It Is Possible To Be A Follower Of Jesus ...

It is possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple; to be a camp follower without being a soldier of the king; to be a hanger-on in some great work without pulling one’s weight. Someone was talking to a great scholar about a younger man. He said, “So and so tells me that he was one of your students.” The scholar answered, “He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.” There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student. It is one of the supreme handicaps of the church that in the church there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.—William Barclay