Focal Passages: Matthew 4:19, Romans 8-29, I John 2:5b-6
Marty Feldman, the bugged-eyed comic of the 1970s, acted in the role of Igor in the cut comedy classic Young Frankenstein, released in 1974. He and Gene Wilder, starring as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, played off of each other to perfection.
In one timeless scene, Frankenstein, arrived at the castle to begin his experiments. Igor, the scientist’s assistant with the ever-shifting hump on his back, picked up the doctor’s suitcase and began hobbling away. Hunched over and dragging his right leg behind him. As he led the doctor to his room, Igor said, “Walk this way.”
Wilder, looked a little bemused, but followed Igor, hunched over and dragging his own right leg. Comedy gold, in my book.
Some 50 years later, I still play that scene with my grandkids. “Walk this way,” as I mimic Igor. They just look at me like I’m a crazy man.
I don’t know if Feldman and Wilder realized the biblical truth they accidentally modeled, but in some ways, it matches the familiar call of Jesus to discipleship.
Walk this way becomes an echo of Jesus calling the seeker to “follow me.”
As he called his disciples, Jesus would utter some form of those two words. We see it first in Matthew 4:19. Peter and Andrew were casting their nets in pursuit of the day’s catch. Jesus called to them from shore…
“Follow me. I will make you fishers of men.”
The call to follow promising a new work, a new mission focused on spreading the good news of Christ.
Later in Matthew 8, a man came to Jesus with the desire to become a disciple, but wanted to first take care of some family business. When Jesus said to him, “Follow me…,” the man prioritized his family concerns and walked away. The change required by those words cost too much.
Later, Jesus called Matthew himself from a lucrative job as tax collector. Jesus walked up to the tax booth and said simply, “Follow me.” Matthew left it all behind to follow Jesus.
Commentaries tell me the word Matthew uses for follow in these passages is akoloutheo. It doesn’t mean “just tag along with me.” It means…
“To move in the same way as.”
“To occupy the same road.”
“Not trailing behind, but walking the same path the other walks.”
These first century men, living in the Jewish rabbinic tradition, would understand this word as a call to discipleship. It certainly meant to learn under the tutelage of a master teacher. Still, the word conveys more than the idea of learning from someone. It speaks about total life imitation.
A true disciple watched his rabbi constantly…the way he interpreted scripture, the way he prayed, the way he treated others, the way he dealt with opposition and struggle.
The goal of following was to so completely understand the rabbi’s conduct and character that the rabbi’s way of living in and seeing the world became the disciple’s way of living and seeing the world.
Jesus wasn’t just on the recruiting trail, looking for people who might agree with his theology, he was looking for people willing to walk the same road he walked in the way he walked it. He called people to imitate his obedience to the Father and demonstrate his love for the broken, the hurting and the outcast. He called folks to absolute surrender to the will and way of God. He called his followers to lay everything down, even life itself, for the truth of God’s kingdom.
You see that clearly displayed just weeks prior to the cross and the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Jesus began to tell his disciples that he “must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things…that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Peter, bless his heart, pulled Jesus aside and–scripture uses a harsh word here–“rebuked” Jesus. In essence, Peter sternly cautioned Jesus, “Quit saying such things! We’ll never let that happen! We’ll walk with you and they wouldn’t dare touch you!”
Jesus fired right back at Peter with a harsh rebuke of his own. “Get behind me, Satan!”
Then, Jesus, turning to all his disciples in another call to continued discipleship, laid out the conditions of discipleship in no uncertain terms.
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
There it is again, according to the commentaries, akoloutheo,
Follow me.
The word here deepens the meaning of what “following” actually requires. Now, he talks about the cost of following.
Self-denial. Yielding control of life. …all of life… to a sovereign Lord.
Taking up your cross. Investing one’s life…all of one’s life…to the work of God’s kingdom, regardless of the cost.
Follow. Giving your life…all of life…not just in a moment of trust that brings salvation, but in a continuous desire to become more like Christ every day.
Romans 8:29 says that God calls us to be conformed to the likeness of his Son. Paul isn’t just asking us to agree in principle with the teachings of Christ. He isn’t asking us to fall in line in some sort of superficial imitation of Jesus.
Discipleship and the call to follow is to work toward an inward, essential transformation into the same nature, conduct and character of Christ. A lifelong process of living each day just a little more like him.
Theologically, we call that sanctification…the ongoing process of salvation that has as its goal being transformed into the image of Christ. Being Christlike.
Many Christians today think of following Jesus as a belief system to maintain or a set of values by which to live. Thom Rainer, former president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources, bemoans this kind of consumer Christianity, a term he used to describe a faith that expects spiritual goods and services rather than sacrificial discipleship.
Following Jesus has never been a position to hold or a label to attach to our resume. Nor is it a political masthead. The call of Christian discipleship is a call to transformation, obedience and service.
The Apostle John answered Jesus’ call to follow. It changed his life forever. In his first letter, John encouraged his readers to live this transformed life of obedience.
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. (I John 2:5a)
Then John hits the nail on the head.
This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (I John 2:5b-6)
So, the question this call begs me to answer…and the question it poses for you, too…is not how deep is my belief in Jesus, but how much does my daily walk look like his?
Now can you see that Feldman/Wilder skit finding its way into the gospel?
Akoloutheo.
Follow me.
Walk this way.
Thinking Points
Where in my daily life am I simply “agreeing with Jesus” rather than actually walking in His ways?
What part of self denial or surrender is Jesus calling me to embrace more fully right now?
How does my response to inconvenience, conflict, or suffering reveal whether I am walking the same road Jesus walked?
What habits, attitudes, or priorities need to be reshaped so that my life increasingly reflects the character of Christ?
Who in my life is watching my walk, and what picture of Jesus are they seeing through me?