Introduction
Understanding the main teaching in the New Testament is not straightforward for new, or even established, followers of Jesus. The Gospels, the Epistles and other books were written through the Holy Spirit by a number of authors (2 Timothy 3:16). Each book had a different intended audience initially, and many of the scriptures addressed problems in the early church - often still visible in today’s church as well!
As we learned in a previous Faith Article (Note [1]) the main message of the New Testament to Jesus’ followers can be considered as “Become more like Jesus”. But what does this mean in practice, and how can we go about finding out what the New Testament really teaches us about that?
In this first article, we shall look briefly at an ongoing analysis that is considering the New Testament from a unique perspective. Over the coming months (by God’s grace) we hope this will build a body of information that will draw out the key teaching for disciples. It will encompass the commands, instructions, parables, encouragements, and warnings that are scattered throughout the New Testament. We shall aim to present them in a structured way, with the broadest themes or concepts at the top, supported by successive layers of more detailed commands and practices. It is these commands and practices that we should be seeking to live by as faithful believers are enabled through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Importantly, it is not intended that this should be done in a legalistic way. This side of heaven we will fail to live up to God’s (perfect) standard but when we go wrong we know that we can confess these things and receive forgiveness (1 John 1:8-9).
Initial Approach
The first stage in the process was to read the whole of the New Testament whilst trying to draw out the important messages (and key words). In effect this helped to create an initial flat list of things that disciples should try to do, or keep well away from. For example:
Be humble
Give generously
Walk by faith and not by sight
Do not love idols
Do not be a drunk
Do not steal.
The next task was to try and group the items on this list into linked and related subject areas - not a simple or quick exercise - and one that continues to need changes and modifications as the analysis task progresses.
In practice the overall structure that has emerged has remained entirely consistent with the work undertaken to produce two books that analysed and structured the commands of Jesus:
Teach Them To Obey - All That I Have Commanded You (ISBN: 978-1-9164405-0-0)
Teach Them To Obey - Studies for Disciples (ISBN: 978-1-9164405-1-7).
This broad structure (with a modified top level command) is shown in Figure 1, highlighting that the main message from the New Testament (Kingdom Objective) is to ‘Become more like Jesus’, supported by three Kingdom Fundamentals (‘Love God’, ‘Follow Jesus’, and ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’). Each of these three is in turn supported by two or more Kingdom Practices for us to try and live out in our walk of faith.
This initial work led to at least two, and in some cases three, levels of further detail which will be revealed over time as further articles are published.
The approach is consistent with the idea that every subject can be explained across five levels of successive detail [2]. That concept’s aim is to share information tailored to different audiences:
A child
A teenager
An undergraduate student studying that subject
A graduate student
A colleague or an expert in the subject area.
Figure 1 - The main messages of the New Testament to 3 levels of detail
The Long Slog!
The next phase has been to use two specialised resources to help identify Greek words that are related to the English words, messages, and phrases identified in the initial analysis. In some cases it has been necessary to expand the range of English words considered.
For completeness, it has also been important to consider Greek words which were semantically linked (having a similar or related meaning). The reference sources being used for this semantic analysis are Louw and Nida’s ‘Greek English Lexicon’ [3], and ‘Mounce’s Expository Dictionary’ [4]. Through further analysis it has also been possible to identify the associated Strong’s Greek references ([3] does not include them) which has then allowed all the related verses where these Geek words appear to be identified via online sources such as [5] and a Bible software program [6].
For example.
If we look for Greek words related to ‘Lordship’ we will find the word hupotassó (pronounced hoop-ot-as’-so) with a Strong’s Greek reference number of 5293. This is defined as ‘to place or rank under, to subject, mid. to obey’ and is generally used in the contexts of ‘I place under, subject to; I submit, put myself into subjection’ [5]. There are 38 occurrences of this word in the New Testament and some examples are below with the word translated into English shown in bold text:
1 Corinthians 15:27 - For “God has put everything under His feet.” Now when it says that everything has been put under Him, this clearly does not include the One who put everything under Him (The Greek word appears three times in this verse).
