The Hallmarks of Discipleship, Part 1

Matthew 10:24‑25

Take your Bible, if you will, and look with me at the tenth chapter of Matthew.  It is our unique and long awaited privilege to enter into an examination of Matthew chapter 10 verses 2!  to ??.  And I think it would be fitting if I read that section to you, although this morning I'm going to do nothing more than introduce it, I think it would be well to have it in mind.

Beginning at verse 24 of Matthew 10, our Lord instructing the disciples says:

"The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the servant above his lord.  It is enough for the disciple that he be like his teacher, and the servant like his lord.  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?  Fear them not therefore:  for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hidden that shall not be known.  What I tell you in darkness, that speak in light:  and what ye hear in the ear, that proclaim upon the housetops.  And fear not them who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul:

but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.  Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?

And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men' him will I confess also before My Father who is in heaven.  But whosoever shall deny Me before men.  him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven.  Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I am not come to send peace but a sword.  For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter‑in‑law against her mother‑ in‑law.  And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.  He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me:  and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.  And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me.  He that findeth his life shall lose it:  and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.  He that receiveth you receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent ?e.  He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.  And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I .say unto you, he shall in no way lose his reward."

I believe that this section of Scripture is the most crucial and the most definitive and the most monumental passage ever uttered by our Lord on the subject of discipleship.  This, in fact.

is the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ on the matter of discipleship.  What its cost is, and what it involves.  And consequently it demands our great attention.

Now the matter of discipleship is of major emphasis here at Grace Church.  We are absolutely and totally convinced that the church has a single simplified task as stated by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 28 when He said, "God into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age."  God into all the world and make disciples.  In Matthew chapter 10 our Lord is making disciples.

He is building up disciples.  The word disciple is math?t?s.  it means learner.  He has the group of twelve and He is building them to maturity to send them out to reproduce and advance the Kingdom.

And that is the same process He has called us to be engaged in...

the process of making disciples.  This means more than leading people to Jesus Christ.  That is not the end of our commission, that is the beginning.  I never ever ascend the steps to speak in this pulpit with any other thought in my mind than build up the saints of Cod.  To put it in the terms of Ephesians, "To perfect the saints for the work of the ministry."  I believe that is the perspective of the teacher.  We are to reproduce mature disciples who in turn can reproduce themselves.  We are not interested in short circuiting that, we are not interested in short cutting that, we are not interested in minimizing that, we are interested only in the fulfillment of the goal of producing mature and reproductive disciples.

All of the teaching and preaching, all of the personal counseling.

all of the extensive ministry that goes on here and through our tapes and radio and books and everything else we do, is to take people to the point of maturity in the faith.  Now that's what our Lord was after.  He wanted people who would come and learn of Him.  He even said that.  "Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me."  Be discipled by Me.  And I really believe that that is the essence of what conversion is.  Conversion is identifying yourself as one willing to learn from Jesus Christ all things whatsoever He has commanded.

And the implication of such learning is obedience.  When you become a Christian, in effect, you are saying ‑ I choose to be a learner of the Lord Jesus Christ and to submit to such as He instructs.  That's the stuff of genuine conversion.

It isn't just meeting Jesus and ending it there.  It is affirming His Lordship, and His role as teacher, and your role as pupil....to be brought to maturity.

Now that was the Lord's task with the twelve.  That was precisely the task of the twelve with the generation they were to reach.  You see it, I think, most clearly in the Apostle paul whose great desire was to bring the saints to maturity.  Now that's my task...the task of every Christian preacher, teacher, pastor, leader.  We all have the responsibility to teach, to disciple....as you do as well in the sphere of your own ministry.

But let me see if I can't talk about that for just a moment in a context that will help us as we approach this passage.  I know what my commitment is.  I know what my calling is.  I know God has called me to teach the Word...the preach the Word...to build the saints to maturity.  I know that.  I know that's the mandate that I have from God and I am held accountable to Him to fulfill that as much as is in me possible in the power of the Spirit of God.  I know my commitment.  And my commitment is to do that although I sometimes struggle with my weakness and ignorance and the flesh, and other things, to get through to the accomplishing of that end, I know what the task is and I know that I'm committed to that task.  But what I don't know is whether you're committed to the task of learning and that's the issue.  The Lord faced that same thing.  He knew what His task was...He knew what the truth was....and He knew how to communicate the truth but what He was looking for was open hearts to receive it...the ready mind, the ready heart.

