NSCF 8(a): The Call of Apprenticeship

call, originally uploaded by mincaye.

Dallas Willard's chapter, "On being a disciple, or student, of Jesus" in his book 'The Divine Conspiracy' is simply amazing. In this entry I shall quote extensively from it.


Matthew 13:44-46 (parables of the field and the pearl) characterises the inherent 'condition of soul' (in Willard's words) in one who chooses to be Christ's apprentice, and I think this is a good starting point for any discussion on the subject.

Willard writes:

"[There is a] sense of the goodness to be achieved by that choice, of the opportunity that may be missed, the love for the value discovered, the excitement and joy over it all..."


Many are familiar with the acronym 'WWJD'--What Would Jesus Do? But I am convinced that the question should be 'HWJD' instead--How Would Jesus Do? If we are Christ's apprentices, then Willard's words again ring true:

"I am not necessarily learning to do everything [Jesus] did, but I am learning how to do everything I do in the manner that he did all that he did... [Whatever our vocation], it is work that should be done, and it should be done as Jesus himself would do it."

This implies also another acronym, 'WIJD'--What Is Jesus Doing? (I first came across this in a quote on the back cover of Brian McLaren's 'A New Kind of Christian').

Indeed he is at work, fulfilling the divine conspiracy of subverting evil with good, and darkness with light. As apprentices, we must join him in this.


What, then, are the practical implications of such a lofty call?

Brother Lawrence, the famous monastery cook who wrote 'The Practice of the Presence of God,' put it thus:

"Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God's sake which we commonly do for our own... We are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in time of action as by prayer in the season of prayer."

Hence I find that my calling is to my immediate working environment: my classroom and my editorial board. These are my ministries, and I am called to be a student and an editor unto God, not doing what he did (for Jesus was a carpenter), but doing what I do in his way.

Also, we each experience God differently. Matthew 13:52 says;

"When, therefore, a scribe becomes a disciple to the kingdom of the heavens, he is like a householder who can produce from his store things old and new."

We are certainly not all scribes, but we must teach and build one another up from the storehouse of our experiences with God in the day to day events of real life. His presence made manifest in the seemingly mundane drudgery of each day is truly the kingdom of God working in secret--working a conspiracy.

It is also a call to live joyfully. Willard, again, puts it succinctly;

"It is his joy... a robust joy, with no small element of outright hilarity in it. For nothing less than joy can sustain us in the kingdom rightness that possesses us, which truly is a weighty and powerful thing to bear. It was not for nothing that Mother Teresa of Calcutta required her sisters of charity to be people who smile."

Nowhere have I experienced this more clearly than within the great community called the d'Nous Academy. It was a camp that was supposed to be the most 'serious' of all the SU/FES camps, but indeed turned out to be a storehouse of hilarity and laughter.

But in an incredible irony, it is true that only laughter of the most robust sort can bear the great burden of the kingdom of God. As C.S. Lewis once said, there are some weights so heavy, only weakness can bear them.

This reminds me of what Ernest Hemingway wrote in 'A Farewell to Arms,' quoted in Jars of Clay's album 'Who We are Instead';

"The world breaks every one, and afterward many are strong at the broken places."

Only God can hide treasures in jars of clay, only he can imbue the ordinary with his glory. And, as many a Christian writer has come to understand, it is precisely this divine irony--expressed most clearly in the Sermon on the Mount--that confounds the forces of evil.


However, there is a cost. Above all, it is to make a clear decision to follow Christ, as Willard writes, quoting William Law's 'A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life';

"And if you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it."

That is why Jesus can only go as far as to say, "Count the cost, and follow me." The final choice rests in our hands.

Steven Curtis Chapman's song 'God Follower' (here quoted in part) expresses the heart of one who desires to be an apprentice to Christ;

...A blinding flash of light falls down into the darkness
Slowly I notice strange new markings on the trail
The crimson drops are calling out to me come and follow
"I am the God who made you, let Me show you how to live"
And I cry...

I want to be a God follower
I want to go wherever He leads
I want to be a God follower
I want to walk the trail He's marked for me
And be a God follower
(More than anything)

And now I journey on with purpose and with passion
Just like a dead man who's been given breath again
And though this path can still grow dark with tears and sorrow
I know He will never leave me...


At the end of it all, we would be wise to consider also the 'cost of nondiscipleship.' Cheap grace, or 'costly faithlessness' as Willard puts it, is the prevailing Christian notion that one does not have to be an apprentice of Jesus to enter heaven.

Willard poses a great question, which I paraphrase: "Can you stand heaven?" It is taught that once we 'accept Christ,' our names are written in his Book of Life. It may well be so, but it says nothing of what our experience in heaven will be like.

In a scathingly honest and real statement, Willard ponders;

"I often wonder how happy and useful some of the fearful, bitter, lust-ridden, hate-filled Christians I have seen involved in church or family or neighbourhood or political battles would be if they were forced to live forever in the unrestrained fullness of the reality of God... and with multitudes of beings really like him."

If we do not strive towards God's standards of righteousness and goodness here in our limited time on earth, how can we expect to live forever in a world permeated by that same righteousness, then fully realised?

And so, let us 'berhenti' (see picture above) and consider carefully the call of apprenticeship. It is simple enough, and yet it is heavy. Christ's teachings are our guide to righteousness, and they can be easily located in the Bible.

The question that remains, however, is whether we will devote our lives to cultivate such fruit. When we count the cost and find the divine conspiracy of subverting evil with goodness, more appealing than any earthly reward, we are able to make the decision to leave everything and follow Jesus.


Something I read in the Star paper yesterday offered a contrast between the kingdom of the earth and the kingdom of the heavens: an Australian convicted of possessing drugs in Singapore is about to be hanged.

The report went on to note that Singapore has one of the heaviest drug penalties in the world, and that Australia is threatening to give Singapore the cold shoulder in diplomatic relations.

I think all this just goes to show how low our level of righteousness is: we are executing people for offences like drugs, rape, murder, terrorism and even littering.

Now I condone none of the above, but if Jesus would have his way, indeed those who even say 'You fool!' would be thrown into hell, the eyes of those who look lustfully at a woman would be gouged out, many would lose the limbs that cause them to sin, and many an 'other cheek' would be hurting from sacrificial love.

It should be noted that while Singapore would execute anyone above the age of 18 found possessing 15 grams of heroine, men's magazines with scantily-clad women on their covers are on display in virtually every news-stand in the island republic.

And this is the challenge of apprenticeship to Jesus: non-cooperation with the forces of evil prevalent in this world. We must look beyond the surface 'evils' of this world, and into the heart of the matter--the hearts of people everywhere.

If we were judged by the Ten Commandments alone, more would be executed than in the entire history of the laws of all civilisations from the dawn of time until now.