Dr Wilkins was born in Glensdale, California and was raised in the Southern California area. Upon graduation from high school he spent three years in the U.S. Army, one year of which he was a squad leader in combat in Viet Nam with the 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade. On December 31, 1970, not long after returning from Viet Nam, he received Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.

He has written numerous essays for scholarly publications and practical articles for ministry publications. His career-long study of Biblical Discipleship makes him an authority on authentic Christian discipleship today.

Professor Wilkins' first book The Concept of Disciple in Matthew's Gospel, was published in an international venue for scholarly work in the New Testament (2nd ed., Discipleship in the Ancient World and Matthew's Gospel [Baker, 1995]). An invited participant in the Matthew Group of the Society of Biblical Literature, and the "Historical Jesus Research Group" of the Institute for Biblical Research, Professor Wilkins also served on the executive boards of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Institute for Biblical Research. His book Following the Master:

A Biblical Theology of Discipleship (Zondervan, 1992) continued his research interest in discipleship. Dr. Wilkins co-edited with his colleague J.P. Moreland an apologetic book on Jesus' earthly life and ministry for informed laypersons entitled Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus (Zondervan, 1995), a finalist for the 1995 Gold Medallion Award. Dr. Wilkins' book, In His Image: Reflecting Christ in Everyday Life (NavPress, 1997), develops discipleship and spiritual formation for lay audiences.

He has written two commentaries that await publication: the Matthew volume for the NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan, 2001), and "Matthew" for the new Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (Zondervan, 2001).

Back

In this session we will see the contrast of Jesus' unique form of discipleship in distinction from other forms found in the ancient world. While other masters gathered a select few followers to prepare them to become a religious elite, Jesus called all men and women into a relationship with Him that would impact every area of their lives as they experienced the reality of the arrival of the Kingdom of God. Jesus rejected elitist conceptions of discipleship, and in the Great Commission He has given to us the responsibility of calling all men and women in all the nations into a relationship with Him that promises transformation of every area of life, not only the religious or ecclesial.

In His Image: Transformation And Formation Into
The Image of Christ
Prof. Dr. Michael Wilkins, USA

The transformation that Jesus promises in a discipleship relationship is nothing other than a radical renovation to become like Him. This session will explore the inside-out transformation that occurs as believers experience the regenerating power of the Spirit of God. This requires a clear understanding of Jesus' incarnational example for all believers that invites us into a relationship with Him, demanding the reality and expectation of being formed in His image. This session will explore the kind of formation that works from the heart to conform our entire person into obedient disciples who reflect Jesus Christ in our everyday world of family, work, and culture.

The Truth That Liberates:
The Power of Authentic Discipleship For All Christians
Prof Dr Michael Wilkins, USA

The people of Jesus’ day hoped for liberation. They experienced political, religious, economic, military, and social oppression. Many came to Jesus expecting that He would provide the kind of liberation that they demanded. Although the arrival of the Kingdom of God promises ultimate liberation from all forms of oppression, it now offers the most radical liberation—from sinful lifestyles that hold people in bondage to the dark forces of this world.

This session will explore how the Truth of God’s Word that Jesus proclaims brings true liberation from the competing words of the world that we encounter on a daily basis.

WORKSHOP

The Non-Negotiables of Authentic Biblical Discipleship
Prof Dr Michael Wilkins, USA

In this session we enter into a study of the essential characteristics or axioms of Biblical discipleship. We might think of these as “non-negotiables.” Not one of them can be excluded, each is rooted in clear Biblical teaching, and each must be employed in conjunction with the others, simultaneously. In this session we will examine these seven non-negotiables of Biblical discipleship and recognize how they contribute to the whole person, the disciple of Jesus who is in the process of becoming like Him.


Personal Transformation Through The Holy Spirit
Prof Dr Michael Wilkins, USA

Jesus gave his life for us, and through the Spirit he gave his life to us. And the wonderful truth is that Jesus' life produces results in his people. These results, or evidences of spiritual life, are a special focus of Jesus' form of discipleship. In an earlier plenary message we saw that Jesus formed his disciples from the inside-out. John's Gospel gives us the three primary characteristics of this inside-out, life-transformation in Jesus' disciples. This session will investigate how these three characteristics set Jesus' disciples apart from all others. As we examine them individually we look not simply to study. We look so that we can understand more clearly the Spirit's labor of love in us, and how to make this a reality in our daily lives.

Partners In The Great Commission,
Guardians Of The Great Omission
Prof Dr Michael Wilkins, USA

The Church around the world faces increasing threats from many quarters—political repression, religious extremism, secularistic relativity, and militaristic totalitarianism. In the light of those threats, Christians in this global community recognize a renewed call to join together as partners in Jesus' Great Commission. However, this is not fully accomplished until we address the "great omission" of the Great Commission, where believers not only claim their identity as Jesus' disciples and are incorporated into the body through baptism, but when they are intentionally taught to obey all that Jesus' commanded. This workshop will explore how that can be accomplished by using Matthew's gospel as a manual on discipleship.

Becoming Like Jesus In The Real World
Prof Dr Michael Wilkins, USA

Discipleship is walking with Jesus in the real world. And the real world is wherever God has placed us to live life the way He intended it to be lived. Walking with Jesus in the real world places us in tune with God’s larger purposes for life. Not only will we be transformed as we become like Jesus, but we will be message-bearers to a waiting world wherever we live and work and play. We can find eternal significance in our occupation that will transform it from simply being a means to earn a living, into our own ministry. We will discover an opportunity in our own families to enter into a discipling partnership with our spouse and to give ourselves to our children to help them become the next generation of Jesus’ disciples. This is the vision that we in ministry must be able to translate to our people so that they become message-bearers to the world in which they live—a world that many of us in ministry will never have opportunity to enter.