Now I know some of you enough to know that you are that ready mind.  You are that ready heart.  You want to receive the truth of God and you want having received it to implement it.

And you want your life to be being transformed.  Others of you, I know, and I'm...maybe I don't know you well enough to know that because I'm not sure where you are.  Some of you I don't know at all, so I don't know where you are.  But the real issue in the church is that the leadership is committed to doing what the Bible says to do and what we have to feel is that you're committed to receiving it when we give it.  It's like a radio program, it's one thing to broadcast, it's something else to tune in and listen.

It doesn't do us a bit of good to preach the message unless somebody is on our channel.

You know, when the radio goes out it goes out all over Los Angeles and I think 125 other cities in America now, and whether they know it or not my voice is all over the place but only a few people tune in.  And that's how it is, I think, in a sense, with the church.  There's a lot of broadcasting going on but maybe not enough receiving.  And I believe that that may be because we've never really understood the stuff of which discipleship is made and going into the Christian faith we never really understood it.

When Jesus called disciples to Himself, He really carefully instructed them in the matters of what they would be facing.  And consequently it kept out those half‑hearted people who weren't willing to make the commitment.  Jesus did the same thing when He talked about a narrow gate and a narrow way.  He kept out the people that weren't willing to make the commitment, to pay the price.  And the challenge of the Lord and the challenge of the Apostles, and the challenge of the ministers of today is to find a willing hearted people...to find an open‑hearted people...to find a responsive group who will say ‑ We will obey all things whatsoever the Lord has commanded us.  We are willing and eager and anxious no matter what the price.

Now that is the stuff of true discipleship.  That is how it is to be when you sign up to be a follower of Jesus Christ.  And I think, more than any passage we have studied, this passage is going to force you to face that reality.  The Lord really draws discipleship down to very clear issues.  And you and I as we go through this section, and we're not going to rush through it, we'll cover a little today and some more next time and then finish it out later.  But I want us to go patiently because this is such critical truth.  If you've ever wondered about dedication and...and we've all gone to churches, you know, where somebody gave an altar call and people went down and they dedicated and rededicated their lives, and we've all gone to camps, or n?st of us have, and we've seen dedication services and we've read about people who were consecrated and committed and recommitted and reconsecrated, and we've even gone through some of that catharsis of the cleansing work o.  the Spirit through the Word, and we've made new resolutions and some of them we followed up on and some of them we would find even difficult to remember.  And if you've ever wondered what the real stuff of commitment is, and where the bottom line of consecration comes, and what it really means to be set apart or sanctified, I think you'll find the answer right here.  In fact, this text is so filled with rich truth regarding discipleship that it has been the focus of Christians through the centuries and becomes the key point in learning Jesus' perspective on dedication to Himself.  If you're just kind of floating along, if you haven't really made the commitment the way it ought to be made, you're going to be forced against the wall in this passage.

I heard on the news this week about a lady whose claimed to be a Christian for several years, and gone around and given her testimony for the Lord, has just done a spread for playboy magazine.

If that kind of Christianity is what you're used to you're really going to get it in the neck in Matthew chapter lO.  Because ?hat our Lord calls us to here is infinitely something apart from that.

Now the truths in this passage, and I'm going to keep giving you some thoughts on it before we hit it, but the truths in this passage, now listen carefully to what I say here because I think it's important, are so essential because they are among the favorite teachings of Jesus.  You say ‑ Well.  how do you know that?  Because I know a little bit about what it is to be a teacher, and let me tell you how it is.  As one who teaches the Word of God I have found that there are certain key truths that you must deal with.

basic to salvation and basic to discipleship, basic to spiritual growth.  And what happens to a teacher is as he studies the Word of God for preparing to teach he finds certain concise and effective ways to communicate those basic essentials.  Like, if you point me in the middle of the night and ask me h?w to be saved, I'll pop out of bed and basically give you number 4gc in my mental catalog.  And I'll fire out salvation as I perceive it, spoken as clearly as I can speak it to make it understandable.  And I have found certain ways to express that.  And so as many times as I might travel in different places, and speak to that issue, I will find myself using some of the same terminology because as a teacher I have learned how to express that in a way that is clear, hopefully, and I've maintained that expression.

