Discipleship as Learning to Follow: A Three-Session Bible Study

Begin with the three readings and their different settings

This plan follows Mark 8:27–38, Luke 9:57–62, and Matthew 28:16–20. The first passage joins a confession of Jesus as the Christ to a correction about suffering, resurrection, and following. The second records three encounters on the road. The third takes place after the resurrection and gives the disciples their commission. Read each in its own setting before joining them into a single account of discipleship.

A disciple learns from Jesus in a way that reaches understanding, allegiance, and practice. These passages do not portray learning as the accumulation of correct labels alone. Peter can name Jesus correctly and still need correction about his way. People can speak warmly about following and still need to reckon with the claim being made upon them. Those commissioned must teach others to observe what Jesus commanded.

Use one session at a time. Read the assigned verses, then the whole chapter using the reading link. Write down one observation, one question, and one response. The purpose is sustained attention and faithful practice. You do not need to manufacture an impressive experience or complete every exercise in a single sitting.

Session 1: Peter’s confession opens the question of Jesus’ way

In Mark 8:27–30, Jesus asks who people say he is and then asks his disciples directly. Peter answers that he is the Christ. The reply is followed by a command not to tell others about him. Immediately afterward, Jesus begins to teach that the Son of man must suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise after three days. The sequence gives the confession its needed direction.

Peter’s answer is therefore significant, but it does not mean that he already understands the path Jesus will take. Verse 31 supplies content that challenges what follows from the title. Christ’s identity and his teaching about suffering and resurrection must be received together. A reader who celebrates the confession while skipping the correction will miss the central movement of this encounter.

The earlier part of Mark 8 also prepares readers to notice limited understanding. The disciples struggle to understand Jesus’ warning about leaven after the feedings, and a blind man receives sight in stages at Bethsaida. Those episodes belong to the chapter’s wider concern with seeing and understanding. They can sharpen attention to Peter’s partial grasp without requiring every detail of the healing to be turned into a code for the disciples.

Peter rebukes Jesus, and Jesus corrects Peter

Verse 32 says that Jesus speaks plainly and that Peter takes him aside and begins to rebuke him. Jesus then turns, looks at the disciples, and rebukes Peter. His sharp response identifies the problem: Peter is attending to the things of human beings rather than the things of God. The correction concerns opposition to the way Jesus has just announced.

This is an uncomfortable part of learning to follow. A disciple may welcome Jesus’ authority while resisting the content of his teaching when it challenges an expectation. The account does not invite contempt for Peter; it allows readers to examine the same tendency in themselves. Ask which parts of Jesus’ teaching you are inclined to revise before you have understood them.

The scene also does not give a contemporary leader a blank authorization to speak to every questioner as Jesus speaks to Peter. Jesus is correcting resistance to his own announced mission. Responsible application begins with the reader’s willingness to hear Christ, not with a leader’s wish to place personal plans beyond scrutiny. The passage’s authority belongs to Jesus and the teaching the narrator actually records.

Taking up the cross has a stated direction

Jesus calls the people together with the disciples in verse 34. His call to deny oneself, take up one’s cross, and follow him is addressed beyond the immediate exchange with Peter. Verse 35 then specifies the direction of the loss he speaks about: for his sake and the gospel’s. Those words keep the saying attached to allegiance to Jesus rather than to suffering considered valuable in itself.

The cross is a severe image. It should not be reduced to every small inconvenience, nor used to make cruelty appear holy. Jesus is calling people to follow him at real cost. The text does not authorize someone to harm themselves or require another person to accept abuse as proof of obedience. The defining question is faithfulness to Jesus and his gospel, not whether a person can endure whatever a more powerful person demands.

Verses 36–37 ask about gaining the whole world and losing one’s soul. The question concerns the scale by which a life is valued. Verse 38 adds the seriousness of being ashamed of Jesus and his words, with the Son of man’s coming in glory in view. The passage holds present decisions within a larger horizon. Learning to follow includes allowing that horizon to challenge what appears profitable now.

Session 1 question and practice

Read verses 29–35 again and draw the sequence in ordinary words: confession, teaching, resistance, correction, and the call to follow. Identify the point at which Peter’s response changes from an answer Jesus receives to a response Jesus rebukes. This keeps the exercise rooted in the movement of the narrative.

Then choose one teaching of Jesus that you already understand well enough to practice but have been resisting because of its cost. Describe the cost honestly. It might concern status, time, honesty, generosity, or reconciliation. Choose a response that is faithful and proportionate to your real circumstances. If the situation involves danger or another person’s coercion, seek reliable help rather than allowing the language of the cross to silence legitimate concerns.

