Following Jesus

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As a sign of discipleship, some Christians wear a bracelet that begins with the question “ What would Jesus do? ” (What Would Jesus Do?)

As following Jesus or imitation ( lat. Imitatio ) of Christ or simply as following , Christians refer to a way of life that wants to be guided by Jesus Christ and tries to follow him completely by believing in his teaching and his example. Like the early Christians , they refer to the invitation of Jesus of Nazareth to his first disciples Come and follow me! which motivated her to accompany him on his journey and to contribute to his message. In the history of Christianity , various forms of life have developed that understand themselves as following Jesus Christ.

New Testament

This section essentially deals with this level of New Testament text. For historical attempts to reconstruct the relationship between Jesus and his followers during his lifetime, see the

→ Main article Jesus of Nazareth , especially the sections Relationship with John the Baptist and Followers.

The calling

Jesus called disciples - men and women - to follow him: this is what all the Gospels report as his first public acts. They convey several types of calling stories:

  • the powerful calling out without discussion (Greek akolouthein ) from work, property and family ( Mk 1,16-18  EU ):

“As he was walking along the Sea of ​​Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew , his brother, throwing their nets into the sea; because they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Follow me; I will make you fishers of men! Immediately they left their nets and followed him. "

  • the free decision to follow Jesus, which he first tests for resilience ( Mt 8 : 19-22  EU ):

“A scribe came to him and said: Master, I want to follow you wherever you go. 20 Jesus answered him, The foxes have their dens, and the birds their nests; but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. 21 Another, one of his disciples, said to him, Lord, first let me go home and bury my father. 22 Jesus replied, Follow me; let the dead bury their dead! "

  • the following through the mediation of others who pass on Jesus' special task ( Joh 1,35 ff.  EU ):

“The next day John and two of his disciples stood; and when he saw Jesus going by, he said, Look, this is the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him speak and followed Jesus. "

In all three types Jesus is presupposed as the actual initiator of the discipleship. Above all, the twelve apostles are represented as called in this way and thus at the same time chosen by God without their involvement.

Jewish influences

Following Jesus includes a direct teacher-student relationship that has existed in Judaism since the early prophecy in the Tanakh . Elijah already called Elisha in the middle of his professional work ( 1 Kings 19.19-21  EU ). He also gave up his property, slaughtered his cattle and burned his dishes. Only after the Septuagint was he allowed to say goodbye to his parents. Flavius ​​Josephus (Antiquitates) called the disciples of the prophets of the 1st century "successors" (epesthai) .

Jesus was referred to by his contemporaries as both a prophet and a rabbi . Similar to the Pharisee schools of that time, he worked as a teacher of the Torah . Like her, he taught his followers to keep God's will in everyday life by flexibly interpreting various commandments of the Torah with other commandments and relating them to the situation of his listeners ( Halacha ). At the same time, he also taught through action, especially through healings, which were experienced as miracles of Jesus. Many of the healed also followed him according to the Gospels.

However, Jesus' teaching was not tied to specific fixed locations, but took place en route, often in the open field or by the lake, from a boat, on hills or in houses where he - often to the surprise of the residents - came as a guest, later in the Jerusalemer Temple . His disciples did not change teachers, but, as Christians, remained his disciples throughout their lives. Although he gave them the same authority to preach and heal ( Mk 6.9 ff.  EU ), his teaching remained the standard for interpretation and practice: it can only be obeyed completely or not at all ( Matt 7.26-28  EU ) .

Furthermore, his successor was not reserved for men, but was equally open to women - according to sources apparently from the beginning - ( Mk 1.30 f.  EU ; Lk 8.2 f.  EU ).

Characteristics of the discipleship of Jesus

Those called out of their secure existence to follow Jesus are commissioned to proclaim the kingdom of God , so they fully participate in Jesus' own mission ( Mk 1.16  EU ). The abandonment of all previous ties in favor of the task of preaching the Gospel to the poor with and like Jesus corresponds to the closeness of this kingdom, which demands full commitment to life.

