• [COGNITIVE] What should a disciple know?
• [AFFECTIVE] What feelings, attitudes, values, lifestyle commitments should a disciple have?
• [BEHAVIORAL] What skills should a disciple have?
This post will consider only the first question, “What should a disciple know?” (I will address the other questions in the next two posts.) I invite your contributions – please add your thoughts to this list!
A disciple should know:
1. The content of the Bible
2. The names, in order, of the books of the Bible
3. How the Bible came to be
4. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit
5. The story of God
6. Basic Christian doctrine
7. The church
8. The kingdom of God
9. Christian history and its influence in the world
10. How to pray
11. Disciplines for a growing relationship with God
12. How to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit
13. How to share the Gospel in a loving, knowledgeable way
14. The basic beliefs of cults and other religions
15. The interaction between faith and culture
16. Their own spiritual gifts
17. The beliefs, practices, and polity of their own church
18. What else?
19.
18. Current world events
ReplyDelete19. World history
Yep! Thanks!
DeleteThis is an extensive and exhaustive list. The list challenges me to refresh myself to not only know myself but to be able to explain/teach to others. A great reminder for those of us who are Christian leaders affecting change in our world.
ReplyDeleteThey would also need to know the characteristics of God. One characteristic of God is love. Therefore to those who say wrath is also His characteristic, this is contrary to love therefore wrath is His reaction to sin not a characteristic.
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ReplyDeleteI would perhaps add critical thinking/reading skills to the list. It is good for a disciple to know all of these things on the list. I notice though that certain items have made the list like, 6. Basic church doctrine, 9. Christian history and influence in the world, 15. The interaction between faith and culture in this world, 17. The beliefs, practices and polity of their own church, and has been suggested 18. Current world events, and 19. World history. Again these things are good to know, but to really understand these things and learn from them and decide how we will practice our faith we must know how to think critically and independently about them. Of course in making such decisions numbers 10 and 12 are pretty important. Like the list :)
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That list is a good start, and it would take a lifetime to really "know" all of those things. I do agree with David Aukerman above that current events and world history would be good additions. I might also add, "his/her neighbor," but that's not really knowledge.
ReplyDeletei add my voice to the resounding idea that this is a large, yet good list. I agree with Thomas that it would take a lifetime (or perhaps an extended length of time) to ever fully "know" all of these things. However, the only one I take slight issue with is knowing the names of each of the books of the bible and their order. I agree, it is imperative that you know each book of the bible by name, but I would likely suggest that one more focuses on if the book belongs to the old or new testament and it's genre. My two additions to the list would be knowledge of God's character and a concept of how the Church should or could effectively interact with and engage the world today.
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