Ephesians 1:22 - And God put everything under His feet and made Him head over everything for the church.
Romans 8:20 - For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope (The Greek word appears twice in this verse).
Romans 10:3 - Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Luke 10:17 - The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in Your name.”
Luke 10:20 - Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Ephesians 5:21 - Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
1 Peter 5:5 - Young men, in the same way, submit yourselves to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
If we look across the complete set of 38 occurrences we can begin to identify verses that have similar meanings (topics areas).
So 1 Corinthians 15:27 and Ephesians 1:22 (above) can be looked at in the context of things submitting to the Lordship of Jesus.
Similarly, Romans 8:20 and Romans 10:3 can be understood to be about submission to God.
Luke 10:17 and 10:20 relate to spirits submitting to the disciples / apostles
Ephesians 5:21 and 1 Peter 5:5 relate to submission to church leaders and fellow members.
So here we can see that with just one word meaning ‘submission’, we can identify four categories to consider in the context of relevance to discipleship. There are some further categories that can also be identified for this word too!
This approach has been used to create two previous Faith Articles: the first about the roles of the Holy Spirit [7], and the second about when the New Testament talks about ‘spirit’, other than references to the Holy Spirit [8].
At the time of writing (August 2021) in excess of 900 Greek words, and the verses they appear in, have been analysed (some of them are duplicated across the different Themes) representing in the order of 23,000 verse references and hundreds of hours of research. The verses have generally been copied and then considered for their relevance to a discipleships perspective (as we have just seen). The sense of the verses (and their scriptural context) is looked at and they are they are then grouped into topic areas. Where relevant to discipleship, these topic areas are then added into the developing structure - mainly as level 4, 5 (or even 6) subject areas. So far, there is nothing that has been identified in terms of teaching about being a disciple, that does not fit under the nine Kingdom Practices shown in Figure 1.
This work is currently ongoing with much more of the above analysis being done.
Next Steps
Moving forward requires the completion of the above analysis, in parallel with trying to describe the higher and lower level messages in a simple way in later articles.
Once the analysis is complete, there will be a further task to look at the words that have been analysed, chapter by chapter and verse by verse, to double-check their context and try and confirm the ‘correctness’ of the work undertaken, making changes where necessary. Possible outputs could include:
A New Testament chapter and verse to Theme mapping
Explaining the complete Systematic Discipleship structure, Theme by Theme, presenting the verses that have been considered relevant to discipleship in each topic area.
Moving forward, there is no intent to provide anything other than the highest level of understanding of the scriptures. There is not intention to undertake exegesis (a critical explanation or interpretation of scripture) as this should only be done by those who have been trained how to do this (ideally pastors and bible teachers).
With data analysis and data structuring experience however, it is possible to work through the method we have considered without getting too deeply into the theological arguments. However, the rationale underpinning the process is based upon the reality of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - one God in three persons) and the five solas:
Sola scriptura - by scripture alone
Sola fide - by faith alone
Sola gratia - by grace alone
Solus Christus - through Christ alone
Soli Deo gloria - glory to God alone.
An invitation to come on a journey
So having looked at the basis of the analysis, are we prepared to come on a journey of a New Testament led discovery of discipleship in the months ahead? The aim is to keep it simple (and short), presenting the analysis in a straightforward way, supported by example scriptures for readers to consider and reflect on.
It is unlikely that it will solve all our problems - it may even create some - but at the same time we will hopefully have a clearer idea about some of the teaching that we should be trying to live by as the Holy Spirit empowers us.
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Reading the articles will take only a little time to study - more if we look up the additional Bible references - and probably a lifetime to work out in practice. Hopefully they will help make each of us ‘Become more like Jesus’!
If you have any constructive feedback, please feel free to share via the form on the website [9] or where comments are enabled below.
Notes
[2] - https://www.wired.com/video/series/5-levels
[3] - “Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, based upon Semantic Domains” Volumes 1 and 2 - Louw and Nida - Published by and © United Bible Societies - 1988
[4] - “Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words” - © William D Mounce, 2006 - Published by Zondervan
[5] - biblehub - https://biblehub.com/greek/