What is Discipleship

 

Thank you for visiting my blog. It is a privilege to share these insights with you, and I hope you find them encouraging. Teleios’ mission is to demonstrate the truth of the Bible through scientific research and to provide practical tools that build scriptural understanding and confidence.

 

Recently, we conducted a survey exploring how young Christian’s view Bible study and discipleship. We received responses from 822 participants:

• 25% were under 18;
• 55 % were between 18–30;
• Half lived outside the United States;
• 80% identified as evangelical; and
• 85% said they were saved by grace.

You can read the full findings here: https://teleiosresearch.com/what-are-young-christians-bible-study-habits/.

From this research, several fascinating themes emerged—especially around the question: What is discipleship?

 

🧭 How Young Christians Define Discipleship

 

The most common response (62%) was “seeking God the best way I know how.”

 

This is an interesting and heartfelt answer, but it differs from the historical and biblical meaning of discipleship.

Traditionally, a disciple is a learner or follower of a teacher, leader, or philosopher.

 

The Greek word used in the New Testament—mathētēs (μαθητής)—literally means a learner or pupil. Christ’s disciples learned directly from Him, and the New Testament gives additional examples such as Paul mentoring Timothy.

 

Biblically, then, discipleship implies direction, instruction, and guidance—not simply self‑directed spiritual effort.

 

👥 What Our Participants Chose Next

 

More aligned with the biblical definition, participants also selected:

• Being taught by a more mature Christian (50%)
• Being part of a small group (40%) 

Both can be effective when they are grounded in Scripture and led by someone who understands the Bible well.

 

Mentoring—our modern term for guided discipleship—remains especially valuable for young believers. It is difficult to navigate the Christian life efficiently without someone to help you begin well.

 

Less common responses included:

• Having a prayer partner (40%)
• Having an accountability partner (30%)

These can be helpful, but only when the partner is spiritually mature. When both individuals are young in the faith, it can become a “blind leading the blind” situation.

 

⚠️ A Word of Wisdom

 

Your time is precious. Seek out resources and mentors who can help you grow in biblical knowledge efficiently and faithfully. Strong guidance early in your Christian walk can help you serve God more effectively—and avoid avoidable pitfalls in career, family, and marriage.

 

Thank you again for reading. Join us next week as we explore more insights from Teleios research.

 

William C. Stewart, MD

 

Email – info@teleiosresearch.com

Website – http://teleiosresearch.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TeleiosResearch

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TeleiosVideos

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@teleiostiktok

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/teleiosresearch

 

Disclaimer – This blog and its content are provided only as information and are intended for visitors 18 and older. No content on the website should be taken as advice or recommendation to any personal or institutional situation. The views expressed are those of the author alone and not necessarily either shared or endorsed by Teleios. Both the blog and the contents are subject to change at any time without notice. Although I endeavor to ensure that the blog and the content are current and accurate, it may contain errors. I do not represent that the blog or the content is current, accurate or complete, or appropriate for your specific requirements. I do not accept any liability from any person for the blog, the content or any other information (or the use of such information) I provide. I do not have a seminary degree, but I have trained myself in the scriptures to teach and provide this information. For any specific question, I suggest you contact experts in that field and/or do your own research into the scriptures.

 

 

Can you find the gospel online?

 

We often ask students, whom we have the privilege to teach, where to find Bible related information. The automatic answer these days is to use an online search or AI since they are fast and convenient. However, websites are written by different authors, and the person writing may not hold a biblical view of Christianity.

 

Christian related websites are probably safe for material nouns such as person, places or things. For example, the tomb of Jeremiah or the temple in Jerusalem. However, great care is needed when searching theological topics such as salvation by faith and security of salvation. Despite these concerns little hard evidence exists, to our knowledge, if Christian websites provide either accurate or misleading theologically related information. 

 

Teleios recently evaluated the accuracy of websites in presenting biblically related information by searching the term ‘gospel’. We assessed if the plan of salvation, as described in the Bible, was presented accurately and clearly. We included the first 55 websites that appeared in order. To emulate a person searching for the contents of the gospel we limited the time on each linked website to one minute to determine if the gospel message could be clearly found. Read more data from this study at https://teleiosresearch.com/gospel-online/. 

