Paul’s discipleship model challenges modern church trends by prioritizing intimate, time-intensive mentoring over scalable programs. His approach with Timothy involved shared journeys, personal teaching, and ongoing formation through letters addressing doctrine and leadership. Paul urged believers to imitate him as their spiritual father, mirroring Jesus’ investment in the Twelve. This relational blueprint contrasts with contemporary structures focused on managing crowds efficiently rather than forming mature ministers through life-on-life engagement. The biblical pattern reveals how personal investment creates sustainable leadership reproduction that programmatic approaches often miss.
How should churches approach the task of making disciples in an age dominated by large-scale programs and digital connectivity? The apostle Paul’s method, as outlined in Acts and his epistles, offers a framework that stands in notable contrast to many contemporary approaches. His practice centered on personal investment rather than programmatic efficiency, a distinction that carries implications for modern ministry. Scholarly debates such as the contextualist reading influence how passages are applied today.
In Acts 14:21, Paul’s sequence appears straightforward: he preached the gospel in a city, made many disciples, then returned to strengthen their souls. The Great Commission itself positions “make disciples” as the main verb, with going, baptizing, and teaching functioning as supporting actions. This structure suggests discipleship is the core objective, not merely one ministry activity among many. Paul recognized new believers as spiritual infants requiring intentional nurturing, not simply converts to be counted and left to grow independently.
The Paul-Timothy relationship demonstrates this investment concretely. Paul birthed Timothy spiritually through the gospel, then spent years training him through shared journeys starting from Lystra. He laid hands on Timothy, confirmed prophecies over him, taught doctrine directly, and warned against moral failure. Later, physical distance did not end the relationship. Paul’s letters to Timothy provided ongoing formation, addressing church governance, sound doctrine, and leadership challenges with specific instructions on worship and handling false teachers.
This pattern emphasized imitation and modeling. Paul urged the Philippians to follow his example and told the Corinthians to imitate him as their spiritual father. His strategy mirrored Jesus’ approach with the Twelve, investing deeply in key individuals who could reproduce what they learned.
He described his care for the Thessalonians using metaphors of a nursing mother’s gentleness and a father’s exhortation, combining tenderness with accountability. Paul understood that strengthening believers functioned like military reinforcement after initial conquest, securing spiritual gains through continuous empowerment of new or weak disciples. Jesus had established this very standard through intentional life-on-life discipleship with the Twelve, demonstrating that proximity and intimacy formed the essential conditions for authentic imitation.
The discipleship chain Paul envisioned—from himself to Timothy to faithful men able to teach others—aimed to produce mature ministers and spiritual sons, not isolated believers. Without such intentional succession, Paul suggested, churches risk producing actors rather than authentic ministers.
This relational model, grounded in proximity and sustained through clear objectives, presents a challenge to churches evaluating whether their current structures truly form disciples or simply manage crowds.
