This will interest you greatly. I had a virus this holiday season. I did not take an antibiotic. Yes, I know antibiotics are not for viruses. My immune system weakened, I caught a sinus infection. I did take an antibiotic. Both my mother and my mother-in-law informed my wife that I should take all of my prescription. You knew all of this, didn’t you? You knew that antibiotics beat bacteria, not viruses. You knew that overprescribing antibiotics creates the super bacteria that are immune to antibiotics. You knew that you were to take your complete prescription so that you killed the bacteria, not just weakened it so that it came back even stronger later. Why are you reading this when you know so much?
If you knew so much, did you know what Christ told us to do before He left the earth? You say, Yes, the Great Commission. I ask, What’s the Great Commission? You say, Go. I say, No it isn’t. You say, It is too. I say, It is not. Is too, is not, is too, is not (ad infinitum). Matthew 28:19 says, Go and teach. The only verb in Matthew 28:19,20 is the word “teach.” “Go,” “baptize,” and “teach to observe” are all participles. “Teach” is a Greek word which means “to make disciples.” Since you know so much, are you making disciples? Every single believer was told by Christ to make disciples. If you are not doing that, you are not obeying the Great Commission. Are you even making one disciple? Who is it?
You complete your prescription, but do you complete the commission?
We cannot be His disciples if we are not inolve in ‘discipling’ others. Thanks for your post!
Here is a question I have been dying to ask about this. See, I go to what some people might call a “hyperdispensational” church. Trust me, there is nothing hyper about us. We’re yankees. Anyway, wasn’t Jesus talking specifically to the disciples here? Was Jesus telling the disciples to go into “all the world” as we know it today, or was he telling them to go to the scattered jews? I thought that at this point the gentiles had not been “grafted in.” Isn’t the great commission really in Acts chapter 1. Jesus told “apostles that he had chosen” not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the holy spirit. In verse 8 these apostles are told to go to “the uttermost part of the earth. Isn’t this really the great commission for us. Up until this point weren’t the disciples supposed to be witnessing to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt 10).” Isn’t there evidence that Peter wasn’t doing what Acts 1 says and was doing what Matt 28 says (preaching to the Jews only). In Acts 10 Peter has the vision about the “unclean food.” God tells him that it is not unclean. Anyway, please don’t construe this as an argument against witnessing. It absolutely required of us. I just think this is an interesting question. Any thoughts?
I don’t think these passages compartmentalize themselves so much. In a sense, what Christ wanted His disciples to do was what He wanted Jonah to do. The prophecy in Isaiah 9:1,2 says that Jesus Himself was a light to a land of Gentiles (nations), speaking of Galilee, which after the Assyrian and Roman invasions was very Gentile. He gave the Great Commission of Matthew 28 in Galilee. Anyway, my point was mainly practical, that the Great Commission is not “Go,” but “make disciples.” Most professing believers are not involved in making a disciple. Thanks for your comments.
The Great Commission is found in all four Gospels and in Acts chapter one. They are not different commissions, but each one does present the Commission in from a different perspective.