 

The study assessed the presence of the four basic elements of the gospel message from Romans 3:23-26 and Ephesians 2:8-9 on each site provided by the online search:

1. Everyone has sinned.
2. God is just and requires a punishment for sin.
3. Out of love God sent His Son, Jesus Christ who by dying on the cross, provided forgiveness for your sins by taking your punishment for you.
4. Therefore, by faith alone in Christ’s sacrifice for your sins and belief in His resurrection, you can gain eternal life.

 

These four points were found in 22 (40%) sites. Incomplete or no gospel information was found on 27 (49%) sites and doctrinal errors were found on 6 (11%) sites (4 added works to salvation while 2 minimized the importance of the substitutionary death of Christ). Of the 22 (40%) sites that correctly presented the gospel, we judged the 4-step plan to salvation was easily found and understood within one minute on 9 (16%) sites.

 

This study shows for someone who searches for ‘how to become a Christian’ using a popular search engine with the term ‘gospel’, the plan of salvation is easily found and understood within one minute in about one-sixth of sites.

 

Further, in searching online for the gospel:

1.  It may take some persistence and surveying a number of websites before finding the gospel correctly stated.
2. Many sites are verbose, and information is difficult to find.
3. Some sites have doctrinal errors or incomplete information which may be confusing.

Consequently, the seeker might need to confirm the information found online with a knowledgeable Christian friend, pastor or by comparing to other websites. Also, they might compare the website information directly with scripture using a search function as in e-Sword (https://e-sword.net/). 

 

This study was limited to one question, although a very important one. More research is needed to determine more completely the advantages and disadvantages of internet search engine queries for a Christian studying scripture. 

 

Please visit our website, we devoted specifically to the gospel - The Gospel | Teleios (teleiosgospel.com). 

 

William C. Stewart, MD

Email – info@teleiosresearch.com

Website – http://teleiosresearch.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TeleiosResearch

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/TeleiosResearch

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TeleiosVideos

X - https://x.com/TeleiosTweets

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@teleiostiktok

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/teleiosresearch

 

Disclaimer – This blog and its content are provided only as information and are intended for visitors 18 and older. No content on the website should be taken as advice or recommendation to any personal or institutional situation. The views expressed are those of the author alone and not necessarily either shared or endorsed by Teleios. Both the blog and the contents are subject to change at any time without notice. Although I endeavor to ensure that the blog and the content are current and accurate, it may contain errors. I do not represent that the blog or the content is current, accurate or complete, or appropriate for your specific requirements. I do not accept any liability from any person for the blog, the content or any other information (or the use of such information) I provide. I do not have a seminary degree, but I have trained myself in the scriptures to teach and provide this information. For any specific question, I suggest you contact experts in that field and/or do your own research into the scriptures.

 

 

Ways the Holy Spirit helps our Christian walk!

 

Welcome back to my blog. Thank you for visiting today. 

 

Teleios recently surveyed the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives in 475 young participants. Wow, we received some amazing answers! See full results here - Holy Spirit influence on Christians’ lives.

 

The Holy Spirit is a very important, yet controversial and often emotional, topic. However, often people generally lack knowledge of what scripture teaches about the Spirit. We are covering some pertinent topics over the Spirit, examining what scripture alone says.

 

I generally breakdown scriptures handling of the Spirit for the New Testament Church into three basic realms: 

• The Spirit’s work in Salvation 
• The Spirit's role in our Christian walk 
•  The Christian’s duties to the Spirit. 

Today let's examine the most common responses from our participants regarding how the Spirit helps in our Christian walk (please see table).

What the Bible says

 

The scripture states that the Spirit plays a vital and active role in believers’ lives, and can divided into two basic types:

 

Constant roles - The Spirit has several constant roles not dependent on us:

• Points to Christ – The Spirit glorifies Christ, and gives and teaches us the information our Savior has given to him (John 16:13-14; 1 John 2:20,27)
• Indwells us – Remember, we learned last week that the Spirit indwells us completely until the day of our redemption so we have full access to His power and help. 
• Prays for us (Romans 8:26) - This great truth indicates the Spirit prays on our behalf to God. What better source of prayer could we have?

