Discipleship: A New Movement? -- By: Rick C. Shrader

Journal: Central Bible Quarterly
Volume: CENQ 22:2 (Summer 1979)
Article: Discipleship: A New Movement?
Author: Rick C. Shrader


Discipleship: A New Movement?

Rick C. Shrader, Ph.D.

San Dimas, California

[Dr. Shrader is an alumnus of Central Seminary. The following article was prepared for his students at the Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College and is printed with permission.]

Introduction

It was the German rationalist, Hegel, who observed that history always has its thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The thesis was never difficult to recognize and neither was the antithesis. But we, as God’s people (being the sheep we are and seldom taking “the long look”) have always had difficulty recognizing the synthesis: that mixture of truth and error. Retrospect is always clearer. Today it is easy (or should be easy) to look at the twentieth century and see historic Fundamentalism as the thesis of Christian heritage and modern Liberalism as the antithesis, opposing Fundamentalism in every way. Now, three quarters of the way through this century, it is easy to see the New Evangelicalism as the foggy synthesis, trying to bridge the gap between its contemporaries, attempting to unite the two in fellowship no matter what the cost.

There have been many movements in the past decades that have been synthetic in nature. Many have not. There have always been those prophets who warned us of the nature of movements in their infancy. Such great men have saved many of us from certain peril and we say “thank God!” Sometimes warning is sounded but ultimately unnecessarily. Again, we say “thank God!” We would rather be warned, even if there are no perilous snags, than not be warned and be left to live by sight and not faith.

The present evaluation finds itself in such circumstances. The author is not writing because of his qualifications but because of the necessity of the situation. This article has been postponed, praying for an Elijah to sound a note of warning. The following is written to inform students of a movement that is going to be prominent in the next few years and is already growing rapidly throughout the country.

A doctrine that is dear to every born again child of God is that of discipleship. No one has ever truly been saved without first counting the cost, evaluating the loss, and taking up the cross. Discipleship is dear because it denotes the sacrificial element of our salvation: the hating of the world, the bearing of the cross, and the forsaking of self (Luke 14:26–33). There is, perhaps, more literature being printed today on the subject of discipleship than any other Bible doctrine. As the flood of this material covers the bookstands, the apprehension is that what is called “discipleship” is...

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