Raise Many Disciples

We've been considering the sayings of the Jewish sages before New Testament times in order to better understand the conversation Jesus and the Disciples were part of. The men of the Great Assembly said three things:

1. Be patient in justice.
2. Raise many disciples.
3. Make a fence around the Torah.

Whenever we encounter a list in rabbinic literature, we want to take a moment to step back and consider the order of the items. As twenty-first century Westerners, we're used to having things spelled out for us. We read stories and break them down to identify and collect facts. The people of the Ancient Near East didn't think this way. They thought in stories and relationships. Let's consider the story and the relationships we might find in this list: Be patient in justice, raise many disciples and make a fence around the Torah.

Before we can raise disciples, we have to share God's view of them and ourselves. Last time, we talked about patience in justice as the foundational principle for biblical leadership. This is an idea Jesus spoke about often. Only when we have bought into God's vision for discipleship can we raise up disciples to share that vision. That's our subject for today. Finally, the disciples have a mission. Next week, we'll explore the enigmatic saying about building a fence around the Torah. So the list isn't merely a collection of odd sayings. It tells a story of how we become faithful in our own attitudes and perceptions, help others along their faith journeys, and build a shared life centered on God's word.

This week, we'll look at the advice of the Great Assembly: "Raise many disciples." It might seem obvious in today's world that all rabbis would want to raise as many disciples as they could. Most churches today measure growth primarily in terms of attendance, membership, and giving numbers. In the secular world, authors are deemed successful based on the number of books they sell and social media influencers gain status and privilege based on the number of their followers.

This approach isn't without problems though. In 2014, Mark Driscoll was called out for abusive and domineering leadership. Paul David Tripp called it, "without a doubt, the most abusive, coercive ministry culture [he'd] ever been involved with." Other church leaders wanted Driscoll to find healthy a accountability structure. Driscoll refused: "I’m not going to be accountable to anybody with a smaller church." (Cosper, November 2021) Driscoll's many followers became his measure of success and ultimately a source of pride that destroyed Mars Hill Church.

When we seek to raise up many followers for the reasons that resonate with today's culture, we face the very real danger that we may be successful. We come to see church members and social media followers as people as trophies of our success. They are the body count in our inexorably war for power and pride. As Driscoll bragged, "There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God’s grace it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done. You either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus. Those are the options. But the bus ain’t gonna stop." (Cosper, June 2021) When the bus finally did stop in 2014, there was indeed a mountain of bodies behind it: the thousands of believers who had made Mars Hill their home and trusted Mark Driscoll as their pastor.

When we try to lead in God's kingdom with selfish motives, the only thing worse than failure is success.

So why did the Great Assembly encourage raising up many disciples? It turns out there's another form of pride that can be just as dangerous as treating people like personal trophies, and that is the pride of exclusivity. Some of the rabbis, particularly a group called Bet Shammai, felt that only certain types of people were worthy of learning about God.

We'll talk more about Shammai and his rival Hillel in the coming weeks. In the Gospels, Jesus frequently engaged with the conflict between these two rivals and their students. It is nearly impossible to understand these passages correctly without understanding this conflict. A great deal of Christian antisemitism has come from misreading these passages. For now, three things about this conflict are particularly important.

1. During the time of Jesus, Bet Shammai, (Hebrew for the House of Shammai, meaning Shammai's followers) had nearly total control over the Pharisee party. (Falk, 1985)
2. Nearly every criticism Jesus leveled against the Pharisees can be traced directly to the particulars of Shammai's teaching. Many of those criticisms are also found in the writings of Bet Hillel, including the famous line where they are called children of the devil. We should not interpret these statements as Christian condemnation of Jews, but as one group of first century Jews criticizing another. Scholars call this an "intramural discussion." (Falk, 1985)
3. After the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, the Sanhedrin moved to the city of Yavne (also called Jamnia) and rejected the interpretations of Shammai after a voice from heaven declared that the halakha (interpretation of the Torah) would follow Bet Hillel. Insofar as Judaism today is connected to first century Pharisees, it is descended from Bet Hillel, not Bet Shammai. (Falk, 1985)

Shammai was very particular about who he allowed into the study hall. He was famous for chasing off prospective students he deemed unworthy. He even beat some of them with a measuring stick. The Talmud acknowledges that Bet Shammai was intellectually superior (Yevamot 14a), but says that it was the humility of Bet Hillel that ultimately won out (Eruvin 13b).

While it is true that Jesus focused much of his earthly ministry on twelve men, he had more than twelve disciples. Luke 10 mentions the sending of seventy or seventy-two disciples, and he often spoke to large crowds, sometimes numbering in the thousands. The Pharisees in Luke 5:30 who criticized Jesus for eating with sinners and tax collectors followed Shammai's example of exclusivity. Jesus responded, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick," (Luke 5:31, NIV). In the Great Commission, Jesus tells his disciples to go and make disciples not only in Israel, but in all the nations. Bet Hillel had sent missionaries to teach gentiles, but the exclusive Bet Shammai believed gentiles could never have a share in the world to come (Falk, 1985). Jesus freely taught whoever would hear, and told his disciples to do likewise, but he didn't derive his personal significance from the number of his followers. Shammai was proud, only associating with the brightest students, and his interpretations of the Torah were strict and difficult.

The sages' advice about patience in justice is incredibly counter-cultural by today's standards. It goes against our pride and the impatience that so characterizes this moment in history. Following that advice, we see that the exhortation to raise up many disciples isn't about getting to be smug because my church is bigger than your church. It's about having the humility to invest in "sinners and tax collectors," to be a doctor among the sick rather than a king with his entourage. And that makes it personal. Jesus didn't speak to the crowds because he wanted the biggest audience. He did it because he cared about every single one of them, not just the smartest or the most pious. He loved every man, woman, and child enough to come down from heaven, to walk the dusty roads of Galilee to speak to them, and ultimately to lay down his life for them.

Most of you reading this aren't rabbis or pastors. You may never speak in front of thousands of people or send out missionaries to the nations, but you can still love people the way Jesus loved them. In a world that is quick to judge and quick to tear people down, you can judge favorably and invest in ways that build people up.

Grace and peace.

Sources

Cosper, Mike. “Who Killed Mars Hill?”. Produced by Christianity Today. The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, June 21, 2021. Podcast, 54:30. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/who-killed-mars-hill-church-mark-driscoll-rise-fall.html.

Cosper, Mike. “The Tempest”. Produced by Christianity Today. The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, November 12, 2021. Podcast, 2:38:00. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/tempest-mars-hill-driscoll.html.

Falk, Harvey. Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus. New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1985.