“So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:33

If you know me at all, you know that I am an “ALL IN” guy for the Kingdom who believes we shouldn’t be holding anything back for Jesus. Luke 14 calls us to be rival to anything that opposes Jesus, but with the context that even our enemies might be won over to Him.

“RENOUNCE ALL” – Jesus had some “HARD SAYINGS” but this one might take the cake! Today in our American Christianity or churchianity paradigm we seem to just simply ignore this one! This flies in the face of health and wealth prosperity preaching seeming to identify that perhaps Christians should sell everything (Christ’s words to the rich young ruler and the Acts 2 mindset) and live as paupers for the kingdom. And to be clear, I do think it takes on that tone.

But let’s take a closer look, in Greek the phrase is ouk apotassetai, which literally would be to “not place in order from”. What’s very interesting to me is in the New Testament every single time the verb apostasso is used it is in the middle voice. I would venture to say this is the only treatment of a verb this way in the entire text. It is very rare and unusual, so it makes me take special interest and ask why? When we say to “not renounce” something then, it takes a sense of “to place in order away from myself”. Understanding the literal translation of the Greek phrase means that when we read paying attention to the grammar of the Greek language you come out understanding that the mindset is to restructure or reorder, we give up chaos for order to come to proper balance in the kingdom. A life of shalom. So, if I had to translate the middle voice thought into this (as some translations like NT Wright’s have attempted) it might better read, “No one can be my disciple who does not take up the proper priorities in terms of possessions for Godly order over the world’s chaos.” Of course that doesn’t read well! Furthermore, the middle voice almost always implies that Christ is taking the action for us, that it is something out of your control once you come to the posture called for, usually devotion but in this case is actually a step more than that -it leans towards the harder definition of Jesus into discipleship. (What seems to follow the progression of fan > follower > disciple.)

If you don’t take on the posture of Jesus with your worldly things you can’t possibly enter into Jesus’ definition of discipleship. They must be renounced or completely re-ordered. So, the takeaway is what you can’t do is keep the prioritization of the world and still attest to be on the track to discipleship.

Everything is His and if you attest to be “all in”, than nothing should be your own. That’s why tithing in the New Covenant is a hard conversation. Tithing along with the Torah in the Old Testament was to be a stop gap until all things could be reconciled by Jesus. Now that “WE” have Jesus everything is His. If your on track your not thinking Tithe or Torah your thinking everything! (YOUR LIFE) Nothing is your stuff or your time. And the path to sanctification is more of Him and His kingdom ways and less of your world ways. A complete transformation that finishes eschatologically (but in que on this world) with you being made completely into the image of Jesus.

You don’t need to “create time or space” for Jesus if all of your time and space is for Jesus. You no longer have claim to anything of the world, YOU HAVE RENOUNCED THAT NOTION!

If you catch yourself beginning to collect things for your earthly storehouse that has no place for kingdom endeavors your posture for the kingdom is out of balance. You are mis-stepping the path of discipleship. The text says anyone off course can’t be my disciple. Do you want to be a disciple? Are you willing to come to a complete posture before the Lord to enter this covenant? Are you willing to “give up” everything to be a disciple?

One reason generations are disengaging from the church is because of the mixed messages the church has sent for years. Many people have become disillusioned with the division in the American church and one of the reasons is because we’ve exchanged a biblical gospel that exalts Jesus above everything in the world for an American (progressive) gospel that prostitutes Jesus for the sake of comfort, control, power, politics and prosperity in this world. I’m compelled to pray, God, we want to renounce it all. I pray that we don’t settle as disciples of Christ. I pray that we might be in absolute devotion to Jesus’ deeper covenant relationship both in this life and eschatologically in the coming kingdom.

In the last 10 years there have been several books written that speak to this:

• Will Ryan – This is the Way (Series)
• Boyd – The Myth of a Christian Nation
• Zahnd – Postcards from Babylon
• Bates – Salvation By Allegiance Alone 
• Sprinkle – Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire (Church in the Shadow of Empire)
• Wright & Bird – Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies
• Platt – Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully 
• But before all of these there was a classic called – Persecution in the Early Church, A Chapter on the History of Renunciation, by Herbert B. Workman, in 1906

The opening pages of the New Covenant declared this same philosophy by Holy Cannon. John the Baptist was the precursory proclaimer of this truth as ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the Way of the Lord’. The explosive scene that his ministry encapsulated could be summarized by the title we all know him by: The Baptiser.

Matthew 3:1-3

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for Him.’”

This message was approved by Heaven through the institution of baptism as an expression of forsaking all other allegiant positions as a returning to the One True and Living God. His message was demonstrated by a public display of that newfound loyalty through the waters of baptism signifying a washing away of the old for the embracing of the new. This message spread like wildfire among the religious Jews and even impacted the gentile population in their midst.

