Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Discipleship and the Way of Jesus with Pastor John MacArthur and Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Prior to Pastor John MacArthur going home to be with the Lord, Jonny Ardavanis sat down with Pastor John as he breaks down the biblical meaning of discipleship and why it's essential for every Christian. Jesus commanded us to "make disciples," not just converts—but what does that really mean?Key Topics Covered: • The true definition of a disciple (mathetes - a lifelong learner) • Why discipleship is more than a prayer or church attendance • How to build Christ-centered friendships that last a lifetime • The difference between making converts and making disciples • Practical steps to find someone to disciple you • How to start discipling others in your churchMain Takeaways: ✓ Discipleship is a friendship with a spiritual core ✓ It involves teaching believers to observe all of Christ's commands ✓ True discipleship creates lifelong relationships and accountability ✓ Find someone who knows more than you AND someone who knows less ✓ The local church is essential for biblical discipleshipPastor MacArthur emphasizes that discipleship isn't just a program—it's walking through life with someone, applying God's Word together, and creating deep spiritual friendships that accumulate over a lifetime.Perfect for: Christians seeking spiritual growth, church leaders, small group leaders, new believers, and anyone wanting to understand the Great Commission better.

Pastor John, in Matthew 28, Jesus does not say go into all the earth and make converts. He says to make disciples. And yet today, many people don't understand what a disciple of Jesus Christ even is. And because of that, little discipleship takes place in many churches. So my question for you is twofold. What is a disciple? And then what is discipleship? Well, the word in the Greek, the original word for disciple, is matthetes, and it's a learner.

So what the Lord tells us to do is go into all the world and make lifelong learners. And then the rest of that commission is this, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. That defines the job of making disciples. It's not just getting somebody to pray a prayer and hope that God answered the prayer. I like to think of it this way, okay? You're building a relationship with someone that has a spiritual core. These are friendships that last. When I first came to Grace Church many years ago, I started disciplining guys.

And what happened was I would meet with them and I would teach them all things that Christ, asks us to do. I would take them into the Word of God and they were learners. Jesus spent three years telling us, showing us what a disciple is, what a disciple maker is, you instruct them, you teach them, and you teach them in life application. In other words, disciplining someone is walking through their life with them and applying the Word of God as you go. So it ends up being a friendship. And the really wonderful part about it is when you've done that kind of thing, in somebody's life, they're a lifetime friend. People say, well, do you disciple people for like a year or two years and then go on to somebody else? No. Whoever I disciple never goes

away. I mean, you just accumulate them. This is one of the challenges of living a long life. You accumulate all these people, all these people who, there's a sense in which our hearts are tied together. I get texts from people all over the world who are still giving me input at the most intimate level of their Christian experience because there's this friendship. It's a friendship of instruction, mentoring, accountability. But yeah, I think that's why the church is so important, Johnny. That's why the local church is so important. You can't just run around the world and give invitations and have people raise their hand and say, okay, I'm a Christian and leave them with that. They've got to be disciples. They can't be left as babes tossed to and fro, cared about by

every kind of heresy and error because they can't defend themselves because they don't have any discernment because they don't have any teaching. So you have to take on the full responsibility to fulfill the Great Commission of taking someone to Christ and then taking them with Christ and walking them through life in some kind of relationship or find other folks who can do that. That's what disciplining is. It's producing a maturing learner who's learning everything that Christ wants them to know so they can live for his glory. What you said is so helpful because I think sometimes people think discipleship is either just hanging out with people or it's coffee once a week at

six in the morning. And you're saying it's a friendship. It's a friendship with a spiritual core. It's a friendship with a Christ-centered dynamic. It's a friendship where you talk about the things of the Lord where you share your heart. I'm not saying you have to drag out all your inner thoughts and all of that. but it's a conversation.

It's always a conversation that never moves very far from the person of Christ and our spiritual lives. And then my last question for you, Pastor John, is how can I find someone to disciple me or how can I find someone to disciple? What would your answer be? Yeah, and I've believed this for years. I've told people in our church for years, you need to find someone who knows more about the word of God than you do, and you need to go to them and say,

I would love to spend some time with you. Then you need to find someone who knows less about the Bible than you do. And you need to find them and help them. So it's just a chain. I mean, we need somebody who has more to bring into our lives and we need to be the more to some people who have less than we do. This is what a church is. This is why you need the church.

Because your life is going to be exposed at the point of its strengths and weaknesses and you fit into the body in this incredible, family of people all nurturing one another in that kind of dynamic. So find somebody who knows more than you do and bother them until they give you attention. Find somebody who knows less and pull them in and feed them the things that you've learned. It's simple and yet so crucial to understand and apply. We need to make disciples. It takes time and it takes intentionality.

Yeah. No, that's so helpful. Thank you so much, Pastor John. Welcome. Thank you.