First attempt at adding my voice to the dissonance in hopes of finding clarity.

How are we supposed to follow a man who lived 2,000 years ago?

Too often Christian discipleship is defined by what we're against: counter culture. This is the way of the world; therefore, in order to follow Jesus, we must be anti-status quo. But, I want to be for something.

What I'm proposing (nothing new, really) is that we begin with the gospels and see how each writer makes a disciple of his reader. In other words, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written not only to get readers to believe in Jesus; they were written to show believers how to follow Jesus.

How does Matthew's story make a disciple of you? How is that different from Mark? What is the literary effect of Luke's story? And, now for something completely different, how does John make disciples out of his readers?

These are the questions that interest me.

I think we've lost the power of the gospel story. Instead, we rely upon list makers to tell us what we're supposed to do. So, I compare my list with your list (they never agree) and judgment comes.

Jesus never made a list. He preferred telling stories, and then he said, "You figure it out." That should tell us something.