  • In this way, Jesus' disciples receive his gift to heal and cast out the “ demons ”, i.e. those powers that prevent people from being fully human ( Mk 3,14  EU ; Lk 10,9  EU ).
  • They distribute God's blessings like an “aura of end-time salvation”: Wherever they stop, the hosts are already certain of God's future shalom . Wherever they are rejected, they should no longer turn back, but “shake the dust off their feet” and move on, thus leaving the place of God's final judgment ( Mt 10.14 f.  EU ).
  • His disciples must therefore share his homelessness in the unredeemed world - up to and including martyrdom that is not sought, but possible at any time, as a testimony to the impossible closeness of God to those who suffer unjustly ( Mk 8.34 ff.  EU ). This marginal existence is the visible sign of the necessary conflict into which God's future brings the present, in order to reveal its distance from God ( sin ) and lapse into death.
  • This means absolute solidarity with the socially marginalized, who have no access to religious, material and political privileges. According to the situation in Israel at that time, the Gospels emphasize tax collectors , prostitutes , cripples , beggars , lepers , but also Samaritans and some Romans .
  • Whoever accepts this will receive Jesus' promise of a sovereign dignity for the end times ( Mt 19.28  EU ; Lk 22.30  EU ): You will sit on thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel . In the Jewish tradition, this was the task of the Messiah himself, which is here transferred to all successors. These form a kind of “messianic collective” or “vanguard of the kingdom of God”.

Paul of Tarsus also teaches that Christians should orient their faith and actions entirely to Jesus Christ, but uses the term imitation ( μιμέομαι mimeomai , e.g. in 1 Cor 11.1  EU ).

Christianity history

Old church

The call to discipleship is for every Christian. But the associated way of life, the renunciation of a secure existence and an existence as a wandering beggar who feeds on what was to be found on the way, was soon followed by only a minority in the rise of Christianity. Since the ethics of Jesus connected with this wandering existence could not be completely suppressed and reinterpreted in the purely spiritual, the church theology created a two-stage ethic: the commandments of the Sermon on the Mount , which were actually addressed to all disciples and the people around them ( Mt 5 : 1 ff .  EU ), were only valid for the particularly pious, who decided to lifelong asceticism in a secluded community, the monastery and monastic order . For the broad masses, on the other hand, Christianity was made easier through baptism , participation in worship and reception of the sacrament .

According to Edward E. Malone , the differences between the synoptic and Pauline depiction of the discipleship of Jesus in early Christianity gave rise to the various types of disciples of martyrs, hermits and monks . The martyrs oriented themselves more towards the Pauline concept of mimesis and understood succession as a unique and irrevocable act of self-denial and the acceptance of the cross, which ends with the voluntary death of the imitator. He becomes a martyr because he sees the goal of his life in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and in his own martyrdom also the corresponding witness and image of this goal.

Clement of Alexandria and Origen represented a less radical form of succession for the first time, which primarily involved voluntary renunciation of property ( Mk 10.21  EU ; Lk 5.27 f.  EU ; Lk 14.33  EU ) and leaving friends and family ( Lk 14, 26  EU ). With this daily discipleship, imitation of Christ's death became less important. Instead, the successors now individualize the doctrine by trying to escape the world as hermits ( fuga mundi ) and living secluded outside of society in the deserts. With Pachomius , a collective community of followers of Christ developed in a monastery-like coinobion from the 3rd or 4th century .

middle Ages

After the founding of monasteries in southern Europe by Jerome , the doctrine of Imitatio Christi deepened both in the monastic tradition and in Christian mysticism . The monastic culture is not limited to monastic life. With the Christianization of Europe, more and more new Imitatio Christi movements emerged, which did not restrict themselves locally, but wandered around like Jesus, wandering and preaching. This imitation is often referred to as the vita apostolica . One of the most important Christian migrations in the Middle Ages were the Minorites initiated by Francis of Assisi . They tried to copy the lifestyle of Jesus and, as poor, begging monks, initially lived untied across the entire continent, until they finally established permanent shelters and monasteries. Especially the individual monastic rules and later the writings of Ignatius of Loyola tried to bring the doctrine of imitation into a form that was valid for all religious.

Meister Eckhart, and later an anonymous author, who published the book Following the Poor Life of Jesus under the name Johannes Tauler , interpreted the teaching of Jesus in the sense of German mysticism . Many such writings sought both a correct interpretation and a modernized guide to following Christ. A typical example at the end of the Middle Ages is Thomas von Kempen's writing De imitatione Christi , which had a strong influence on the Devotio moderna in the Netherlands .

reformation

Especially the Theologia deutsch , the writing of an anonymous German gentleman from the 14th century, which dealt almost exclusively with the succession and the associated “Christian life”, influenced the early Martin Luther . After the early mystical phase in Luther's life, however, the doctrine of Imitatio Christi only finds significance indirectly in the work of the reformer. Rather, Luther directs his concentration on the doctrine of the Conformitas Christi .