Session 2: read the encounters on the road to Jerusalem

Luke 9:51 says that Jesus steadfastly sets his face toward Jerusalem. The following episode describes a Samaritan village that does not receive him because he is going there. James and John ask about calling down fire, and Jesus rebukes them. Then, as they travel, the three encounters of verses 57–62 take place.

The setting helps readers understand the seriousness of following. Jesus is moving toward Jerusalem, and the chapter has already repeated his teaching about suffering and resurrection. He has also corrected his disciples’ desire to retaliate against rejection. Following him therefore includes learning the character of his mission as well as its destination.

The three encounters should not be collapsed into one conversation. The first person volunteers to follow wherever Jesus goes. Jesus calls the second person, who asks first to bury his father. The third offers to follow but asks first to say farewell at home. Each exchange brings a different tension into view. Read the actual words before supplying a generalized lesson about commitment.

The first encounter: counting the cost of an offer

The first person’s promise is expansive: he will follow Jesus wherever he goes. Jesus answers with the contrast between the resting places of foxes and birds and the Son of man’s lack of a place to lay his head. The answer makes the offer concrete. Enthusiasm must reckon with the insecurity involved in accompanying him.

The passage does not tell us how this person responds. It does not state that everyone who follows Jesus must reproduce the same travel arrangements in every place and period. It does expose the inadequacy of a promise that assumes following will always be comfortable or convenient. Jesus allows the person to hear the cost rather than accepting impressive words without clarification.

For practice, examine a commitment before making it. What does it actually require, and what resources or support will it need? Honest limits can be more faithful than an expansive promise that is quickly abandoned. The aim is not to negotiate away Jesus’ claim, but to let his words reveal what a declaration of willingness involves.

The second and third encounters: the word first

The second person asks permission first to go and bury his father. Jesus answers with the difficult saying about letting the dead bury their dead and tells him to go and proclaim God’s kingdom. The text does not say whether the father has just died, whether the request anticipates a future death, or how long the proposed delay would last. Those details should not be invented to make the saying easier.

Its force within the encounter is the urgency and priority of Jesus’ call to proclaim the kingdom. The answer is demanding even when the unprovided biography remains unprovided. A responsible study can acknowledge that difficulty without turning one exchange into a blanket instruction to neglect grieving relatives or ordinary responsibilities of care.

The third person also says “first,” asking to say farewell at home. Jesus responds with the image of a person putting a hand to the plough and looking back. The image directs attention to the task and the kingdom’s claim. Again, the narrator does not report the person’s eventual decision. The reader is left to consider divided allegiance without receiving a complete rulebook for every family conversation.

Session 2 question and practice

Read the three exchanges side by side. For each, write the offer or call, the response, and the question it raises about following. Keep the first person’s housing-related answer distinct from the second person’s proclamation assignment and the third person’s plough image. Their differences make the passage richer than a single slogan about trying harder.

Then consider a place where you repeatedly postpone a clear responsibility. Ask whether the proposed delay serves a real duty or protects you from an obedience you already recognize. That question requires honesty and may require counsel from someone who knows the circumstances. Urgency does not excuse reckless action, and prudence should not become an automatic name for avoidance.

Session 3: the commission comes from the risen Jesus

Matthew 28 begins with the empty tomb and the announcement that Jesus has risen. The women meet him, hold him by the feet, and worship him. Later, the eleven disciples go to the appointed mountain in Galilee. Verse 17 records worship and also says that some doubted. The commission is spoken into that actual gathering.

The presence of doubt should not be used to erase the resurrection testimony or to suggest that nothing can be known. Nor does the passage first report that every uncertainty has been resolved before Jesus speaks. It tells the reader who gives the commission and what he says to the disciples before him.

Verse 18 establishes the ground: all power in heaven and earth has been given to Jesus. The command that follows rests upon his authority. The disciples do not create the mission from their confidence, status, or organizational skill. They receive it from the risen Lord. The scene calls them to action while locating the authority and assurance beyond their own resources.

All nations, baptism, and the named relationship

Verse 19 sends the disciples to all nations and commands baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Preserve each part of the commission. Its reach extends beyond one local group, and its practice includes a concrete sacred act. Baptism belongs positively within the response Jesus commands; the passage does not describe it as an expendable addition to learning.

