by Johnny Kerr
One of the many annual rhythms that comes with my vocation as a high school teacher is proctoring state assessments each Spring. As my colleague and I neared the end of our 2023 assessment duties, all of the students in our room had finished. However, we were required to stay and silently wait out the clock. After being confined to that room for almost six hours I was so bored that I was literally reading the dictionary.
To my delight, there was a rather interesting essay in the front of that volume on the origins of the English language. I learned about some of the early structural evolutions of our language that helped make words more versatile–the widespread use of prefixes and suffixes, for example. Although much of the language from that period is not very recognizable by today’s English standards, it does give us some insight into the way certain ideas were understood, expressed, and carried forward.
The author cited specific examples of a particular linguistic development that took place during the Middle-English period–the use of compound words. Having spent the last 18 months or so developing the Common Union Initiative, a discipleship curriculum for Axiom church, I found one example from the essay particularly intriguing:
Besides using many prefixes and suffixes, it made compounds freely, such as larhus (lore-house) for school, learning-cniht (learning-knight) for disciple, fotadl (foot-pain) for gout, ban-cofa (bone-chamber) for body, etc. Some of them had a strong poetic effect, such as whale-path or swan’s road as names for the sea. (Read, viii)
Apparently, before our word ‘disciple’ was pilfered from Latin and French sources, there was a period when the compound leorning-cniht (learning-knight) was used to express the idea of a devoted follower of Jesus. Further online research provided some alternates, such as leorningċild (learning-child/youth), but that was more appropriate for describing a student than a disciple and did not catch on in this context. Others of the same period went a different route, borrowing words from various languages such as the Proto-West Germanic gingra, meaning vassal or follower. Although more succinct, ‘gingra’ doesn’t quite have the same “umph”, does it? Ultimately, the Latin and French derivative we now know as ‘disciple’ would later gain popularity and become more permanently adopted.
A Disciple from the South - Photogravure from 'La Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ' by J. James Tissot, French (1896-97)
All words lose and gain meaning depending on their use and popularity in a given place and time. Slang words are a good example of this. “That movie was sick!” could mean very different things coming from a 25-year-old versus a 65-year-old. Some words survive despite a lack of widespread cultural use. Jargon words, for example, may be quite common within a specific group while virtually absent from broader culture. However, even jargon is not exempt from losing meaning over time. Oversaturation in any context seems to eventually water down the meaning of our words. Americans, for example, have certainly watered down the word ‘love’ by using it to express our affinity for everything from a favorite song to our closest companions.
The word ‘disciple’ doesn’t get much use in modernity outside of Christian communities, but it seems to have lost much of its meaning even among Christians. Dallas Willard makes a convincing case for this in his book, The Great Omission. The Bible is full of mysterious sayings, but Jesus’ language is quite clear in the Great Commission. He commands his followers to “make disciples, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey my commands” (Matthew 28). ‘Learning-knight’ isn’t such a bad description of this.
Military conquest throughout history has brought unspeakable atrocities by the hands of American, British, Roman, and other human civilizations. The fact that these antichrist activities were often perpetrated under the banner of Christ–with the church publicly ordaining them in collusion with the state–is worth careful consideration. For that reason, I’m not generally a fan of militaristic metaphors. At the same time, I do believe in spiritual warfare. In that context, perhaps ‘learning-knight’ adds some much needed “teeth” to our modern understanding of discipleship. To further test whether or not ‘learning-knight’ is an appropriate expression of discipleship, we need look no further than Ephesians 6:10-13 where Paul takes the military metaphor to the extreme with visuals of a soldier’s armor representing faith, truth, righteousness, etc.
Going forward, I suspect ‘learning knight’ will forever color my understanding of discipleship, provided we get our definitions of ‘knight’ and ‘warfare’ from the heart of Jesus rather than the ways and histories of the world. At the end of the day, language is just a metaphor to help express complex ideas. Some concepts are simply too big for one metaphor to fully hold. As such, all metaphors have a breaking point. Since no one metaphor could possibly capture all of the richness and nuance of discipleship, it is up to us to steward its meaning well in Christian community and obedience to Christ. In that spirit, I’ll leave you with some parting reflections that hopefully bring out the best of several attempts at describing discipleship throughout the history of our language.
The Dance of Death at Basel: Death and the Knight - Lithograph by G. Danzer after Hieronymus Hess, Swiss (1842)
Leorning-cniht (learning-knight)
Knighthood is a special honor-responsibility bestowed to one who has met specific criteria through training and service. Knighthood even comes with a special ceremony, much like baptism for a follower of Jesus. But you don’t become a knight simply by saying yes. Knights are more than mere foot soldiers. Traditionally, knights earn their title by submitting themselves in service to an established knight or regiment to undergo rigorous life-skill training. In the best cases, there is also an established expectation of character and conduct that comes with being an honored representative of the kingdom you serve (chivalry, for example). Similarly, Jesus asks us to “come under [His] yoke and learn from [Him] (Matthew 11).
To be clear, there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation–that is a free gift of love and grace from our Heavenly Father. But there is an expectation of readiness and obedience. In Ephesians 6, Paul gives us practical examples for how to ready ourselves. A knight is not a knight without their skill and armor to protect them from the enemy’s attacks. The path of discipleship means engaging in spiritual warfare, and one should not step onto a battlefield that one has not prepared or dressed for.
Leorningċild (learning-child)
Jesus tells his disciples that they must “become like little children” to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 18). Children are full of wonder and curiosity, eager to learn about the world around them. In a healthy family, children know that their parents have their best interests in mind and generally trust that their parents will teach them and care for them. This is both humbling and reassuring. Maturity is the responsibility of both parent and child, and the ratio of responsibility–along with the roles a child plays in his or her family and community–change with maturity. Although this particular language may not feel as empowering as knighthood, it is nevertheless an important key to understanding the richness of discipleship.
Gingra (Proto-West Germanic for vassal: subordinate or follower)
This one may perhaps carry a mild sting for Americans. Because freedom is the preeminent value in American culture, words like ‘submission’, ‘subordinate’, and ‘surrender’ tend to leave a bad taste in our mouths. This is likely true for all humans, but perhaps especially for Americans. In any case, that doesn’t exempt us from submitting to Christ. We simply must decide whether we are going to align our allegiances with the kingdom of America or the Kingdom of God. If we are truly subordinate to Jesus and His Way, there will likely be times we must act insubordinate to the ways of culture and country. If we are subordinate to America, we will most likely find ourselves insubordinate to Jesus at times. Jesus is quite clear that one cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6).
Discipulus (Latin for student, learner, or follower) and Deciple (French for follower)
Christ calls us to take up our cross, to be followers and imitators of Him. Jesus modeled this throughout His Earthly ministry as He claimed to do nothing apart from what He sees the Father doing (John 5). From this example, we live and teach others. Even though our American sensibilities may recoil at the idea of submission or surrender, as followers of Jesus we confess that following Him is the only Way to true freedom from sin and death.
References
Read, Allen Walker. A Brief History of the English Language. Funk & Wagnalls Standard English Dictionary, by Funk & Wagnalls Publishing Company, Inc., 1973, viii.
"leorningcild" – WordSense Online Dictionary (25th April, 2023) URL: https://www.wordsense.eu/leornungcniht/
Bosworth, Joseph. “gingra.” In An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller, Christ Sean, and Ondřej Tichy. Prague: Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2014. https://bosworthtoller.com/50802.