Bill's Bible Blog

Previously we looked at how much time the disciples spent with Jesus and what kinds of things they did as disciples. Simplifying a little bit to keep the math simple, we can say they spent about 100 hours a week with Him.

Let’s look at how much time per week we spend as disciples. Most of us go to an hour and a half church service where we worship, we are taught, we even fellowship a little with others.

If you have multiple service, like my church @summitchurch.com, they ask us to also serve at another service, that’s another 1 1/2 hours.

Then we have home group or small group, whatever your church calls it, for another 1 1/2 hours where we fellowship, talk about what we learned from the sermon and pray for each other.

If you’re a dedicated disciple or otherwise have the time, you’re also attending a men’s or women’s Bible study or discipleship group for a deeper time of study and discussion for another 1 1/2 hours per week.

And then you’re spending daily time in personal devotion, Bible study and prayer. Maybe you can spend more time than this, but I’m going to call it 30 minutes per day with maybe a day missed for a total of 3 hours per week.

Then there is a special ‘Serve Saturday’ every month for about 4 hours, which we’ll amortize to 1 hour per week and what do we get? About 10 hours per week being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Do the math, 100 vs. 10 hours per week, times 3 1/2 years, and we’re talking about 35 years of discipleship before we’re ready to take on the Great Commission.

BUT wait, there’s something wrong with this picture. The @navigators.org regularly grows disciples from conversion to Commission in a third of that time. So does our church via @summitrduinstitute.com. In science, if a model doesn’t explain the facts, then the model is at fault.

In a recent sermon, our pastor @jdgreear.com told a story of how an engineer in the 30’s looked at how a bumblebee can fly. Based on the fixed-winged aerodynamics known at that time, he concluded that a bumblebee could NOT fly because the lift capable of being generated by its wing size would not be enough to lift its body weight. Yet, they can fly, even if in their own bumbling way.

Aerodynamics has advanced enough since then they can now explain how a bumblebee flies. So, what is the missing element from my model that explains why it takes only a third as long long as we might think before a Christian is ready to fulfill the Great Commission?