Now when it comes to basic of spiritual life, I'll go around this country and I'll be asked to speak on a certain theme and invariably when that theme intersects with principles of spiritual life, principles of discipleship, I find myself going back to the same passages, back to the same phrases, the same concepts.  and often the same illustrations because they so firmly in my mind make the point and so clearly elucidate in various circumstances what people need to understand.  In other words, there is a deposit of basic information that can be communicated effectively in a simple way.  And any teacher learns how to do that effectively and goes back to that in all different circumstances.

Now that is precisely what our Lord does in this passage.  Now listen carefully, there have been critics who have approached Matthew 10 and they have said ‑ Matthew didn't really record what Jesus said.

Matthew picked stuff from all over the place and put it together as if Jesus said it.  He took a little of what He said over here, and a little of what He said over here' and a little over here and a little over here...and they call this redaction criticism.  That Matthew is not a writer recording what Jesus actually said to His disciples, he's an editor and he's pulling it from all over everywhere and sticking it together and stuffing it in this chapter as if it were one speech by our Lord.

Now the basic error of that view is that it gives no place to repetition in the life of the teacher.  The other answer to this passage is ‑ Of course what Jesus says appears here and there all through the gospels.  You'll find almost all of these principles somewhere else but that does not mean that Jesus only said things one time in one place to one people for one purpose.  What it shows us is that like any other teacher He had truth which He drew out in all different places, all different circumstances for all different unique place and time situations and with nuances of variation, communicated the same basic stuff.

Now if you accept the redaction critic's view, first of all you've destroyed the integrity of Matthew, then you've played with the integrity of Jesus and you've, thirdly, denied the fact that a teacher has the right to repeat himself and that you can never do for the Bible itself says we learn line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, and precept upon precept.  The Lord here is giving us, as He gave the twelve, a body of His favorite teaching on the matter of discipleship.  And since discipleship is a matter that followed Him all through His life and which He had to deal with multiples of people in different situations, He repeats these truths over and over, sometimes changing the terms, the phrases and the point that He's making but yet using some of the same concepts and the same words to express it...  So you will find, and this is the point you need to get, that from Matthew 10 on, if you get this chapter, you are going to intersect with these same thoughts again and again as you read the rest of Matthew into Mark, into Luke, and although the terms are somewhat different you'll find the same principles in John also.  Don't deny the Lord that privilege.  This is some of His very favorite truth.

I'll even go a step further.  I think if the Lord was in panorama City today and I said to Him ‑ Would You preach this morning?  And I told Him that you all were already saved, for the most part, and that I had spent some time trying to communicate to you and so had many other teachers, and that you'd been brought along and were really pretty ready to go out and change the world.  I wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear Him tell you to open to Matthew 10.  Because, I think this instruction is so near and dear to His heart.  And that's why it's repeated so many times.  And that's why you must learn it and not just hear it but respond to it.

When you became a Christian, beloved, you did not just buy fire insurance, you did not just jump down the escape hatch from hell, you affirmed the Lordship of Christ and that means that you affirmed a response of obedience.  You said ‑ You are the teacher, I am the learner.  And you will learn all things whatsoever He has commanded you.  And if you came in on any other terms, it's questionable whether you're in at all.

Now, the people who have responded to the truths of Matthew 10:

?4 to 42 have been the kind of people who change the world.  We're talking about total dedication, total commitment, the real stuff.

nothing held back.  And those are the kinds of people who in deep self examination came to a consecration and a dedication level that set them a cut above everybody else....and made them the kind that God could use to change the course of history.

