospels, even in the episode with the rich young ruler (Matt. 19:16–22). The Pharisee in one of Jesus’ parables goes so far as to thank God for his moral superiority, but Jesus says the tax collector “went down to his house justified, rather than the other” (Luke 18:14). How could this happen unless, as Paul teaches, Christ’s fulfillment of the law is imputed to us just as our transgressions are imputed to him?
It’s not a question of whether we hold in principle to such doctrines but rather whether they function as key drivers of gospel discipleship or are transformed into the gospel itself.
I have learned much from conversations with Professor McKnight. But I know more about what he believes about “King Jesus” than “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
Apart from the latter, it is terrifying news that Jesus is King. Look at me. My best efforts at discipleship are stained by pride and sloth. I’m hardly a person Jesus could trust to help him usher in the everlasting kingdom of righteousness and peace. I want to be, but even my wanting is too often halfhearted and fleeting.
Is there a gospel for people like me? Maybe I don’t have a great testimony of descending into a horrible life of rebellion and then surrendering all. But Jesus surrendered all for me. King Jesus on a cross: That’s the story from Genesis 3:15 to the end of the Bible.
Maybe we can’t point to radical moments of transformation in our lives and in the world through us. Perhaps we are those who go to church, confess our sins, hear and believe the gospel, receive Christ’s body and blood, and go out again into the world to love and serve our neighbors in meaningful but quiet and failing ways.
I need the body of Christ because I’m not a good disciple on my own. There are no rules or core practices that will save me from this. Only the story I’m baptized into can do that. Let me hear it again, from different episodes, until I feel myself becoming rescripted into it. Let me pray with other struggling Christians who sometimes just don’t feel like praying.
Above all, let me be a recipient of grace. Instead of coming together to get our marching orders for consummating the kingdom, let us come together to confess our sin and our faith in Christ, who is greater than all our sin. And let us go out to offer a sacrifice not of atonement but of thanksgiving for the atonement Christ accomplished once and for all.
Jesus reigns. The good news in this is not that he gives you an agenda and example (which he does!) but that he is your “righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).
Discipleship is not the gospel. It is the fruit of the gospel. Just as fruit varies from tree to tree, so do our roles in God’s kingdom. There is no promise that you will become a world transformer. You might just be somebody who washes dishes, changes diapers, or drives a truck. That’s good. Jesus was a builder.
Perhaps there will be decisive moments where your discipleship enjoys a significant impact, but for most of us, it is a slog. We try not to be “anxious and troubled about many things,” but we are. We try not to envy, but we do. We try not to surrender to sloth when there is so much to accomplish, but we are halfhearted.
Martha thought Mary was wasting her own time and Jesus’ by asking theological questions. But maybe that’s what a disciple does more than anything. Mary and Martha were both disciples, but the work of discipleship starts with and remains grounded by the gospel that falls from Jesus’ lips.
Disciples do serve, work, and extend hospitality. But they do this because they have sat at the feet of Jesus to learn who he is and what he has come to do.
More than providing comfort or anything else, the news that King Jesus is the Lamb of God is the fuel for following the example of the one who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Martha indeed found the one thing necessary, which Jesus pointed out to her: “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Michael Horton is J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California. His most recent book is Shaman and Sage.
This article appeared in the January/February 2026 issue of Christianity Today as "Are You Really a Disciple?".
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