Friday, September 22, 2023

Listen to the Word

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:18-20)

From a grammatical standpoint, in the Greek in which Matthew was originally written, the focus of Jesus’ words in the Great Commission is the command to make disciples. All of the other instructions (the going, baptizing, and teaching) grammatically and theologically hang on that one. Job #1 that Jesus gives to his followers is to lead others to embrace a life with Jesus – a life as his student and apprentice. A disciple is a person under new management. A disciple is someone who says to Jesus, “I want you to show me how to live. I want to learn from you and do what you say.”

Many churches assume that the great commission is about convincing folks that they need to get in on God’s fire insurance policy. But Jesus is interested in more than getting people into heaven when they die. He wants to get heaven into them while they live. He wants them to embrace life as his disciples. And he commissions us to invite all kinds of people to do just that.

Live the Word

Tell Jesus that your number one goal today is to live as his disciple, learning from him how to live as he would live if he were in your place.