The Gospel of Matthew: A Primer for Discipleship

by Phil Lineberger, Julie Wood, Ronny Marriott

A “primer” is an elementary textbook. While the Gospel of Matthew may not seem elementary, the early church recognized its usefulness as a basic instruction book on what being a follower of Jesus means. A major purpose of the Gospel of Matthew is instruction for discipleship.Can there be any doubt that today’s church needs a book like this and needs to give attention—elementary attention, even—to discipleship? The word “Christian” is bandied about so loosely and applied to so many entities and actions, with some of them having a questionable connection with Jesus if any at all. Too, many people call themselves “Christians,” with little apparent attention to what the word means. So don’t we need to return to the New Testament to discover what exactly being “Christian” means? Being Christian is about being a disciple of Jesus, not merely about getting saved, as important as that is. The intent of this study is not that you learn that you ought to live as Jesus’ disciple, or that it would be good if you were to live as Jesus’ disciple, or that you should be ashamed if you don’t live as Jesus’ disciple. Rather, the intent is that you learn to actually live as Jesus’ disciple. An additional intent is that you participate with your church in focusing on actually doing what Jesus commanded us to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19).

154 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 18, 2011