Vss 5:6 “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region around the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.”

In keeping with the divine purposes of his message, he adamantly declared that those wishing to embrace this new allegiant life (the path to discipleship) MUST renounce all other places of faith and fully submit to the Kingdom life.

Vss 7-8 “But when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his place of baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit, then, in keeping with repentance.’”

A requirement for John was the ‘produced fruit’ consistent with a changed heart. John was not looking for new FaceBook subscribers, or popularity in his ministry… the purpose was to transform lives. This was accomplished through radical, immediate, and noticeable lifestyle reflections consistent with true, sincere, and authentic repentance. What John was doing, and ultimately what Jesus declared in His Gospel, would find direct and deadly conflict with the hierarchy of Judaism and the control of the Roman system. So deadly in fact, both John and Jesus were martyred for their unified message.

In a life application aspect what John was requiring was real, daily change. The tax collectors were told to stop their extortion. The soldiers were commanded to treat others with respect and to cease being bullies for personal gain. The religious were charged with throwing away their masks of self-righteousness and hypocrisy and embracing a non-legalistic view of worship.

For us today, this message should still resonate as loudly and powerfully. What should we cast aside for the throne of Jesus in our soul to be unchallenged? Where in our hearts, attitudes, finances, relationships, and time are we being prodded by this message of complete allegiance do we find the world challenging the supremacy of Christ?

______________________________________________________________

During the first few centuries a great conflict arose between Rome and those obedient to Yahweh. By Roman theory, the national state was the one sole society that must engross (take up, control) every interest of its residents: religion, social, political and humanitarian. In other words, the state should be the supreme authority in one’s life. Romans wanted Christians to take their part as loyal citizens of the empire, discharging the dues, performing the obligations of a citizen, displaying complete loyalty. The Christian replied, “We worship no other.”

Under Rome, all new “societies” were required to obtain a charter or permission from the emperor or from the senate. If the group was not granted permission under the state, they were considered “rival” to the state. The extreme penalty was treason, punishable by death. Christians were not persecuted because of their creed, but because of the absoluteness of the Christian faith. 

To say that Jesus is Lord was a statement against the empire. “No King but Jesus” became the rallying cry of the true believer and also the last words of many persecuted and martyred Christians.

The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews (and / or Christians) of Judaea and the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. [1] These wars were in large part over the “kingship” of the peoples. Could Rome demand sole authority? Although the Diaspora of the Jews started many years before this, the Jewish–Roman wars had a devastating impact on the Jewish people, transforming them from a major population in the Eastern Mediterranean into a dispersed and persecuted minority. [2] Most scholars would consider this charge of Jews and Christians to not give allegiance to Rome over God and / or Jesus as the major distinguishing feature of what defined an all-in follower of God or Jesus. The First Jewish-Roman War culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and other towns and villages in Judaea, resulting in significant loss of life and a considerable segment of the population being uprooted or displaced. Those who remained were stripped of any form of political autonomy. Subsequently, the brutal suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in even more severe consequences. Judea witnessed a significant depopulation, as many Jews were killed, expelled, or sold into slavery. [4]

Jews were banned from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, after the central worship site of Second Temple Judaism, the Second Temple in Jerusalem, was destroyed by Titus’s troops in 70 CE. [5] The destruction of the Temple led to a transformation in Jewish religious practices, emphasizing prayer, Torah study, and communal gatherings in synagogues outside of Jerusalem. This pivotal shift laid the foundation for the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism, which has been the dominant form of Judaism since late antiquity, after the codification of the Babylonian Talmud. [6] But this also gave way to the rise or continuation of Christianity. As Rabbinical Judaism spiraled down, Christianity rose up taking on many of the same “anti-empirical” thoughts towards the ruling over them and their religion by Rome. Perhaps more than before Christians were now vowing allegiance to Jesus over any other form of worldly government. Persecution has always had a purifying effect on the true people of God.

By the third century, emperors were realizing that the Church was not a mere body of anarchists to be rooted out wherever necessary. The Church was fast becoming a rival organization of growing strength and power. The aggressiveness of Christ’s followers was viewed by Rome as a very real threat to their worldwide domination.

By the middle of the third century, the more energetic rulers organized efforts to crush out the Church by the use of all the resources of the state. The police measures taken at Antonines (Roman Emperors who ruled between 138 and 180: Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius) gave place to a civil war without quarter (mercy offered). But, unlike all other civil wars, only one side was armed. Strange to say, this was the side that was ultimately defeated. On the one hand were the immense resources of the Empire, centralized in one supreme will. On the other side was the PASSIVE RESISTANCE OF CHRIST’S FOLLOWERS, making the state’s massive recourses useless. The Christians were a peculiar people, with peculiar views of their own. They wore no distinctive garb (clothing: outward appearance) in the world, yet they were definitely not of the world. “We are supposed to live aloof from crowds,” said Tertullian, an early Church leader. [7] Their opponents phrased the matter differently. They are “a people who separate themselves and break away from the rest of mankind.”

