Warning, stop watching my videos...

I've got two quick things to share with you today. First, I'm heading out of town for a summit gig first thing in the morning, so I won't be able to post another Debate Teacher Reacts video this week, but stay tuned because I'm going to hit the ground running when I return, and that will be next week.

So what that means is today I want to say this to you with all sincerity, alright? If you have been coming to my channel and watching the videos, and hopefully getting blessed by some of the things that I've been talking about, well then first and foremost I want to say thank you so much for watching, for coming back and interacting with me.

The Goal of Christian Media Is Spiritual Formation

I hope that you understand my role is to help you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be.

Amen?

If you like that, you can hit the like button on that, okay? Because I'll say it one more time, I'm here to help you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be. Jesus Christ calls all of His disciples to be certain kinds of individuals in this world, and certainly an aspect of that is we need to be good critical thinkers.

Jesus said in John 10 16 that we need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Why?

Well because He sends us out as sheep in the midst of wolves. And let's face it, if you've been paying attention to what's going on right now, it's not getting any easier to be a Christian in today's kind of culture.

This is why I've announced that very soon I will open up the membership feature on my YouTube channel, and I'll start creating videos specifically designed to help you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be.

That means as a member you'll get access to lots more videos where I'll talk about the most popular thing on this channel right now, which is debate. I'll talk about debate best practices, debate theory, but I'll go beyond that.

I'll talk about effective methods to talk about your faith with others. I'll show you how to read the Bible effectively and for application to your life. I'll show you how to disciple others into a strong faith.

I'll include exclusive interviews like the ones I've done in the past with apologists and theologians and maybe even some other Christian influencers, and I'll spend some time with you doing live Q &As where I'll directly answer your questions, and we'll chat about what you want to chat about.

Why am I doing this? Well, because if this is who you are, you're a Christian desiring to be a more effective thinker, speaker, and leader in today's kind of culture, then I'm here for you. That's why I'm on YouTube.

The Danger of Treating Christian Content as Mere Information

But I've said all of that, but here's the warning. There is a danger in just watching the videos that I make, and not just me, but folks like me, folks putting great content out there right now. You can fill in the blanks on who these people are, but there's a lot of great content coming out on the Christian side, whether it's just theology, apologetics, or whatever it is.

There is a danger, and the danger can be avoided by understanding something that Jesus said in Luke 6, verse 40. So I'm going to spend just a couple minutes with you doing what I think the creators of YouTube wants us to do, which is read the Bible.

In Luke 6, Jesus is ministering to the multitudes. He's preaching to his disciples, and he makes a statement that I don't think a lot of us pay close attention to, but we absolutely need to pay attention.

Here's what he said, a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. What does this mean? Well, it means, number one, disciples are not merely learners.

Look at that again, it says, but everyone after he is fully, what, trained, will be like his teacher. Fully trained in the Greek means to be perfected. Jesus wants you to be trained. He doesn't want you to merely learn new information.

I've heard explanations of discipleship in the past, and the way that it's been explained, it's kind of like, you know, discipleship is to be a learner. And sure, yeah, you know, that's true, as far as it goes.

But if we simply say that, we tend to think of learning like in the 21st century sense of the word. And I think this is where things have gone wrong for us. Recently I consulted with a parachurch organization that was creating technology.

They were creating essentially a computer program that was designed to get people to disciple themselves. Think about that. Did you hear what I just said? The technology was going to facilitate the discipleship process through like a series of games, pieces of information to read, videos, all of that stuff.

And I gave pushback on that because I think that the fundamental assumption that created the program was that really discipleship hinges on information. That's not true. As a matter of fact, we already have tons of information, especially in this country.

I heard someone say once that the average North American Christian is about 3 ,000 Bible verses overweight. Again, that's because a lot of us have bought into this idea that information is all we really need.

You see, our way of learning is more in line with the Greeks, all right? The Greeks loved knowledge. And a great picture that kind of captures this sense of their love of knowledge is actually found in the book of Acts when Paul goes to Athens.

Acts chapter 17, it kind of describes this idea of what the Athenians were like and it says, you know, all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there, they used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.

I think today we would call these people information junkies. And I think a lot of us have become like that today. You know, we've adopted the Greeks' philosophy of learning and we've let it shape our understanding of Christianity.

Many of us think if we can just learn new pieces of information, we can become a better.

Christian.

And so we read the Bible and we learn about that and then we listen to some good sermons and we learn about that and we download podcasts or we watch YouTube videos and we learn more things about all of that and we keep receiving more information and more information to the point that all we're doing is learning.

