Disciple to Faithਨਮੂਨਾ

Exposure to Truth

A crucial element of discipling someone to faith is exposure to truth. The first story Jesus told – the parable of the sower – deals with this exact issue, the soil representing our hearts and the seed representing God’s Word.

As Christians, sometimes we’re the sower (planting the seeds of God’s Word in the lives of others) and sometimes we’re the soil (receiving God’s Word from others). When you embark on discipling someone to faith, start with a fairly low-stakes, casual request to read the Bible with them. When you’ve invited someone to read the Bible with you and they’ve agreed, you’re the sower. Exposing someone to God’s truth is as simple as ABC: Ask each other what you’ve done with what you learned the last time you met; read ten to fifteen verses of the Bible together; and then set an appropriately calibrated Challenge, figuring out together what to do with what you’ve read by asking, ‘What can we do?’ and ‘Who can we tell?’

Part B (of ABC) includes sitting quietly with a passage of scripture and noticing what stands out. This is particularly important because it empowers the person you’re discipling to discover God’s Word for themselves. Keep it light and avoid speaking Christianese. Simply say, ‘What stood out to you from what you read?’ instead of saying, ‘What’s God saying to you through this passage?’ While you’re both silently considering the verses, pray for your friend. Ask the Holy Spirit to soften the soil of their heart and to speak to them. When discussing what stood out to you from the passage, be careful not to go into teaching mode (God will likely use your teaching gift in a collective environment, and this isn’t the time to show off your extensive Bible knowledge). Stay in discovery mode with your friend.

A pushback on this Bible-reading method is that it’s risky to let untrained people open the Bible together and decide what it means. But meditating on God’s living, active Word, with the Holy Spirit’s help, isn’t classically the birthplace of heresy. Also, the person you’re discipling is on a journey (just like you are). Little by little, week by week, Jesus will win their heart and begin to steer their course more and more towards the infallible truth of His Word.

When you disciple someone by helping to expose them to truth, you may well be astonished at what they hear from God – because His Word is alive, and the Holy Spirit is actively at work! Gold discovered is far more precious than gold given. If a person sees for themselves something in the Word and what they can do with it, that revelation can be life-changing. Let’s pray that those investigating the claims of Christianity will see how simple it is to discover the Bible – so much so that they will be encouraged to help others discover it too.