Thursday | 06 August 2026

Disciple-messengers

In the symbolism of the lampstand, the bud represents a disciple-messenger who is sent to look for worthy houses. The flower represents a congregation of worthy houses that are the fruit of the ministry of the disciple-messenger.

Notably, during His earthly ministry, Jesus laid the foundation for a lampstand church that would become the light of the world once He had departed from the world. He did this in three stages. These three stages reveal the pattern of how the branch of a lampstand church grows from the calyx to the bud to the flower. First, revealing the principle of the calyx, Jesus taught His own disciples. He may have spent approximately eighteen months, or more, teaching the twelve disciples before He sent them to look for worthy houses.

It may have been a further twelve months before He sent the seventy-two disciples to also look for worthy houses. We know that the seventy-two were sent in the final season of His ministry once He had set His face toward Jerusalem for His offering journey. Luk 9:53. Regardless of the exact time frames, there was certainly a season of discipleship before Jesus sent the twelve and the seventy-two to look for worthy houses. Once they had been sent as disciple-messengers by Christ, they were revealing the principle of the bud. 

The fruit of the ministry of the twelve disciples and the seventy-two disciples was a large group of worthy houses. The house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus was one of those houses in the town of Bethany. It is likely that the 500 brethren to whom Jesus appeared at one time, after His resurrection, were the representatives from all the worthy houses that had been established during His earthly ministry. 1Co 15:6. After the Day of Pentecost, all of those worthy houses became foundational to the fellowship of the lampstand church in the region of Judea. Many of those houses would have been part of the first flower on the central branch of the lampstand in Jerusalem.