The last command Jesus gave the church before he ascended to heaven was the Great Commission, the call for Christians to "make disciples of all the nations." But Christians have responded by making "Christians," not "disciples." This, according to brilliant scholar and renowned Christian thinker Dallas Willard, has been the church's Great Omission. "The word disciple occurs 269 times in the New Testament," writes Willard. " Christian is found three times and was first introduced to refer precisely to disciples of Jesus. . . . The New Testament is a book about disciples, by disciples, and for disciples of Jesus Christ. But the point is not merely verbal. What is more important is that the kind of life we see in the earliest church is that of a special type of person. All of the assurances and benefits offered to humankind in the gospel evidently presuppose such a life and do not make realistic sense apart from it. The disciple of Jesus is not the deluxe or heavy-duty model of the Christian -- especially padded, textured, streamlined, and empowered for the fast lane on the straight and narrow way. He or she stands on the pages of the New Testament as the first level of basic transportation in the Kingdom of God." Willard boldly challenges the thought that we can be Christians without being disciples, or call ourselves Christians without applying this understanding of life in the Kingdom of God to every aspect of life on earth. He calls on believers to restore what should be the heart of Christianity -- being active disciples of Jesus Christ. Willard shows us that in the school of life, we are apprentices of the Teacher whose brilliance encourages us to rise above traditional church understanding and embrace the true meaning of discipleship -- an active, concrete, 24/7 life with Jesus.

魏樂德（Dallas Willard）從總愛纏著大人問「為什麼」的男孩，到南加州大學的哲學系教授。從常問主日學老師怪問題的毛頭小子，到著名的基督徒講員與作家。從帶著柏拉圖讀物耕作的青年農夫，到年輕人信任請益的屬靈智者。魏樂德，這位腦袋裝滿豐富知識的學術鬼才，不僅是一位思想清晰、真誠的基督教靈修學大師，也是一位勇於挑戰大眾神學觀點的頑童。無論在學術還是神學領域，他都是一名革命性的人物。或許是「革命精神」使然，其著作總是為基督教界帶來強烈的震撼。中譯代表作為：《品格的革命》（Revolution of Character）、《上帝的聲音》（Hearing God）、《靈性操練真諦》（The Spirit of the Disciplines）、《天天聽見神》（Hearing God Through the Year），以上皆由校園出版；《心靈的重塑》（Renovation of the Heart；天道）、《神聖的約定》（The Divine Conspiracy；中主）。關於他的哲學及神學著作的詳盡資料，可至下列網址查詢：www.dwillard.org.