The Disciples: Only Two Foundations

There are two things that Jesus teaches heavily: humility and obedience.

The disciples weren't learned or important in any way on their own. Everyone knows this and has heard this a million times.

What we don't think about is how we value people today. We naturally place higher value on the seminary graduate than on the missions-man. Why? Because he is more educated.
This doesn't sound like the way Jesus would have decided.

Jesus didn't teach his disciples how to teach or how to pastor or how to evangelize. He didn't hold classes called "Evangelism 101" and he didn't write books on it. He lived it and the disciples absorbed it by proxy.

Jesus pastoring:
He took care of a small group 12, and invested even more into a smaller group.

Jesus evangelizing:
He spent time with some individuals, he spoke to the masses, he taught his followers (by example) how to do the same.

The thing that makes Jesus an amazing teacher is that he fully believed what he taught and invested himself to those things because he believed. He came to save and seek that which was lost, and every ounce of his energy was spent in doing that.

Why humility and obedience?
Because these are the ONLY things that you need to obtain everything else. If you start humble and obedient, you will quickly learn all that you need to know (just as the disciples did). They didn't even understand why they were doing what they were doing. But they were obedient and trusted Jesus. And the result is that they did the right thing and came to understand in the process.

So, before I start getting ready to be a pastor and evangelist and start doing thing after thing, I'm gonna focus on this (in this order):
1. get humble
2. get obedient
3. start truly believing everything I say I do

Why that order?
Because that's how the disciples did it. They were approached by God and they thought 'this might be the Messiah'. Then they were humbled because the possibility of the Messiah coming up to an average joe was crazy. From this humility, they were able to be completely obedient. They didn't think that their own methods were superior to Jesus', so they had no problem obeying. And, with this foundation, they came to believe. They would do things without understanding, and then they would see how well it turned out. And they could start to TRULY believe that Jesus is to be trusted. That kind of pattern kept occurring over and over and they eventually believed that Jesus was the Messiah and the Spirit empowered them and God was the cause of everything that happened through their hands.

They became the greatest fathers of the faith. If I follow their example, I'm sure to turn out alright.

thoughts and words inspired from:
The Master Plan of Evangelism (abridged) by Robert Coleman