 

Believer dependent roles - However, importantly there are roles for which the Spirit assists us that are variable and depend upon our obedience. Two passages are critical to understand the Spirit’s help for us:

 

Romans 8:13-16,26

• Stops sin (V.13) - As we are obedient the Spirit helps us put to death the deeds of the flesh.
• Leads us (V.14) - Christians commonly believe this biblical concept but we should understand how He leads. In short, the Spirit use God’s word (please see below passage in Ephesians 6). Indeed, the Bible often tells us to be people of knowledge and understanding, for example in Paul’s prayers for us (Ephesians 1:17; Colossians 1:9). 
• We are God's children (V.16) - The Spirit comforts us that we belong to God and not to be anxious over our eternal security 

 

Ephesians 6:10-17 - The magnificent armor of God passage is critical to understanding our Christian walk because it instructs us how to access God’s power by describing a Greek hoplite soldier and his armament. Often Christians wonder how they can know the power of God. These great verses describe it! However, it is also important in showing the role of the Spirit because His mighty actions are linked to each of the pieces of armor in other scripture.

• Truth (our belt to prepare us V.14) - Living in truth is a fruit of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:9) and prepares our mind to making proper decisions and actions.
• Righteousness (our breastplate V.14) - A fruit of the Spirit is a holy heart that is set apart to serve God and perceives and rejects sin (Ephesians 5:9)
• Share the gospel (the shoes to carry us to battle V.15) - By telling others the message of salvation we see the power of God to change others and positively affect our society, which is assisted by the Spirit (Romans 1:16-17; 2 Timothy 1:7; John 16:8-11).
• Faith (our shield V.16) - A fruit of the Spirit also is faith in which we make all decisions and God desires from us (Galatians 5:22,23; Romans 14:23).
• Eternal security (our helmet V.17) - The sound knowledge of our security of salvation protects our heads as we face troubles in this world and its function is from the Spirit (Romans 15:13)
• The Bible (our sword V.17) - The power of God we experience in our Christian walk is through the action of the Spirit in accordance to the Bible.

Wow what great truths! These passages tell us how the Spirit acts in our lives to cause us to please God and to experience His power.

 

Join us again next week as we describe what are our responsibilities are to the Spirit so He's free to act in our lives as described above. Join us again then. Thank you for visiting this week.

 

William C. Stewart, MD

 

Email – info@teleiosresearch.com

Website – http://teleiosresearch.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TeleiosResearch

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/TeleiosResearch

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TeleiosVideos

X - https://x.com/TeleiosTweets

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@teleiostiktok

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/teleiosresearch

 

Disclaimer – This blog and its content are provided only as information and are intended for visitors 18 and older. No content on the website should be taken as advice or recommendation to any personal or institutional situation. The views expressed are those of the author alone and not necessarily either shared or endorsed by Teleios. Both the blog and the contents are subject to change at any time without notice. Although I endeavor to ensure that the blog and the content are current and accurate, it may contain errors. I do not represent that the blog or the content is current, accurate or complete, or appropriate for your specific requirements. I do not accept any liability from any person for the blog, the content or any other information (or the use of such information) I provide. I do not have a seminary degree, but I have trained myself in the scriptures to teach and provide this information. For any specific question, I suggest you contact experts in that field and/or do your own research into the scriptures.

 

 

Something on which to meditate

 

Welcome back to my blog. Thank you for taking time to read it. 

 

We have been discussing the exciting research findings from Teleios! Over the past several weeks we have shown that peer-reviewed medical literature and Teleios scientific studies support improved wellbeing with Christianity in both healthy individuals and those suffering with disease! 

 

Today let us explore meditation versus church attendance. Why do that? The world constantly tries to replace God with something they consider just as good, but consistent with their goals. Their biggest desire is to replace God with the state where everyone is individually tethered to the government for their life’s sustenance. 

