Who are you following? Everybody is following somebody. Put another way, we are all disciples.

The question is who, or what, are we disciples of? Some of the most followed people on social media include: on Instagram, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Selena Gomez; on X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk and Barack Obama; on TikTok, Khaby Lame and Charli D'Amelio; and on Youtube, Mr Beast and Vlad and Niki.

Perhaps, instead, you are a disciple of The Archers or Radio 4 or Plymouth Argyle. Pretty much everybody in the world is a disciple of somebody or something.

Before leaving the earth in physical form, Jesus told his followers to make disciples in all nations. Note, Jesus did not want just converts or occasional church goers; Jesus wanted, and wants, disciples. So, what is a disciple?

To answer this question, we need to delve a little into Jewish culture in the first century. We need to understand what a rabbi was, because Jesus was a first-century Jewish rabbi.

Rabbi means ‘master’ or ‘teacher.’ It was someone who, through scholarly study of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, was authorised to serve as a religious instructor for a community or congregation.

Rabbis were expert teachers of the Torah (the first five books in the Bible) and were also magnetic examples of life with God. So, if that is a rabbi, what is a disciple? He or she is an apprentice of a rabbi.

Disciples did three things. Firstly, they spent a lot of time with their rabbi, secondly, they sought to become like him (and it always was a ‘him’) and, thirdly, they did as he did.

In the same way, a Christian disciple is an apprentice of rabbi Jesus, who should spend a lot of time with Jesus (in prayer), learn to be like him in actions and, finally, to share his teachings about the Kingdom of God with other people.

So, who or what are you following? For the Christian, they should be absorbed by the life, example, and teachings of Jesus Christ. God does not want ‘lukewarm Christians.’ He wants all of us, irrespective of background to be disciples of Jesus Christ before following anything or anyone else, especially influencers on social media.