It is different in Anabaptism , where the successor motif is still very influential today and can be seen as the basic motif of the Anabaptists in the sense of the Tatar character of faith. Approximately 1,000 Anabaptists, 800 of whom are known by name, endured persecution, imprisonment, torture, and execution or death by fire in the 16th and 17th centuries for their beliefs, which were manifested in an energetic following of Jesus Christ.

Pietism

The pietism , one after the Thirty Years' War onset and the Lutheran Church renewed reform movement, wondering again strengthened emphasis on Imitatio-Christ-doctrine. According to their judgment, the unification of the Christian groups split by the war could only succeed by returning to the primitive Christian message, in such a way that the founder of the religion, Jesus, was followed individually, but not separately. I.e. the following of Christ is lived out differently by everyone and yet the followers unite in a non-denominational church through the commonality of their followers, i.e. regardless of whether they are Lutheran, Calvinist or Catholic or the like. The revival movements of the late 18th and 19th centuries continue this concern and with it this specific interpretation of the Imitatio Christi.

18th and 19th centuries

A philosophical and especially ethical interpretation of the Imitatio Christi begins with the mystics around Meister Eckhart, which is then continued in rationalism ( Leibniz ) and idealism as criticism ( Hegel ). After the German mysticism, however , the Imitatio Christi in philosophy only again received special attention from Arthur Schopenhauer , who presented the doctrine as an early Christian motivation to negate the will. While Friedrich Nietzsche rejected the teaching and especially the interpretation by Thomas von Kempen in his later years, it was only in the German-speaking post-war philosophy with Karl Löwith , Jacob Taubes and currently with Peter Sloterdijk that an increased interest in teaching developed.

20th century

In modern theology the subject of discipleship has receded. Neither the moral nor the religion-constituting core of the Imitatio Christi are issues that are acutely dealt with in today's theology or religious studies. Thus the theological question of what discipleship means becomes more the subject of investigation through historical Jesus research .

A famous exception was Dietrich Bonhoeffer , who tried to practice evangelical forms of succession in the illegal pastor training of the Confessing Church in the Finkenwalde seminary . The course in Finkenwalde gave rise to the book Succession , the manuscript of which Bonhoeffer completed in 1937. In this Bonhoeffer differentiates between “cheaper” and “more expensive” grace. “Cheap grace” is sluggish goods without price or cost. It is not the sinner who is justified, but the sin. There is forgiveness without repentance, so grace has no consequences in life - nothing changes, everything stays the same. “Expensive grace”, on the other hand, costs life. It was lost with the secularization of the church. Monasticism, however, preserved the knowledge of the dear grace that discipleship includes. At some point, however, the monks were declared to be special cases, for which a higher claim applies than for the remaining church members. Luther first became a monk, but then left the monastery again. He wanted to show that the divine claim applies to all Christians. Luther's successors repeated his Reformation discovery that grace alone is enough. However, they did not take into account that in Luther's understanding of grace, succession was always implied: for him, too, it was about breaking with sin, rejecting an idiosyncratic life and calling for followers. “Grace as a prerequisite is the cheapest grace; Grace as a result is dear grace. "

Bonhoeffer's life example in the resistance against National Socialism made the advocacy of the human rights of persecuted minorities, especially an irrevocable solidarity of Christians with Jews , a challenge for the whole of Christianity. The liberation theology took up this since the 1960s with base communities on.

The imitatio Christi has been practiced in an extreme way in the Philippines in the form of self-crucifixion since the 1960s .

21st century

Some Christian youth groups represent a popularized form of following Jesus under the slogan “What would Jesus do?” - What would Jesus do? ( WWJD ). This movement goes back to an idea from 1989 by the Methodist youth pastor Jamie Tinklenberg in Holland, Michigan . Anglo-Saxon evangelical authors today often use the term discipleship , which can be translated both as discipleship and discipleship, but which is hardly understood and practiced any longer. The German Protestant practical theologian Michael Herbst describes these facts as “alive, mature, a dynamic I-Thou relationship, listening and speaking, receiving and passing on, being pardoned and worshiped, trust and being sent.” Some pastors such as the American Baptist and However, bestselling author David Platt draws attention to the fact that many Western Christians have adapted too much to the consumerism of society and no longer take the contrasting sayings of Jesus about discipleship seriously enough.

