Purposeful Discipleship
by Lisa Coleman

What does the word ‘Purposeful’ evoke in your mind upon hearing it? I think of the ad campaign by Nike. Just do it. So, athletes are a group we associate with being purposeful. Deliberate. Single minded. Focused. Can you think of some other adjectives?

Innovators and entrepreneurs are another group I would designate as purposeful. Goal-oriented. Task-driven. Mothers most definitely qualify. Students might have a syllabus outlining their purpose for the class. Many colleges offer course maps outlining the task of a four, six or even eight-year degree program. Very purposeful and perhaps daunting!

As is often the case, there can be a negative side to purpose driven. One young man, being reared in a hostile and unhealthy environment, had a goal of killing someone before he himself turned twenty-one. Certainly this is misguided and tragic purposeful drive.

There is self-serving type of purpose we can see in the story of Samuel Peirpont Langley. Have you ever heard of him? Likely not. Most people don’t know about Samuel Pierpont Langley.

In the early 20th century, many people were pursuing the dream of flight and Langley had, what we assume, to be the recipe for success. Langley was given $50,000 by the War Department to figure out this flying machine. Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard and worked at the Smithsonian and was extremely well-connected; he knew all the big minds of the day. He hired the best minds money could find and the market conditions were fantastic. The New York Times followed him around everywhere, and everyone was rooting for Langley. Then, how come we’ve never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley?

A few hundred miles away in Dayton, Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, had none of what we consider to be the recipe for success. They had no money; they paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycle shop. Not a single person on the Wright brothers’ team had a college education, not even Orville or Wilbur. And The New York Times followed them around nowhere.

The difference was, Orville and Wilbur were driven by a cause, by a purpose, by a belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying machine, it would change the course of the world. Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He wanted to be rich, and he wanted to be famous. He was in pursuit of the result. He was in pursuit of the riches. And lo and behold, look what happened.

The people who believed in the Wright brothers’ dream worked with them with blood and sweat and tears. The others just worked for the paycheck. They tell stories of how every time the Wright brothers went out, they would have to take five sets of parts, because that’s how many times they would crash before supper. And, eventually, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight, and no one was there to even experience it. We found out about it a few days later.

And further proof that Langley was motivated by the wrong thing: the day the Wright brothers took flight, he quit. He could have said, “That’s an amazing discovery, guys, and I will improve upon your technology,” but he didn’t. He wasn’t first, he didn’t get rich, he didn’t get famous, so he quit.  Source: Simon Sinek, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” TED Talk (Accessed 4/3/21)

Can we differentiate the above examples of purpose driven individuals and those we will study in Acts 13:1 – 14:25? Were early disciples more like the Wright’s or more like Langley? Did they quit or did they press on despite the challenges? Did their vision take flight? Join us tomorrow for our study about Purposeful Discipleship and find out.

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If you cannot be with us in person, feel free to download the Bible study materials for your personal use by following one of these links: PowerPoint Slides, PDF File. You can also find the video of this session on our YouTube channel soon after the meeting concludes. And lastly, you could follow this link to download other studies in this series: INpowered Discipleship if you happened to miss one of our prior studies.

Yours in Christ,

Eric Glover   
The Gospels Class     
Brentwood Baptist Church