This is wrong, ladies and gentlemen. A lot of discipleship just aims at information, but biblical discipleship aims at imitation. There was a book written a while back called Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down.

In it, the author says that television has habituated its watchers to a low information-action ratio, that people are accustomed to learning good ideas, even from sermons, and then doing nothing about them.

I think this reveals one of the issues with modern Christianity. We know an awful lot about a lot of different things. We have knowledge at our fingertips. The internet is an open door to tons of information.

I would argue it's an oversaturation of information. The difference is, we don't obey what we know. Robbie Gallaty says it like this, we have educated ourselves beyond our obedience. Alright, so here's my warning to you, okay, you ready?

Don't accept the things you see on this channel. Don't receive it as if it's just mere information. It's not mere information. That's not my heart in making these videos. What I'm giving you, and I hope you see this, is really an opportunity to imitate your teacher, Jesus Christ.

That's what's behind every video I make for you. I'm in the business of training, okay? If you're a Christian, that should be how you take in information from other Christians who are helping you, right?

Because the goal, the whole ballgame, is to be equipped. You need to be equipped. You need to be trained. But guess what? That means if you're training, right, everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher, then what is the end result of that?

Well, that's transformation. You will be transformed. In other words, God does not desire that we remain the same, or that we even approach discipleship as some tool that we can use to fit into our lifestyle.

The training that we are to do must transform us so that we are like Jesus. In every day-to-day activity, in all things, we must act like Jesus. We must be bold like Jesus, and we must obey what he said.

Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. That's John 14. The disciples' experience in the first century trades on the combination of training and imitation, and that should be you today.

Ironically, there are a number of jobs that follow the biblical model of discipleship, and I'm a product of that, okay? I was a public high school teacher before I jumped into ministry, and guess what?

I had to complete my training in grad school to become a teacher by doing what's called an internship. But what's funny is the process to become a teacher follows the discipleship method that we find in the Bible.

So in other words, I had to go to a real classroom. I had to submit myself to what they called a master teacher. The master teacher would teach, and then I would kind of watch and take notes, and then after that, the master teacher would split duties with me.

They would teach part of the time, and then I would assist them. And then finally, the master teacher would sit back and then let me teach while they.

Watched.

And if I proved myself to be capable of teaching and handling a class to the master teacher's criteria, then it was understood that I could go off and start teaching my own classes. So this is more akin to another word that we use often in this society.

It's called apprenticeship. And that's what discipleship is. It's not a class where you can, you know, learn a few things for a couple of weeks and then it's over with. It's a working relationship between teacher and student that is lived out, even acted out consistently.

I hope this is kind of sinking in for you and you see what I'm trying to say here. You know, our goal as Christians is to be like our teacher, to be like Jesus Christ, to imitate Him. And if you understand that and it starts to sink in for you, then you begin to see this concept taught everywhere in the New Testament.

Imitation of Christ and the Pattern of Discipleship

First Corinthians 4 .16 says, I urge you then be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord. Here it is, to remind you of my ways in Christ. The Corinthians were supposed to look at Timothy, who was imitating Paul, who was imitating.

Jesus.

All right.

So you see that, right? Imitation leads to imitation, which leads to imitation. And at the end of the day, everyone is imitating Christ. First Corinthians 11 .1 says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

Ephesians 5 .1, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And then Romans 8 .29, this is the ticket to the whole ballgame here. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

So here's the beautiful promise for you. If you believe in Jesus, if you are seeking God with all your heart, if you are obeying what God tells you to do, and discipleship is part of that process, well then guess what?

The promise is that God will change you from the inside out. That is a sweet promise that you can trust time and time again. And that's ultimately what you should be looking for. That's what you should be thinking about and applying when you watch these videos.

Now I'm saying this today so that we understand each other. I would love to help you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be, and so I encourage you to join me when I open up the membership feature and jump into the members.

Community.

And that's going to happen very soon. But that requires you that you understand this, okay? I'm going to say it one more time. Your response to these videos that I'm making is to receive the information I'm providing so that you can imitate Christ and be transformed into his likeness through the process.

That's a lot deeper of a response than just watching the video, liking the video, and then doing nothing about it. So be encouraged, friends. This is exactly what the Bible says that you are supposed to be doing anyway, and I'm excited to walk alongside you and help you on your journey.

Stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen. I will be back soon with more videos, but in the meantime, I will say, bye for now.