We think of Florence Nightengale, at 3O years of age she wrote this in her diary:  "I am thirty years of age, the age at which Christ began His mission.  Now, no more childish things, no more vain things."  She wrote that on her thirtieth birthday.  Years later, near the end of her illustrious and heroic life, she was asked for the secret of her life.  And this is what she said:  I can only give one explanation, that is this ‑ I have kept nothing back from God."

end quote.  Kept nothing back, that's what the Lord is talking about here.

One night Dr.  Howard A.  Kelly graduated from medical college.

You might know him for his great work at John's Hopkins as a world famed surgeon and gynecologist.  The night that he graduated from medical college he wrote this in his diary:  "Today I dedicate myself, my time, my capabilities, my ambition, everything to Him.  Blessed Lord, sanctify me to Thy uses, give me no worldly success which may not lead me nearer to my Saviour."  That remarkable man could tell many stories of what it means to be dedicated.  I remember reading one.  He was traveling in the midwest and through some circumstances needed a drink of water and stopped at a house.  Knocked at the door and asked if they could provide him a drink.  That drink was provided for him.  He remembered the name of the young girl who had given him the drink, though she didn't know who he was.  Years later that same young girl grew up and was stricken with a very serious disease and had to come to John's Hopkins for a series of surgeries.  As it turned out, Dr.  Kelly was her surgeon.  After all of the care that had to be given to her, the bill was in excess of $50 thousand dollars.

There was no insurance to cover it.  She was fearful until she received a bill said ‑ paid in full by a glass of water.  Remarkable man.

Jim Elliot, the Auca Indian martyr wrote in his diary this:

"God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life that I may burn for Thee.  Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine.  I seek not a long life but a full one like You Lord Jesus."  That's exactly what he got.  In the very flower of his youth a native threw a spear right through him.

It's this kind of dedication that we're talking about.  This is to put it in a contemporary mode so you don't think it's just something way back when.  If you know anything about revival and the history of revival in our own country, you've heard the name Jonathan Edwards....great preacher.  God used him mightily.  There was a reason.  The reason was he was willing to pay the price.  The reason was he counted the cost.  The reason was he gave everything.

He became that full fledged disciple.  He was the one with the open heart who wanted nothing other than what?  God was wanting to give him.  And he wrote this, and this was the changing point in his life:  "I claim no right to myself, no right to this understanding, this will, these affections that are in me.  Neither do I have any right to this body or its members, no right to this tongue, to these hands, feet, ears or eyes.  I have given myself clear away and not retained anything of my own.  I have been to God this morning and told Him I have given myself wholly to Him, I have given every power so that for the future I claim no right to myself in any respect.  I've expressly promised Him, for by His grace I will not fail.  I take Him as my whole portion and felicity looking upon nothing else as any part of my happiness.  His law is the constant rule of my obedience.  I will fight with all my might against the world, the flesh and the devil to the end of my life.

I will adhere to the faith of the gospel however hazardous and difficult the profession and practice of it may be.  I pray, God, for the sake of others to look on this as self‑dedication.  Henceforth, I am not to act in any respect as my own, I shall act as my own if I ever make use of any of my powers to do anything that is not to the glory of God.  Or, to fail to make the glorifying of Him my whole and entire business.  If I murmur in the least at affliction.

if I am in any way uncharitable, if I revenge my own case, if I do anything purely to please myself or omit anything because it's a great denial, if I trust to myself, if I take any praise for any good which Christ does by me, or if I am in any way proud, I shall act as my own and not God's.  But I purpose to be absolutely His."

Now that's consecration.  And God used that man beyond his imagination.

Now, we're called to that kind of commitment in this chapter.

And I am just kind of forewarning you that that's what you're going to face in this chapter.  And as we go through it every time you're going to be sort of put to the wall to evaluate and self‑examine your commitment level.

Now, let's look at the passage.  And we'll examine the first two verses this morning.  Jesus has named the twelve.  Going through the gospel of Matthew now, we have seen that Matthew is presenting the King.  He's presented the ancestry of the King.  He's presented the arrival of the King, the anticipation of the King and the prophecies...the announcer of the King, John the Baptist, His herald.

He's presented the axioms of the King.  or His principles in the Sermon on the Mount.  The acts of the King, if you will.  His miracles and so forth, and now we're meeting the agents of the King, His ambassadors, the twelve, the ones He sends out.  And in verse 1 through 4 of chapter 10 we met the twelve.

