Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Paul Washer - The Importance of Discipleship

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Jonny Ardavanis is the Lead Pastor at Stonebridge Bible Church in Franklin, TN and the President of Dial In Ministries. He formerly served as the Dean of Campus Life at The Master’s University and as a Camp Director at Hume Lake Christian Camps. Jonny’s heart is to see people understand and love the Word of God and more so, to love the God of the Word. Jonny is married to Caity Jean and they have two precious daughters.Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis: Big Questions, Biblical Answers, is a series that seeks to provide biblical answers to some of the most prominent and fundamental questions regarding God, the Gospel, and the BibleIn this episode, Jonny Ardavanis sits down with Paul Washer, the founder of the HeartCry Missionary Society, and asks him, "Why is discipleship so important?"Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hello, my name is Johnny Arnavannis and this is Dial In. In this episode, I sit down with Paul Washer and ask him about the importance of discipleship. We all may know that there is an importance in reading our Bibles or attending a church, but in scripture, there is an emphasis on discipleship. And in this episode, we're gonna talk about what that actually means and why it's so important.

Let's dial in. Paul, thank you for sitting down. I wanted to ask you an important question. Many people regarding just their spiritual life understand that they need to be in the word of God, need to be committed to a local church, but I want you to speak to the importance and vitality of having a discipleship relationship. Whoever, if it's a younger man, there's an older godly man in his life that actually observes him,

that challenges him, and this young man gets to watch this older man live as a dad, as a husband, speak to that importance? Okay, well, first of all, back when I became a Christian, and even prior to that, the 70s and the 80s, there was a lot about one-on-one discipleship. Everything was one-on-one discipleship and the multiplication of disciples. But as I look back on that, one of the reasons for the emphasis on personal discipleship was that the pulpits were so weak. So we need to have one-on-one discipleship, but it's not going to function unless we have expositors in the pulpit. So it's not a replacement. It's something that goes along with it, and it is extremely important.

And so I don't want young people just to kind of get together with one person. They need to be in the context of a local church. They need to be sitting under expository preaching, and they need to be in a church. And this is an important aspect for discipleship. They need to be in a church that isn't a cowboy church or a motorcycle church or a young church or an old church or a white church or a black church. And my point is, is that discipleship, it can happen on a personal level, but it also happens, even when we're not noticing it, in the context of the local church. So we want to talk about expository preaching, absolutely necessary. We want to talk about being in a healthy church where people are all growing spiritually.

But then there's that thing of also mentorship in which a person who may be, they may be physically young or they may be just young in the faith and they need to sit with other Christians in a more personal relationship. One of the, for me, one of the most important passages in the scriptures that have to deal with this is this, he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. We always hear from scholars, you know, he who doesn't understand history will have to, the mistakes of history will have to commit those same mistakes again. And one of the things that you see, particularly in the confessions, the Westminster in the 1689 and the catechisms that come forth from that is the handing down of the core of Christianity

from one generation to another, unchanged. And so in discipleship, I could go into Scripture, and I need to. I need to read the Scripture as a new believer like crazy. I need to eat it. I need to consume it. But I also need to do that in the context of people who've already tread this path, and it's going to help direct me. When I became a new Christian at the University of Texas, people were kind of amazed, like when I went home to my mom and her church, how fast I had grown in a matter of two years. But it wasn't because there was anything special about me. When I became a Christian, there was a core group of about six or seven guys who had been Christians much longer, who just literally suffocated me. They took me in and they discipled me. And because of that, I grew. Now, you mentioned some of those friends that had come alongside you in regards to discipleship. So would you say that there's both a friend element of sharpening and challenging and pushing towards

the Lord on a pure level, but then also this need to have someone older than you in your life? Yes, absolutely. One of the things that's wrong today is when we segregate churches. And even in a church that has older people and younger people, we don't see them crossing the aisle and coming together. I had those young men who were a few years older than me that were discipling me, but there was also a man by the name of Brother Pittman who was around, well, everybody seemed old when I was young, but I would say he was close to 80 years old. And he would talk to me. He would seek me out at church. And he would hand me different books, going over to other people's houses who weren't 20 or 30, but were 60 and 70, and sitting down and talking to them about the faith.

It's very, very important. Another thing that's important is this. You and I, there's an age gap between us. And there's a real sense in which we were raised in different worlds. You need my world, but I also need yours. And so when we talk about there's a relationship of discipleship between the old and the young, or the more mature and the less mature. It's not just that this young person needs this person, but this person also needs this person. It's mutual. It'll always be mutual. You know, when, let me give an example. You know, when Jesus looks at the children and says, you know, let these little ones, these little children come to me. Sometimes what we begin to believe is that that's referring to

brand new Christians and that, you know, if we're pastors or preachers or whatever, we're in another category now. That's not true. The little children he's talking about is everyone who comes to him. We are all always little children who need him. And so I need the older believer even now. There are men that I call who are in their 80s and 90s, and I'm 60. There are older men than me that I will call, but there are also younger men than me that I will call. We need each other. And so let's hypothetically, I'm a younger man or a younger woman, and I'm recognizing the need to have someone older in my life. What's the best way to go about this in a church setting? Would you just approach someone and say, hey, would you disciple me? And what would that even look like? I think first of all, and you know, but I wanna bring this up, it's prayer.

God sends someone into my life. Then I would recommend talking to those people who are already recognized as spiritual authorities, because I might see someone in the congregation that appears to me as a young man to be very spiritual when in fact they're not. So I would go to the elders and I would say, you know, I really want to be mentored. I know our church, maybe I can't be

mentored by an elder, but is there a list of men that you would suggest that I could put myself under? Yeah. And then lastly, Paul, you've touched on this already. What do even you or what would I rob myself of by not having these relationships in my life? Your growth is just going to slow down. And also you're gonna commit a lot of errors that aren't necessary. You know, when I teach, like sometimes, just recently a father brought his son over to my house

and said, you know, my son wants to learn how to shoot a longbow. So that young boy could have gone out into a field or the woods and started shooting a bow. And he would never have become a very good archer. Bring him to me, and I'm going to teach him all kinds of things that he needs to do he doesn't have to relearn it I'm gonna teach him about his eyes where his feet should be how his shoulders should be and so instead of him reinventing the wheel

yeah and probably making a wheel that's somewhat square. He comes to me, and in one day, in a matter of an hour and a half, I could set him on a path that made him a lot better archer. Yeah, it's the same thing with discipleship. That's very helpful. Thank you, Paul, for your time.