The Greek New Testament word for Disciple is “Mathetes”.
Mathetes = Disciple
Note the “stem word”: “MATH
Mathematics requires that we use our brains, that we study, if we are going to master the subject. The word DISCIPLE does not mean “Moron follower”, “Convert” or “Sheeple idiot”. Most Christian denominations have taken Jesus’ instruction to “make disciples” to mean “MAKE CONVERTS”. That interpretation is almost universal. BUT IT IS WRONG !
Disciples are meant to be Disciplined Students.
The Mathematics and the Numbers are meant to be part of the study. This is why the New Testament mkes a point of how many Large Baskets (7) and how many Small Baskets(12) were collected after Jesus fed the crowds. The Numbers MATTER – that is why they are included in the Gospel accounts.
Disciples are meant to have enough intelligence, and to have done enough Bible study to know that the “Sinner’s Prayer is NOT in the Bible.
Yet our TV channnels and Christian Television networks are over-run with morons who cannot even see that !
This is straight out “Mind Control”, Traditions of Men being preached “as Gospel”, parrots spouting and repeating what the Marketing Experts have told them will “work”. They play the music at the right pitch to get people to part with their money and with enough common sense to see the obvious.
The “programming” was designed by career marketing people. They set out to “sell religion”. Their “programming” passed into the churches, into the Bible Colleges and so into the modern “Born Again movement”.
The traditional denominations did it differently, but are little better. For instance, the world’s Catholic population has paid for the real estate and the buildings. The people paid for it all, NOT THE CLERGY. But who has claimed ownership of the money, the buildings and the land. And who became so arrogant with their power and wealth that they think they have ownership and the right to molest and torture the children?
Protestant mainstream denominations are often smug about how they “returned” to the truth, escaped from the control of an over-bearing Vatican.
But the reality was different.
The Reformation and the Counter Reformation were BOTH intelligence operations run by Venetian Intelligence. All that killing and murdering “in the name of God” was just a distraction, run out of Venice. It kept Europe occupied, with Europeans hating, torturing and killing each other for over 150 years. It is still going on in Northern Ireland.
While people were busy murdering each other in the name of God, Venetian business interests moved into, invested into and married into London, Amsterdam and Stockholm. We got Shakespeare and Othello, Shylock and the whole “gang” from Venice out of that.
We got the “St James Bible” (yes, some people have actually called it that !) out of the Venetian takeover.
It was all about money, business and control.
It was not about spreading the “inerrant word of God”.
So people were encouraged to become converts, mindless converts, who were willing to persecute others. So what is the “sign” of the modern born again Christian movement?. Is it that they “love one another like Jesus said”?
No. Their trademark is that they are judgemental, and that they will turn on each other on any pretext !
A genuine Disciple is not out trying to condemn everyone else, or trying to score points off other religions. He or she, should be too busy for that BECAUSE HE OR SHE SHOULD BE STUDYING, rather than trying to hurt people who don’t act or think like them.