Then in verses 5 through 15 He gave them instruction for their ministry.  And then in verse 18 to ?S He told them how the world would react.  So, He names them.  instructs them, and then lets them know what it's going to be like when they get out there.  Now remember this because it's so very important to rightly interpret the section, the priority focus initially in the chapter is on the twelve.  That's where the basic focus comes' on the twelve.  But as you go through the chapter you can see clearly that it extends beyond them.  In fact, in verse 23 it talks about the people who minister till the son of man returns, the second coming.  So, you start out with the twelve, and the Lord telescopes what He teaches to encompass all who ever follow Him.

You also will note that it begins with a priority focus on a short term, several week ministry that the twelve are going to be .

engaged in as they go out to get experience for their ultimate sending after the resurrection.  But though it initially focuses on that brief several week ministry it also telescopes to encompass every mission throughout all time that anyone who represents Christ will ever take.  So, that the principles begin with a very limited focus and they telescope to a large and wide horizon.

We see first the twelve and then we see all those who follow Christ.  First, their initial mission, and then we see their later mission after the Spirit empowers them.  And then we see the mission of all who ever serve Christ as we flow through this marvelous chapter.

And so we see the reaching to the broadest possible limit of all servants in all times on all missions, there are principles of importance.

Now, as we've approached verse 23 we have covered everything till the second coming, till the son of man be come.  So, we've picked up all those who serve the Lord through all periods on all mission tim...

fields until the Lord comes.  Now having given us that wide scope in verse 23, watch carefully, the Lord maintains that widest possible scope for the instruction of verses 24 and following.  So that now He has taken us to that wide level, encompassing all of time until Jesus comes and in that context He talks about every disciple He'll ever have throughout all of that period and gives the definition of their discipleship from verse 24 to 42.  The scope is broad now and the principles are for all time.  The Lord then closes this discourse with general teaching, referring to all disciples in all missions through all times.  And therefore, I've entitled this section The Hallmarks of Discipleship....The Hallmarks of Discipleship.  And it is as much for us as it was for the twelve, as it was for paul, as it was for the people they discipled, as it was for the Florence Nightengales and the Jonathan Edwards and whoever else responded to these truths.

Now just to let you know that this is indeed a general statement, notice verse 24 ‑ the term ‑ "The disciple,"  and really what He is saying is any disciple.  The twelve have been named as such.  The twelve have been called Apostles since verse 2.  They're trained and ready to be sent.  But now He uses the word disciple.  He backs off from Apostle and He emphasizes the learning process and He broadens to encompass any disciple.  Then He also uses in verse 1 and 2, the word servant, and again a very general word.  The servant...

whatever servant...anyone who serves Me.

Further, you'll notice there is a word ‑ whosoever ‑ in verse 32.

?whosoever therefore, and verse SS ‑ whosoever is used again.  And it's also used one other time.  Three times it says whosoever.  Nine times it says ‑ He that...and that can be anybody.  He that does this, or he that does that, so the terms fit the general character of this particular portion.  We are at the widest possible horizon, encompassing all of those who name the name of Jesus Christ who are disciples and servants, and whosoevers, and he that's.  I just want you to see the wide focus because it's important for your understanding.

Now our Lord is going to say this ‑ For those people who truly want to come and be My disciple, here's what I ask.  That's it.

This is what I require.  This is the stuff of real discipleship.

And by the way, again we must note how honest Jesus is...right up front.  He doesn't hold back anything.  He tells them the cost.  You don't do anyone a favor by trying to get them to accept Christ without letting them know what is really involved in such acceptance.

That's how we get so many false believers.  If they knew the truth they wouldn't come.  We know that because in John 8 it says, "Many disciples were following Him,"  and then He started saying ‑ You have to eat My flesh and drink My blood.  In other words, you've got to be involved in My dying and My death and at that point it says And many of His disciples walked no more with Him.  I mean, that was more than they were ready to handle.  And then you have the fellow that comes to Him and says ‑ I'll follow You wherever You go.  And He says ‑ Well, note this, will you?  Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but I don't even have a place to lay My head.  And they guy split.  No, that isn't what I'm after.  I want a little comfort with my ministry.

