One question can be raised, “How did Jesus make disciples?” The answer can be put very simply.
Jesus made disciples by choosing those He wanted to make into disciples and giving all of Himself to them. He lived almost all of His life in their presence, allowing them to see directly from His life how He lived and how He served the Father, the disciples, and those who were in the world. The making of disciples according to the Lord Jesus is living Kingdom life on earth in the presence of those who are being made into disciples.
So Jesus gave all of Himself to these people. He lived His life in their very presence. They saw Him live. They saw Him relate to others. They saw the nine points manifested in His life. They saw His attitude to the world. They saw His attitude to sinners. They heard Him pray. They saw Him relate to those in authority. They saw Him heal the sick and cast out demons. They saw Him perform other miracles. They saw His attitude to the Pharisees and the publicans and harlots. They saw His approach to children. They saw His attitude to suffering and death. They saw Him when He was tired, weary and lonely. He hid nothing from them. He was transparent. What He was inside and what He was outside were one. He only withdrew from them when He wanted to be alone with His Father.
He had everything in common with them. His money was their money. (They had common funds.) Apart from His clothes, there was nothing that He had that was not theirs. They went with Him everywhere – to weddings, funerals, parties, etc.
By giving all of Himself to them in this way, He made them into His disciples. They became like Him and did things the way He did them. His example, by life, had moulded them. Later on, the rulers and scribes confronted these people. The Bible says,
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“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
Yes, these men had been with Jesus and, therefore, they were as bold as Jesus and produced the type of results that Jesus produced.
He gave Himself away to them and became their Servant. He healed their relatives. He calmed storms that threatened them. He washed their feet. He made breakfast for them and, when they backslid, He went looking for them.
The extent to which He made people into His disciples depended upon how much time He spent with them. The three saw more and entered into a greater experience than the twelve. They, therefore, received more training. The twelve had more training than the seventy-two, since they spent more time in His presence than the seventy-two did. This, however, does not mean that the twelve loved Him more than the seventy-two did. Training for ministry was not on the basis of how much love the person had for Him. We know for certain that the women disciples manifested very deep love for Him.