literature

overview
exegesis
Church history
  • Heinz Wolfgang Kuhn: Succession after Easter. In: Dieter Lührmann, Georg Strecker (Hrsg.): Church , Festschrift for Günther Bornkamm. Mohr / Siebeck, Tübingen 1980, pp. 105-132.
  • Brigitta Eßer, Eberhard von Gemmingen (ed.): In society of Jesus. Texts on the succession, from Ignatius to Teilhard de Chardin. Matthias Grünewald, Mainz 1982, ISBN 3-7867-0728-6 .
  • Hans Jürgen Milchner: Following Jesus and Imitatio Christi. The theological development of the subject of the successor from the beginnings of Christianity up to the time of the devotio moderna - with special consideration of religious educational approaches. Literaturverlag, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-6948-2 .
  • Maximilian Bergengruen: Imitation of Christ - imitation of nature. Heavenly and natural magic in Paracelsus, in Paracelsism and in baroque literature (Scheffler, Zesen, Grimmelshausen). Meiner, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7873-1779-0 .
Systematic theology
Practical theology
  • Mark Batterson: Total succession. SCM-Verlag, Witten 2015, ISBN 978-3-417-26627-6 (English original title: All In , HarperCollins, Grand Rapids 2013).
  • Richard J. Foster : Celebrating Succession. Spiritual exercises rediscovered. Brockhaus and Oncken , Wuppertal 1985, ISBN 978-3-7893-2294-5 (English original title: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth ; many editions).
  • Michael Herbst: Alive! On the secret of being a mature Christian , SCM Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-7751-5850-3 .
  • Peter J van Ool, Konrad Baumgartner, Erich Garhammer (eds.): Liberating Practice of Succession. Biblical, historical and liberation theological impulses for following Jesus, the Christ. Echter, 2000, ISBN 3-429-02187-1 .
  • David Platt: No compromises, follow Jesus - at all costs. Frontiers, Meinersen 2017 (English original title: Radical , Penguin Random House, Colorado Springs 2010).
  • David Watson: Discipleship. Projection J. Verlag, Wiesbaden 1988.
  • Roland Werner : Jesus Christ - 7 reasons why I follow him. Neufeld , Schwarzenfeld 2006, (3rd edition 2018, ISBN 978-3-8625-6013-4 ).
  • Dallas Willard : You get younger along the way. Following Jesus as a lifestyle. 2nd Edition. Neufeld, Schwarzenfeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-86256-008-0 (The Great Omission).

Single receipts

  1. ↑ a b Gerd Theißen , Annette Merz: Der Historische Jesus , p. 200
  2. ↑ Adolf Holl : Jesus in bad company
  3. ↑ Helmut Gollwitzer : Liberation for Solidarity
  4. ↑ Hans Jürgen Milchner: Imitation of Jesus and Imitatio Christi. Münster 2004, p. 17f.
  5. ^ Edward E. Malone: The monk and the martyr. The monk as the successor of the martyr. Catholic University of America, Washington 1950.
  6. ↑ Hans Dieter Betz: Following and imitating Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Tübingen 1967, p. 138ff.
  7. ^ Per Lønning : The dilemma of contemporary theology prefigured in Luther, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche. Humanities Press, New York 1962.
  8. ^ William Klassen, Hans-Jürgen Goertz: Imitation of Jesus Christ. In: Mennonite Lexicon . Volume 5 (MennLex 5).
  9. ↑ Peter Hoover: Baptism of Fire. The radical life of the Anabaptists - a provocation. Down to Earth, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-935992-23-7 .
  10. ↑ Jens Lemanski: Christianity in Atheism. Traces of the mystical doctrine of Imitatio Christi in the ethics of Schopenhauer. Vol. 1, Turnshare, London 2009, ISBN 978-184790-029-6 .
  11. ^ Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Succession . In: Wilfried Härle (Hrsg.): Basic texts of the newer Protestant theology . 2nd Edition. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2012, p. 165 .
  12. ↑ Christoph Daxelmüller: "Sweet nails of passion". The history of the self-crucifixion of Francis of Assisi until today. Düsseldorf 2001, p. 257 ff.
  13. ^ John Gordon Stackhouse: Making the best of it: following Christ in the real world. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008, pp. 189ff.
  14. ↑ Michael Herbst: Alive! On the secret of being a mature Christian , SCM Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-7751-5850-3 , p. 6
  15. ↑ David Platt: No compromises, follow Jesus - at all costs. Frontiers, Meinersen 2017, pp. 50–115.