DISCIPLESHIP IS A TEAM SPORT
Aug 9, 2026
One of the most fascinating observations I’ve come across recently concerns the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. Someone pointed out that this may be the only clear example in Scripture of a person reading the Bible privately. Philip approaches him and asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” (Acts 8:30). In our culture, that sounds like a straightforward question. But in a first-century world, where reading was normally a communal activity, it almost carries another nuance: “Why are you reading on your own?”
Whether or not that is pressing the text too far, it reminds us how different the biblical world was from ours.
Paul tells Timothy, “Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture” (1 Timothy 4:13). Scripture was not primarily encountered in isolation but in the gathered community. It was heard together, discussed together, obeyed together, and celebrated together.
Daniel Kunkel captures this beautifully: “Literacy rates were very low, and papyrus wasn’t a cheap commodity. The mere sight of a scroll was an invitation to a communal experience of listening, responding to, agreeing with, lamenting, and celebrating the written word read aloud. In the ancient world, seeing a scroll would feel like seeing a friend bring a board game over—it’s something in which everyone partakes. But today we have the opposite: A person’s physical Bible can feel like a diary, a sacred personal journal whose interior we shouldn’t see.”
That is another reminder of how deeply individualism has shaped our discipleship. This will continue to be one of the major themes as we journey through Nehemiah. God’s work is always done through a people. The walls are rebuilt together. The covenant is renewed together. The people repent together. They worship together. They stand together.
As Clay observed recently, over the past year I have spoken often about formative practices such as solitude, prayer, fasting, Sabbath, and silence. I’ve encouraged many of us to use the resources from Practicing the Way. These practices are enormously valuable.
But they carry a danger.
We can embrace all the classic disciplines of the Christian life while quietly translating them into a privatised spirituality. We become people who pray alone, read alone, reflect alone, and consume Christian content alone. We attend church or Bible study, receive information, and then return to lives that remain largely disconnected from deep, accountable relationships with God’s people.
In other words, we can take the great practices of church history and reinterpret them through the modern assumption that faith is essentially about “me, myself, and God.”
That is not the way of Jesus.
Again, Daniel Kunkel puts it starkly: “It’s not a stretch to say that spiritual formation apart from community, at least in New Testament terms, is no spiritual formation at all. It is self-help.”
The New Testament calls us to at least three conversions.
We are converted to Christ.
We are converted to his Cause.
And we are converted to his Church.
It is often this third conversion that proves the most difficult for people shaped by Western culture.
We love Jesus.
We are excited by his causes.
But his Church?
“Maybe.”
“Sometimes.”
“As long as it doesn’t become inconvenient.”
Yet the New Testament knows nothing of a Christianity detached from the people of God. Christ does not simply save isolated individuals; he creates a body, a family, a temple, a flock, a body. We do not merely belong to Jesus; we belong to one another (Romans 12:5).
Perhaps one of the greatest acts of discipleship in our generation is allowing the Holy Spirit to convert us not only from sin but also from radical individualism.
That may be one of the greatest challenges facing the Western church today.
Julian Holdsworth
BSBC Pastor
