This question was asked by a new DMM practitioner:
My difficulty here for the Discovery Bible Study (DBS) is the commitment to obey. Many will read the verses, explain what they have learned, and make a verbal commitment to obey. But they don’t do it!
My response follows.
This is a very good question. I believe the issue here does go back to the person of peace. When God provides the right person of peace, there will be no struggle with disciples’ obedience. There is an article posted here on the challenges of persons of peace. In that article, it says: "When we pray for persons of peace, according to Luke 10:2, we are asking Jesus to give us ‘workers’ for the harvest. It is not enough that someone welcomes us into their home and agrees to study the Bible with us. A true person of peace is not simply becoming a convert but, rather, accepting the Kingdom of God and becoming a person of obedience. We do not want to call someone a person of peace until we see that such a person is committed to obedience to Jesus. This is a key marker."
Other experienced DMM practitioners also shared the following.
The Disciple-making movement belongs to God. Jesus says to pray to the Lord of the harvest. Most people learned from the kingdom of this world through their family, traditional church, education, culture, neighbors, etc. To respond to the Kingdom of God is not very easy.
But everywhere there are some people are seeking peace and ready to obey the Kingdom. Our job is to continue to ask God to reveal for us where those people are located so that we can reach and make them disciples. Colossians 4:5-6.
The other important point is to remember never to get people involved in DBS before helping them to understand the goal of Discovery Bible Study. The goals are as follows 1. To help the lost to know God 2. To help the saved (those who know God) to obey Him. Never do the DBS until the participants understand why you are doing it otherwise it’s just the normal Bible reading which does not help in any way.
Remember what this image says: not obedient = not disciples
