Shawn Anderson is a fellow Mission Alive church planter in Newberg, Oregon. Earlier this year I had the pleasure of hearing him talk about a book he wrote recently about discipleship called Living Dangerously.
He referenced an ancient story recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus that brought discipleship to life for me in a new way. The following is an excerpt from Living Dangerously that shares the story of Anacharsis (see also Herodotus, The Histories 4.77):
A disciple is someone who emulates the behavior and actions of someone else until she actually becomes a different person. In the sixth century BC, there lived a Scythian philosopher named Anacharsis. Although the Scythians hated the Greeks, Anacharsis fell in love with Greek life. He traveled to Greece and immersed himself in Greek culture—he learned the language, he wore Greek clothing, he ate Greek food, he worshipped Greek gods, and he decorated his palace with Greek art. He became so consumed with the culture that Anacharsis was sometimes mistaken for a Greek. When Anacharsis returned home, his countrymen told him that he was not only like a Greek, but had actually become a Greek—and they killed him.
Shawn goes on to make a fascinating observation about this story:
It is significant to note the word choice that Herodotus used in his account. The Greek text literally says that Anacharsis had become “a disciple of Greek.” The word for disciple [mathetes] used by the historian is the same word, in noun form, that Jesus used centuries later when he said, “make disciples.”
This provides a wonderful picture of discipleship!
- To be a disciple is to look like the one we’re following after – to be so similar that we are mistaken as the other. Disciples of Jesus think, speak and act like Jesus.
- Like Anacharsis, all of us need someone to imitate to know how to follow Jesus. It simply will not do to say we are imitating Jesus because Jesus isn’t around in the flesh any longer. We need to be mentored by and imitate a living, breathing person who thinks, speaks and acts like Jesus (because they did the same with someone else, who did the same with someone else, and so on).
- Jesus’ call those of us who are disciples to make more disciples. This story shows us that we can’t disciple people with a class or information alone. In order to make disciples we need to live lives that are worthy of being imitated by others. Paul said: “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Are our lives worthy of imitation because we think, speak and act like Jesus?
- I like what Jeff Saferite says to those he invites to walk with him in discipleship: “I want you to have access to my life. Imitate what you see in me that looks like Jesus. Bring to my attention the stuff that doesn’t.”
What insights do you gain regarding discipleship from this ancient story about Anacharsis?