Discipling All Nations: Understanding the Great Commission
- Jul 27, 2015
- 3 min read
I remember a very sad discussion that I had with a pastor a while back. His heart had been stirred by Jesus' mandate known commonly as the Great Commission (see Matthew 28:16-20). The entire church he worked for was restructuring around their conception of what this command meant to them. However, he described to me how he had decided, after many years as a pastor, that he was no longer that concerned about people's personal choices and lifestyle–he just wanted them to "serve." In his mind, it was pointless to question whether husbands treated their wives with respect, or whether or not someone was on the fringe of alcoholism or adultery, he just wanted them to serve in the church, and then, he thought that they might embrace a healthy and moral lifestyle after that.
But this doesn't sit well with me for a few reasons. Firstly, I just read an article about a large church in my region that has performed tremendous work for the poor and needy over the years, but now, will probably cease to exist because their lead pastor is going to spend the majority of the rest of his life in prison for raping a girl. He spent years pouring himself out for the needy, but it did nothing to heal the brokenness and hurt inside of him. In part, it was the fact that no one was holding him accountable for his moral choices and lifestyle that caused him to steal the innocence of a girl younger than fifteen years old. I could list a hundred other examples like this, indicating that the "just serve" model of discipleship is not only ineffective, but also dangerous.
But I have other concerns as well. I think we have missed the point of the Great Commission. Most Christians define this charge as simply preaching the Gospel in every place on the earth, but this assumption is mistaken. Look again at what Jesus commands his disciples to do. First, we are called to baptize the peoples of the world, meaning that after an individual has received the true Gospel in repentance and faith (i.e. a tangible change of heart, mind, and will to live as Abba intended), confessing that Jesus is Lord, we submerge these new believers in water, initiating them into the covenant-community known as the church (Classic Christianity, Thomas Oden; Acts 2:37-41).
However, we can't stop there. We are called to disciple the "nations," which is a reference to all the people groups of the earth. This means that we do not simply compel people to respond to an altar call, and instruct them to say a simple prayer. We must commit to individuals and whole communities, using teaching, fellowship, prayer, and the spiritual gifts to mature them into the "fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:11-14). Lastly, the Great Commission exhorts us to teach and call the nations to follow Jesus' commandments. The Kingdom of God is not a shallow spiritual concept. It represents the total rule of God, which must manifest itself in the way we act. We cannot compromise on this point, and undermine all of the joy, justice, love, and harmony that Jesus' kingdom is meant to provide.
With this clear picture of what the Great Commission actually entails, we discover that fulfilling it may not be as simple as some would suggest. It also means, in contrast to what my pastor friend has decided, that we cannot simply preach the Gospel, and then abandon people to their brokenness, sin, and emptiness. In fact, for those who would do this, we have to wonder if the gospel they are preaching is really good news at all, and whether or not it has anything to do with the good news–the Gospel–of the Kingdom of God. The Great Commission is not simply a call to preach, hand out Bibles, and conduct evangelism in every city and village on earth. We have to disciple and teach the peoples of the earth, utilizing all of the gifts and resources that God has granted us, restoring the nations to genuine humanity in union with Messiah Jesus.
Comments