I came across this quadrant on Instagram a while back. It was on an @RichVillodas Instagram story and I took a screenshot of it. I believe he was preparing this for a talk he was giving and shared a slide that he was working on. I’m not sure if he came up with this himself or if he got it from another person, so please forgive me if I didn’t attribute this concept to the correct author. However, I did want to share this with others to help give language to the different spectrums people fall into.

 

The basic concept of this quadrant is to show the correlation between our acceptance and obedience to Christ in our lives. I’ve heard other language for this described as the difference between obeying Jesus as Lord and accepting Him as Savior. When we understand Jesus as our Savior, we have high acceptance for Him in our lives. We love Jesus and what He did on the cross for us and believe in Him. When we understand Jesus as our Lord, we have high obedience for Him in our lives. This means that we live out our faith through our actions of obedience to Him. Jesus calls us to love Him because He first loved us, and He also commands obedience of us. This is apprenticeship.

 

It’s only when we start to have a low obedience or low acceptance that we start to drift off track in our apprenticeship. When we have high acceptance and low obedience, we just become fans of Jesus. We love what he did for us on the cross, but don’t want to live a transformed life. I already talked about this concept in a recent blog called Too Many Vampire Christians. When we have low acceptance and high obedience, we become legalistic in our approach. This person is driven by fear of failure to earn God’s grace, so they try their best on their own to live a holy life without abiding in Christ. The last category is basically a functional atheist. I don’t think I need to explain that one.

 

This quadrant can help us disciple others in a big way. Some people who are struggling with legalistic tendencies don’t need a prescription for spiritual disciplines to practice more in their life. They actually need to understand that Jesus paid it all on the cross and He desires for us to abide with Him, not just do things for him. They need to read Ephesians 2:8 where it says “we are saved by grace, through faith.” On the opposite spectrum, some may not have a concept for actually doing what Jesus told us to do. They think they can enjoy His costly forgiveness and have nothing to do with Him. This person needs to be introduced to the spiritual practices to put their faith into action. They need to read James 2:26 where it is emphasized that “faith without works is dead.”

 

I believe that understanding this quadrant will help people see where they are where they need to change. Many people would say they are a disciple, but are on another quadrant based off of how they live our their acceptance and obedience. I think there are more people in the American-western church who are on the “Jesus-fan” side. Everyone wants a Savior, but no one wants a Lord.