And the fellow who came and said ‑ I'll follow You wherever You go but first I want to go bury my father.  And what he meant was my father's not even dead, I want to wait until he dies and get my inheritance.  And Jesus said ‑ You'd better let the dead bury their dead.  And the implication of the text again is the guy turned around and walked away.  He wasn't interested.

And the other fellow came and said ‑ Well, I...I'd like to follow You but I...I want to go say goodbye to my mommy, and my daddy.  Too tied to the family.  Jesus turned His back on him too.

You see, He was very up front, it will cost you your family, fella, it will cost you your inheritance and it will cost you your comfort and those are the terms.  And they didn't want them.  We don't do anybody any favors by introducing them to Christ and to His Lordship and introducing Him as the teacher, and then saying ‑ There's no price to pay ‑ because there is.  The way is narrow and the gate is narrow as well.  And that's the way the Lord always presents it.

Now, the honesty of Jesus in verses 18 to 2S demands the section in verses 24 to 42.  It's very important to note that.

You know, Jesus' messages are so clear and logical, I guess that's why I get so upset at the redaction critics who say ‑ Well, this doesn't make sense, it's all hodge‑podged together, therefore Matthew must be an editor who picked it out of the air everywhere.

They do the same thing on the Sermon on the Mount.  They take the Sermon on the Mount and they say ‑ Well, Matthew took a little of this and a little of that and a little of that, like he was some kind of a cook, you know, making hash.  And he just threw it all and stirred it up and it all came out.  And ‑ yeah, Jesus said it somewhere or sometime or some...and they miss the flow of the whole thing which is the genius of it.  Listen, He tells them in 5 to 15 here's how to minister.  He tells them in 18 to 2S ‑ here's what will happen.  And having told them here's what will happen, He says to them in 24 to 42 ‑ are you willing to pay the price?  That's it.  It's absolutely logical.  I think the reason most redaction critics don't know that is because they don't know God so their eyes..

are blinded, because the flow is so obvious.

Now the whole thing begins in verse 24, let's look at it.  Now here's His general teaching on discipleship, and as I said, it's among His favorite truths to teach.  The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the servant above his lord.  Now, stop there for a minute.

That's the basic premise.  The disciples are going to be saying to themselves ‑ Man, we're going to be sheep among wolves, verse 18.

Verse 17, we're going to go and get scourged in the synagogue.

Verse 18, we're going to be dragged before pagan courts.  Verse 21, our own family is going to put us to death.  Verse 22.  we're going to be hated by all kinds of people for His sake.  We're going to have to endure.  Verse 22, we're going to be persecuted all over the country so we have to keep running from city to city.  And they're going to be saying ‑ Well, what is this kind of an offer?

And the Lord comes back and says ‑ The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the servant above his lord.  Why should you expect to get any different treatment than I received?  Did you hear that?

Now I...it's going to get very direct as He goes through this, very straight forward.  The statement is axiomatic.  And Jesus uses it again in other places ‑ the disciple is not above his teacher.  I mean, that's axiomatic, you don't have to prove that.  If I'm your teacher, and you sit under Me then you're only going to learn what I tell you.  And you've taken the role under Me.  So the disciple is not above his teacher.  He by very definition and affirmation and acquiescence takes the place underneath his teacher by his own volition.  But even where his volition is not involved He uses another metaphor, the servant is above his lord?

No.  The lord is above the servant.  The first case we assume the disciple chooses his teacher, the second case ‑ the lord buys the servant.

But in either case, there is the role of subservience, we are under Him.  The disciple is a learner.  The teacher is the one who knows.  The learner doesn't know.  The one who doesn't know isn't above the one who knows.  The lord is the master, the slave is the slave ‑ doulos.  And by very definition he is the one who does what the master tells him.  So, the Lord is simply saying this The first basic principle of discipleship is that you submit yourselves to Me.  Your volition can be seen in the disciple?

teacher motif.  My sovereignty is manifest in the Lord and servant motif.  And there you have the duality of the salvation doctrine.

We choose to be a d