Jesus said, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples.” (John 15:8)
He’s not talking about offspring and someone like Elon Musk who frequently quips about personally populating Mars or his fourteen-and-counting children saying, “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.”
Not at all. There are two ways to expand Image-bearing (which is fruit).
One is to give birth to them as new Image-bearers, expanding Image-bearing in numbers, or quantity.
The other is to form Image-bearing more fully by the maturing the seed to fruitfulness. Expanding Image bearing in quality or maturity. In other words, “make disciples.”
That is the Christian’s one job, according to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).
- In what ways does creating new Image-bearers bring glory to God?
- In what ways does growing disciples in maturity and quality bring glory to God?
- How can churches grow disciples in maturity and quality?
- How does that square with the concept of the “seeker church”? Can a church be both a seeker church and at the same time, one with deep discipleship? How might that happen?