Christ – Matjaž Črnivec

How can we know that discipleship is really the first, the most important call that comes from God to people, including and especially to “believers”? That it is the primary lens through which we can and must view everything “Christian”?

Jesus and the New Testament speak of disciples all the time, but only three times of “Christians”. When Jesus calls a man, he always calls him to follow him – as his disciple. Those from the wider crowd who need a miracle from him he calls to faith, but those who are to be or who want to be close to him personally he calls to discipleship, to the life of a disciple. The former is evangelism, the latter is life in the new covenant with God.

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In what follows I would like to explore Jesus’ view on the subject of the family with its intimate ties and obligations, from the viewpoint of the radical newness of the kingdom of God that he is ushering in. In doing this I will have to challenge the contemporary conviction which is prevalent among Evangelical and also Catholic Christians and is even unquestionably held as “biblical”.

I want to approach this as a study of relevant sayings of Jesus on this matter as found in the Gospels, and then supplement it with passages from Pauline corpus and from other New Testament letters. This latter evidence is obviously secondary, but as we can safely assume, the apostolic writings maintain and echo many of the “Jesus traditions”, so their testimony can be used as an auxiliary source and a means of clarification of what Jesus taught on the subject, as well as evidence how the first generations of Christians put his teachings into practice in the early communities.

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