Unfortunately, what has been taught
and ingrained into our minds are only a few words of the
entire commission. What does it actually say?
Matthew 28:18-20: 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."
From these verses we find the need for
evangelism - we are to go into the world. However, there is
more to the Great Commission than just proclaiming the
gospel. In other words, even if we get a person inside the
doors of the church, our work isn’t over.
We are told that we are to make
disciples. If we are to make disciples, we need to know and
understand what exactly a disciple is. Literally a disciple
is a student. The disciples were being told to make more of
themselves - to make more students.
And how do you make someone a student?
You must teach them. Jesus told his disciples to teach
others to obey everything he taught them. Likewise, we are
to teach others to obey what Jesus taught.
An interesting side note to this
passage is that the disciples were disciples no longer after
this point. After this point they are apostles. An apostle
is someone who has been sent with a commission. The apostles
would still learn but it would be by the Holy Spirit. They
would no longer be taught by Jesus.
We, on the other hand, have a dual
task. We too have been commissioned and are to make
disciples. But we haven’t learned all that there is to
learn. This makes a sort of difficult problem with a fairly
easy solution. How can we make disciples while we are still
disciples?
The answer to this problem is that we
disciple someone who is a less mature Christian than us.
This can be a recent convert or someone who has known the
Lord for a long time but simply never grown much
spiritually. On the other hand, we should be learning from a
more mature Christian, whether that is the pastor or another
leader in the church.
How does this tie into evangelism? By
now, you have hopefully picked up on the idea that the most
effective way to evangelize is by establishing a
relationship with another person. Making a disciple is
simply a continuation and extension of that relationship.
While I am not criticizing these
programs because they do more than a lot of people are
willing to do, how many programs teach someone to say the
“sinners prayer” then cut them loose in the church to figure
out on their own what the Christian life is supposed to be
about? There is a serious lack of spiritual knowledge and
maturity in our churches and I believe that this is a big
reason why. Just how is someone supposed to figure out what
the Bible means when it says things that are hard to
understand? It is very understandable that young Christians
would feel lost and confused in the church. That is why
making disciples is so important.
As I said earlier, a disciple is
literally a student, someone who is being taught. By that
definition a person can be a disciple before they are even a
Christian – they are not a disciple of Christ however. A
person can learn Christian principles and about Christian
love long before they understand and accept the gospel.
Next Section -
Modeling