The pacifistic early church Christians seem to have gotten Jesus words a bit “more right” compared to the war mongers of 70 AD. It was hard to find an occupation in which the Christian could engage without compromising with idolatry. Some said that if they did not compromise, they would be cut off from every means of livelihood. Tertullian replied that, “faith must despise starvation as much as it despises death.” [8] But the more the Christians prospered, the more their neighbors “hated them” or perhaps “grew envious of them.” The Christians professed, “nothing was more alien to them than politics.” [9]

In practice, Christianity and the Empire proved fundamentally antagonistic. They were rivals in conception and method. Each claimed to be a kingdom of universal sway; each created a Church of universal obligation, each demanded absolute loyalty to its supreme lord. Between Caesar and Christ there could be no compromise. [10]

BART D. EHRMAN

Persecution was the direct outcome of the Christian doctrine of RENUNCIATION. To renounce meant to disown, reject and disclaim. The early Christians were renouncing their allegiance to the Roman Empire and denying any connection to it. In other words, the Christian ceased to be his own master, ceased to have his old environment, ceased to hold his old connections with the state. In everything, he became the bond-servant to Jesus Christ. In everything he owed his supreme allegiance and fealty (loyalty) to the new empire with Jesus Christ as Head. “We engage in these conflicts as men whose very lives are not our own… We have no master but God,” said Tertullian. [11]

Scriptures for further study and consideration:

Luke 3:3-17

3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (noun), 

4 as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.

5 Every valley shall be filled in, and every mountain and hill made low.

The crooked ways shall be made straight, and the rough ways smooth.

6 And all humanity will see God’s salvation.’”

7 Then John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 

8 Produce (Aorist Imperative Active) fruit, then, in keeping with (accusative adjective of ‘fruits’ meaning ‘worthy, suitable, deserving, matching value) repentance (metanoias). And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 

9 The axe lies ready at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

10 The crowds asked him, “What then should we do?”

11 John replied, “Whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”

12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

13 “Collect no more than you are authorized,” he answered.

14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” “Do not take money by force or false accusation,” he said. “Be content with your wages.”

15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John could be the Christ. 

16 John answered all of them: “I baptize you with water, but One more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 

17 His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Acts 8:26-38

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 

27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 

28 and on his return was sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah the prophet.

29 The Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to that chariot and stay by it.”

30 So Philip ran up and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

32 The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so He did not open His mouth.

33 In His humiliation He was deprived of justice. Who can recount His descendants? For His life was removed from the earth.”

34 “Tell me,” said the eunuch, “who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”

35 Then Philip began with this very Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

36 As they traveled along the road and came to some water, the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is there to prevent me from being baptized?” 

38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

1 Peter 3:18-22

18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit, 

19 in whom He also went and preached to the spirits in prison 

20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.

In the ark a few people, only eight souls, were saved through water. 

21 And this water symbolizes the baptism that now saves you also— not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God— through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 

22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to Him.

Romans 6:1-7

1 What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? 

2 Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? 

3 Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 

4 We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. 

6 We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. 

7 For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

_____________________________________________________________________

Written by Dr. Will Ryan and Dr. Steve Cassell

Works Cited:

1. Bloom, J.J. 2010 The Jewish Revolts Against Rome, A.D. 66–135: A Military Analysis. McFarland.
2. Hitti, Philip K. (2002). Hitti, P. K. Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781931956604. Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
3. Schwartz, Seth (2014). The ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad. Cambridge. pp. 85–86. ISBN 978-1-107-04127-1. OCLC 863044259.
4. Taylor, J. E. (15 November 2012). The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea. Oxford University Press.
5. Armstrong (2011). Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. p. 163.
6. Karesh, Sara E. (2006). Encyclopedia of Judaism.
7.  Harrison, Peter (June 2017). “‘I Believe Because it is Absurd’: The Enlightenment Invention of Tertullian’s Credo”. Church History.
8. Gonzáles, Justo L. (2010). “The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation”. The Story of Christianity. Vol. 1. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. 
9. This translation was created in conjunction with the Patristics Project at Faulkner University.
10. Bart D. Ehrman is the author of The Triumph of Christianity and the author or editor of more than 30 books, including the New York Times bestsellers Misquoting Jesus and How Jesus Became God. Ehrman is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a leading authority on the New Testament and the history of early Christianity.
11. Tertullian: Douglas Powell, Tertullianists and Cataphrygians, Vigiliae Christianae 29 (1975)