 

On a more personal level, the world often encourages the practice of meditation as a help to wellbeing. We see this in advertisements, particularly from drug companies, who wish to depict people in some pastoral setting maintaining some impossible postural stance, supposedly taking the company’s new medicine, and enjoying good wellbeing! Of course, God or prayer would never be considered in such ads.

 

Further, meditation is frequently used in the medical literature as a secular method to increase wellbeing for patients and at the same time avoid suggesting or endorsing religion.¹ However, surveys show individuals who attend church, at least occasionally, and the vast majority believe God exists. Our culture generally does not live in fields doing slow motion exercises as depicted on drug advertising. Accordingly, we reviewed the medical literature to compare the effect of meditation to church attendance on wellbeing in physically healthy subjects. 

 

Our review included 37 articles and showed that several types of meditation practices, and church attendance of a variety of denominations, provided improved general wellbeing among physically healthy populations (read more details here https://teleiosresearch.com/church-attendance-meditation-wellbeing/).  

 

However, such a simple solution as replacing religion with meditation has several potential problems:

• Meditation is a religiously based practice derived from Hinduism.² Therefore, the practice of meditation does not completely avoid religion.
• The long-term effect of meditation over a person’s lifetime has not been well studied. In contrast, historically, people that attended church their whole lives have done so without known general detrimental clinical effects.  
• Meditation only is practiced by approximately 9% of individuals in the United States; whereas church attendance is a foundational institution in American culture, attended by 70% (at least once monthly to yearly).^3,4
• Christian church attendance is associated with other specific findings, not associated with meditation, which might positively contribute to general wellbeing such as: 
• Community service
• Prayer
•  Socialization
• Praise
• Confidence in a positive relationship with God based in a biblical definition of eternal life as a free gift through faith in Christ’s sacrifice.^5-8

• Further, improved wellbeing is associated with adherence to the Christian walk.  
• The articles we reviewed did not differentiate the quality of Christian practice of participants, as church attendance is only one activity. Teleios has shown those who adhere more closely to their Christian faith have improved wellbeing. Accordingly, such practices might lead to improved wellbeing over what meditation would allow. A well-designed prospective study would be needed to show this. 
• In contrast, the several medical studies that have showed religion had no positive impact on wellbeing, the practice of the patients’ religion was internal (self-focused) much like meditation is by nature. Christianity at its heart is a service and love for others.

 

Our review of the medical literature suggests meditation and church attendance may offer a benefit to wellbeing. However, the complete practice of Christianity, which may include church attendance, generally provides better wellbeing than church attendance alone.  

 

1.     https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=meditation+well-being

2.     http://www.religionfacts.com/hinduism/practices  

3.     https://nccih.nih.gov/research/statistics/NHIS/2012/mind-body/meditation

4.     http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/13/what-surveys-say-about-worship-attendance-and-why-some-stay-home/

5.     https://teleiosresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/CV-TELEIOS-GCC-I-CTCP-2013.pdf

6.     https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12848838/

7.     https://archive.org/details/basictheology0000ryri

8.     https://teleiosresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/CV-TELEIOS-GCC-II-CMHJ-2013.pdf

 

William C. Stewart, MD

 

Email – info@teleiosresearch.com

Website – http://teleiosresearch.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TeleiosResearch

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/TeleiosResearch

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TeleiosVideos

X - https://x.com/TeleiosTweets

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@teleiostiktok

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/teleiosresearch

 

Disclaimer – This blog and its content are provided only as information and are intended for visitors 18 and older. No content on the website should be taken as advice or recommendation to any personal or institutional situation. The views expressed are those of the author alone and not necessarily either shared or endorsed by Teleios. Both the blog and the contents are subject to change at any time without notice. Although I endeavor to ensure that the blog and the content are current and accurate, it may contain errors. I do not represent that the blog or the content is current, accurate or complete, or appropriate for your specific requirements. I do not accept any liability from any person for the blog, the content or any other information (or the use of such information) I provide. I do not have a seminary degree, but I have trained myself in the scriptures to teach and provide this information. For any specific question, I suggest you contact experts in that field and/or do your own research into the scriptures.