Why hold back from commitment to Jesus?

Then John’s disciples came and asked Jesus, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” Matthew 9:14

Do you have friends who might be described as “half-Christians”? Impossible, of course. But you know what I mean: people who are genuinely interested in spiritual things, perhaps regular in church, but who somehow hold back from declaring full commitment to Jesus.

Probably we all do. In which case it’s interesting to find people in the New Testament who could perhaps be described that way.

I have to admit that I had probably read Matthew 9:14, and other similar verses, hundreds of time before it dawned on me how strange it was to come across “disciples of John the Baptist” during Jesus’ ministry.

Surely John had pointed people to Jesus! Surely he had declared himself to be nothing and Jesus to be everything! So how come that, well after Jesus was launched into his ministry, there were people who, apparently, still identified themselves with him rather than with Jesus? Hadn’t they all immediately transferred their allegiance to Jesus?

Apparently not. 

This isn’t just a one-off verse. According to Matthew 11:2, when John was in prison and experiencing doubts about whether Jesus really was the promised Messiah, “he sent his disciples” to question him. Following his execution he was buried by his own “disciples” (Matthew 14:12). 

You could very well say, “Yes, but these were still early days, still within the first year of Jesus’ ministry - things hadn’t yet settled down.” True enough. 

But what then are we to make of Apollos in Acts 18, who “taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John” (how strange is that!)? Or, even more puzzling, the twelve “disciples” in Ephesus (of all places!), who likewise knew only of John’s baptism and needed to be baptised again “in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 19:1-7)? 

These events took place twenty or more years after the resurrection!

It really does seem that around the world of the New Testament there were pockets of “disciples” who still owed some kind of allegiance to John rather than Jesus - the “half-Christians” we began with. 

Well, I don’t think there are simple answers to these questions. But I do think we can find in these puzzling passages both a challenge and an encouragement.

First, the challenge. 

Let’s ask the question: What might have prevented these disciples of John the Baptist from committing themselves fully to Jesus?

We aren’t told, but it seems most likely that they had doubts that Jesus was the “right” kind of Messiah. Unlike the austere John on the one hand and the hyper-religious Pharisees on the other, could it be that Jesus simply wasn’t “religious” enough to meet their expectations? He enjoyed his food and drink (whereas they were more interested in fasting), and he kept shockingly disreputable company. Even John himself - the prophet who had proclaimed Jesus as the King! - experienced doubts (Matthew 11:1-3).

We can’t be sure. But perhaps this can challenge us to ask why those friends I mentioned earlier might settle for a halfway house; and, more to the point, if we might be partly responsible.

Not many, I think, are put off because we are too austere and severe! So could it be that sometimes we smother them in teaching that is beyond their present capacity to digest and understand - giving them what Paul would call “solid food” when what they need is good nourishing “milk” (1 Corinthians 3:2)? Or do we perhaps disappoint them by failing (as they see it) to live up to how Christians ought to behave?

There are various possibilities. Whatever, a little self-examination on our part might not come amiss - God forbid that we should ever be responsible for acting as a turn-off.

Second, the encouragement.

These passages remind us that in the early church (which, by the way, was anything but perfect!) not everything was cut and dried or black and white. There were various streams and strands of Christianity - conservative Jewish Christians who were still wedded to traditional customs; liberal Jewish Christians, like Paul, who sat very light to their ancestral traditions; these “disciples of John the Baptist”; and, of course, gentile Christians who were fresh and new to it all. And within these streams there were no doubt many lesser shades of opinion.

So... when we see our friends or contacts seemingly neither one thing nor the other, somehow unable to make that great step of faith, let’s not be too disappointed. Our business is to make sure that the seed of the gospel has been well sown, and then to pray, support and encourage as best we can.

People must come to Christ in their own way, and we mustn’t try and press them into our mould. And if, after they have come, they still have one or two quirky, even wacky, ideas, let’s have the faith to believe that little by little the Holy Spirit will sort them out!

Father, I think today of those people in my life who seem open to the Christian faith, but somehow unable to declare confidently that “Jesus is Lord”. Help me to witness to them sensitively and wisely - and never to do, say or be anything that might make it more difficult for them. Amen.