In John 19:38 we read that Joseph of Arimathea was "a disciple of Jesus, but secretly." Interestingly enough, this is the only time in the New Testament where the word disciple is mentioned without calling it His disciple or My disciple. Every other time you find the word disciple, it is "His disciple" or Jesus says, "My disciple." Only once does it say, "A disciple." In other words, he was a coward. Joseph fits the words of John 12:42-43, "Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Such disciples are not happy ones.”
Secondly, the mark of the disciple was that they loved one another. In John chapter 13:35, we read this (it's a wonderful verse, especially since selfishness so frequently marks the Christian): "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." "By this shall men know that ye are my disciples" the fact that we're willing to sacrifice for other Christians will tell the world whose disciples we are.
Now, there are three texts in the Scriptures that show the marks of the disciple. First, in John 8:31, Jesus said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed." So, the first mark of a true disciple is continuation in the Word. Jesus had been teaching some very startling things, and the people were in a riot of questions. "How can a man be born when he is old?" "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" "What manner of saying is this, 'Ye shall seek me and not find me and whither I go ye cannot come'?" These were the questions raised by His teachings. And in John 10:19 we read that there was a sharp division among the Jews. Now note this: it was not the disciples who asked these questions. The disciples followed Him. They did not know all the answers. They certainly did not understand all that He said. On one occasion, it's almost a laughing matter, but, in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, after Jesus had given seven parables, He said, "Have you understood all these things?" They said, "Yea, Lord." (See Matt. 13:51.)
The minute you speak of being His disciple, this implies ownership. We belong to Him. To be His disciple recognizes His claim on us. We are to follow Him. Everything a disciple has belongs to his owner. He is always in readiness to do whatever the owner wants him to do.
I want to take you to the Word of God and study with you for a few moments something in the New Testament of what it means to be a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. In preparation for this sermon, I just took the concordance and looked at every verse in the Bible where the word disciple is found. And after I had them all together, I saw that the word disciple is used in two ways, the loose way and the tight way. The loose way is a wide sense-it refers to those who favor a teacher, who join his party and become his adherents, in a general sense. Then in the smaller, tighter sense, the word disciple is used of those who seek to learn the mind of the one they follow so that they can know their leader and conform their lives and actions to his. The word disciple means follower or learner. It is frequently used in conjunction with the word teacher.