The named relationship also matters. The commission is not merely a program for making people more disciplined or socially useful. It gathers them into a life directed toward the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. A study should let the text’s language carry that significance without replacing it with an unrelated theory of self-improvement.

The universal reach of the mission does not give the disciples authority to demean the people they meet. They act under Jesus’ command and must teach what he commanded. The mission’s manner and content are accountable to him. A claim to be carrying out the commission is not by itself proof that every method being used is faithful to it.

Teaching people to observe what Jesus commanded

Verse 20 specifies the aim of the teaching: observing all that Jesus commanded. Instruction therefore reaches practice. Learning names, terms, and facts can serve that goal, but the commission points toward a life shaped by his commands. The teacher is accountable to what Jesus actually said rather than free to substitute personal preferences.

This also gives ongoing discipleship a durable form. A new learner needs more than a single invitation. People need to hear, understand, practice, ask questions, receive correction, and grow. The passage does not give a complete curriculum, but it does establish the source and direction of one: Jesus’ commands, taught with obedience in view.

Connect this with the earlier sessions. Peter needed correction after a true confession; the people on Luke’s road had to reckon with the call’s priority; the commissioned disciples must now help others learn to observe. The passages differ in setting, yet all move beyond admiration at a distance into a response governed by Jesus’ words.

Session 3 question and practice

Read the commission aloud and identify its reach, practices, teaching, and promise. Notice how Jesus’ authority at the beginning and presence at the end surround the work assigned to his disciples. This structure keeps the task from becoming either optional advice or a burden that must be carried without him.

For practice, choose a short teaching of Jesus that you will study with another willing person. Read it in context, discuss what it asks, and agree on a fitting opportunity to practice it. This is one modest exercise within the wider work of discipleship; it does not pretend to replace baptism, the life of a worshipping community, or the whole commission.

Christ connection: the Lord who leads and remains

These readings centre on Jesus himself: the Christ who teaches his suffering and resurrection in Mark 8, the Son of man moving toward Jerusalem in Luke 9, and the risen Lord who commissions his disciples in Matthew 28. Following takes its direction from his identity, words, and action. His final promise in Matthew joins the task to his presence: he is with them always, to the end of the world. The learner's hope rests in the Lord who calls, corrects, sends, and remains with his disciples as they teach others to observe his commands.

Bring the sessions together without flattening their differences

Review your notes from the three sessions. In Mark, ask what you learned about receiving correction from Jesus. In Luke, ask what you learned about counting the cost and examining repeated postponement. In Matthew, ask what you learned about authority, baptism, obedience, and continuing presence. Write a distinct sentence for each rather than one broad sentence that could apply to any religious lesson.

Choose one response to continue over the next week. Make it concrete enough to review and modest enough to perform responsibly. You may need to change an existing habit, seek instruction, repair a neglected commitment, or learn alongside someone else. The action should arise from the readings rather than from a pressure to invent something dramatic.

When you review the week, distinguish an imperfect attempt from a refusal to listen. Disciples in these passages need correction and instruction. The appropriate next step may be to confess a failure, seek help, adjust an unrealistic plan, or continue patiently. Learning to follow is serious because Jesus’ claim is serious; it remains hopeful because the risen Lord promises his presence.

A closing prayer and a next reading

An example prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to hear your words with attention. Correct the expectations that make me resist your way. Give me courage for faithful obedience and wisdom to recognize the responsibilities before me. Help me honour what you command, learn with humility, and accompany others with patience. Keep me mindful of your presence as I follow.

For a next reading, return to the full chapter that challenged you most. Read beyond the selected verses and ask how the surrounding events sharpen the lesson. The feeding and misunderstandings in Mark 8, the journey and corrections in Luke 9, or the resurrection encounters in Matthew 28 may reveal something you overlooked. Depth grows through returning to the text as well as through moving to a new topic.

Sources and editorial note

• Mark 8

  Session 1: confession, correction, the announced suffering and resurrection, and the call to follow for Jesus’ sake and the gospel’s.

• Luke 9

  Session 2: the journey toward Jerusalem, the rejection of retaliation, and the three encounters in verses 57–62.

• Matthew 28

  Session 3: resurrection, the gathering in Galilee, Jesus’ authority, baptism, teaching obedience, and his continuing presence.

Prepared with AI assistance for Learn of Christ and checked against the passages and sources listed here. This revision has not received independent human scholarly review. Scripture quotations are from the King James Version unless another translation is named. Prayers and exercises are original examples.

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