What does it imply to grow to be a follower of Jesus?
Is it a prayer that’s prayed, a choice that’s made, that alters the trajectory of your eternity? Or does it contain consciously changing into an apprentice of Jesus, following Him and changing into extra like Him?
The writings of John Mark Comer have taken root within the imaginations of many younger Christians of late. In his most up-to-date ebook, Training the Method, he writes:
My thesis is straightforward. Transformation is feasible if we’re keen to rearrange our lives across the practices, rhythms, and truths that Jesus himself did, which can open our lives to God’s energy to vary.
Comer argues that discipleship, or as he would favor apprenticeship, includes three issues: being with Jesus, changing into like Jesus, and doing as Jesus did. In consequence, disciple is a noun, not a verb.
In a latest article in Christianity Right this moment, Michael Horton took on the favored writings of Comer. Titled “Disciplines Don’t Save. Christ Does,” Horton “exhorts Christians to not confuse discipleship with the gospel.” He writes, “A disciple is at first a recipient of fine information. Following the instance of Jesus is a vital a part of discipleship within the Gospels, however it isn’t the gospel.”
No, it isn’t. However that’s not what Comer – nor Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, who wrote equally earlier than him – is saying. Sure, Comer argues that it’s “by apprenticeship to Jesus that we will enter into this kingdom,” however it could be an unfair studying of Comer to say that his definition of “apprentice” is separate from a brand new delivery. Comer’s level is that if we cut back the Christian life to a transactional prayer, and never the life that it’s meant to start, we now have gutted the concept of a brand new delivery and diminished it to one thing that may not be so new, a lot much less even a delivery.
At occasions it looks like Horton’s evaluation of Comer is much less about Comer’s imaginative and prescient for apprenticeship and extra about defending his personal reformed soteriology in opposition to somebody like Scot McKnight. (And the 2 are co-contributors to a latest ebook on simply such divides). However Comer’s focus is on religious formation, and he’s clear on the matter of soteriology when he writes: “Grace will not be against effort; it’s against incomes.”
Suffice it to say, nowhere does Comer declare what Horton accuses, particularly that “the message of Christian formation in response to Jesus’ instance” is by some means “made into the gospel itself.”
I believed the next engagement emailed to me by a “millennial” member of our workers was to the purpose:
I simply disagree with Horton’s presentation of his argument, notably with how he prooftexts Comer. Comer would not argue that religious disciplines are a way of salvation any greater than Willard or Foster do. Definitely, there are in all probability some who view them that manner, but when they do, they’re not getting that from Comer. And he would cringe at the concept religious practices ought to be pursued impartial of the physique of Christ. However I feel they’d all agree that someplace alongside the road, we’ve misplaced what we’re saved “for.” The “gospel” has been diminished to a prayer or a transaction, with little view of a lifetime of transformation, as if there’s a distinction between a “Christian” and a “disciple.” I feel they’d argue that we’re saved for discipleship, for all times with God. I’m not a disciple of Comer, however I feel he’s performed plenty of good in his strategy to discipleship… let’s have a good time each the gospel and discipleship.
As one reviewer summarizes Comer’s emphases: 1) Jesus desires followers of His Method, not a lukewarm “crowd”; 2) disciple or apprentice is one thing you’re, not one thing somebody “does to you”; and three) the exercise of Jesus’ apprenticeship isn’t one thing that occurs by itself. It’s a apply.
Sure, his books (and audiobooks),
… have a placing visible aesthetic and literary type. Sure, he’s writing for younger professionals within the pews. Sure, he’s a “secular metropolis” evangelical pastor by and thru. Pop cultural references abound, as do bipartisan third methods, all ruled by a delicate attunement to the allergy symptoms and appetites of Gen Z agnostics starved by society and hungry for the gospel. And? And nothing…. Comer is doing the Lord’s work.
I can perceive those that really feel that Comer can typically write as if he have been the primary to bump into such practices as silence and solitude or the rule of St. Benedict. However let’s be truthful—for his generational viewers, it would really feel that they’ve been reduce off from such wealthy traditions and practices. Let’s simply wrestle with the primary query:
Is it a couple of determination or a disciple?
That’s simple.
The reply is “Sure.”
James Emery White
Sources
Michael Horton, “Disciplines Don’t Save. Christ Does.” Christianity Right this moment, January/February 2026 Concern, learn on-line.
John Mark Comer, Training the Method.
Scot McKnight, Michael Horton, David A. DeSilva, Julie C. Ma and Shively T.J. Smithy, 5 Views on the Gospel.
Brad East, “My College students Are Studying John Mark Comer, and Now I Know Why,” Christianity Right this moment, February 14, 2026, learn on-line.
