If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I recommend discipleship materials from time to time. Invariably that leads to questions, usually centering around, “Does that material contain explicit teaching about X?” where X is some particular emphasis the questioner feels strongly about.

The general answer to that question is that unless you carefully write the material yourself, no discipleship tool will have the exact balance that you would prefer. So choose one appropriate for the person you are helping and go with it.

The specific question someone asked the other day was whether a particular discipleship program stressed the importance of the Holy Spirit. Since the program talks about the Holy Spirit early and often, I can only assume that my friend thinks it might not have “enough.” On that, I do have an opinion, and it leans toward not overloading people with too much information. Here’s what I wrote:

I believe that less is more when it comes to talking about the Holy Spirit’s role. Is he there? Absolutely. Do I have to understand in detail how he works? I don’t think so, not any more than I have to be an expert in exercise physiology to know that exercise is good for me. I can work out, or walk, or run, expecting that the process will make me stronger without knowing exactly how that process works.

My grandson is getting his master’s in exercise physiology. What I know about exercise, compared to him, is minuscule. But I know enough to work out.

One more example: how much exercise physiology does a grade school PE teacher share with her 4th graders? Zero. She just takes them out and runs them around! When we are making disciples, especially of new believers, we are dealing with 4th graders. We need to “run them around” by teaching them how to read the Bible, how to memorize scripture, how to apply scripture to life. The Holy Spirit will do his job – we don’t need to worry about that.

If we cooperate with God by engaging in good spiritual disciplines (“Train yourself for godliness,” 1 Timothy 4.7), growth occurs whether we understand all the mechanisms or not.

And [Jesus] said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. (Mark 4.26 – 28, ESV)