dustypants

In Rob Bell’s book, Velvet Elvis, there is a chapter called Dust. Rob does an incredible job of giving us insight into what it meant to be a disciple of a rabbi during the day of Jesus. We want to give you a brief overview of that and in turn let you know why we call our site dustypants….

Let’s start with the story of Jesus when he call’s his first men to become his disciples. In Matthew 5 it tells us that Jesus was walking the shores of Galilee when he saw Peter and Andrew fishing with nets. He called out to them…

”Come be my disciples”. They immediately dropped their nets. Isn’t that crazy…they just left! Then when Jesus saw James and John he said the same thing to them and they as well, jumped out the boat and even left their father behind! Why would they do this? The chapter explains wonderfully the background of becoming a disciple, and why these guys would have dropped their nets so fast to follow Jesus…The process of becoming a disciple was intense. Most kids would start school at around six years of age and would begin to memorize the Torah, which consisted of the first five books of the Bible. By the time they were ten they would know Genesis through Deuteronomy by heart; memorized word for word. Now after that, most kids would start learning the family business…but the best students would move on to the 2nd stage of learning and would memorize the entire Old Testament…all 39 books. Again, most of the students at this point would return home and get involved with whatever business the family had. But…the best of the best would seek after a rabbi and would ask to be his disciple. The rabbi would drill the student. If he felt like the student could, not just do what he does, but be who he is…he would accept him and they would follow him. Wow, only the best of the best could ever be rabbis.

Now go back to Jesus and his calling of the disciples…what were they doing when he came along? Most likely the family business of fishing…they weren’t the best of the best. They knew that…and Jesus knew that. Jesus chose them because they weren’t the best of the best. No wonder they jumped at the chance to follow a rabbi. It was an incredible honor and privilege. Isn’t it just like Jesus to use people no one else would? That’s us…we’re not the best of the best, but Jesus chose us…and he wants to choose you. At the end of his time with his disciples, Jesus had some final words for them. He tells them to go to the ends of the earth and make more disciples. We couldn’t help but throw our nets down…there is no greater honor or privilege than to follow Jesus…

This brings us to dustypants…back then when disciples would follow their rabbi, they literally would follow behind him trying to imitate everything he did. In doing so as they traveled from town to town they would walk for hours on a dirty, dusty road. And I’m sure it was noticeable at the end of the day. There was a saying that the sages would quote to the young disciples…”May you be covered with the dust of your rabbi.” That is our hope and prayer…that we too would be covered with the dust of our rabbi, Jesus; and that it would be noticeable to all who see and know us. So there it is…dustypants. So what’s on your pants?