Everyday Witness: A Guide for the Rest of Us
The Great Commandment for recovering evangelicals
The Great Commission for bashful mainstreamers
Perhaps no passage in the Gospel is so rife with misunderstanding, and so burdened with mis-application, as the Great Commission. What follows are my own thoughts on this passage's meaning and its demands upon followers of Christ; your mileage may vary.
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.
First, a bit of context: For millennia, Jewish culture had identified as God's chosen people; converting others to their religious beliefs was not on their map in any significant way. Now Jesus, in his final charge to his disciples, asserts that since all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, this group of key disciples should carry his message of hope to all peoples. Not just to their fellow Jews. The Great Commission represented a huge paradigm shift for the Messiah’s first century Jewish followers.
This should have been seen as a reminder, for the disciples had watched as Jesus healed and taught so many from outside the Jewish circle of religious practice -- Samaritans, Romans, the poor, the sick, and most of all, people they saw as "sinners." But the theology and practice of a special, "just for us" relationship with God had been deeply ingrained, so Jesus needed to make a pretty big deal of this new direction. Hence the prominence of what is called The Great Commission in Matthew's gospel -- which happens to be the account written most pointedly towards a Jewish readership.
So Yes, we can see from the outset the importance of The Great Commission, as a fundamental change in religious outlook, and a critical driver of spreading the "Good News" and making eternal life, life with God, available to everyone – the surprising “whoever” in John 3:16. And perhaps it even fits in with the Great Commandment...
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
It has often been said that the Great Commission and the Great Commandment work best when they work together, that they are two sides of the same coin. This mutually dependent, synergistic relationship is described very well in M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled. Mr. Peck makes the case, quite methodically and prominently, that Love's highest expression and purpose is to nurture the spiritual well being of our fellow humans. That would seem to be another way of saying "go and make disciples" -- a very nice way of putting it, in fact!
Seen in this light, the Great Commission becomes less a summary of our overarching purpose or mission in life, and more a way -- one way -- of executing on the Great Commandment, which Jesus said in fact should be our overarching purpose or mission in life. Hmmm, I probably said everything that needs to be said right there, but I'll elaborate anyway.
When we make evangelism, the spread of the gospel, the main purpose in life, we can get off kilter a bit. NOTE -- I say this with respect to the Evangelical church, and NOT with respect to a given organization or individual, who may in fact be very much called to actively and explicitly spread the good news of God's redemptive grace in Jesus Christ. The problem is when our churches (most notably Evangelical churches) tell us that being about the business of winning people to Christ should be our life's primary mission and goal and purpose, we miss out on God's highest desires and purposes for our lives. Naturally, when we are thus misdirected, there are some negative consequences.
- Guilt over the fact that one has not brought a bunch of people to Christ, maybe even none at all -- a guilt that can serve to make us feel inadequate and separated from God.
- An inauthenticity in our relationships, as we pursue relationships with the ulterior motive of making disciples -- a practice actively promoted in the Evangelical church, to the detriment of her constituents' relationships outside the church.
- A lack of attention to other, more important Scriptural mandates -- like entrusting God with our lives, loving our neighbor, helping the needy.
What does Scripture have to say about the main purpose of our lives? A big question, for sure! And one that many people come to God to find out the answer to! (Unavoidable observation here -- if the answer is "bring others" it starts to sound like a multilevel marketing scheme...) Anyway, back on point -- whole books, good ones (like John Ortberg's God is Closer than You Think), have been written on what scripture says is the main point or purpose of our lives here. We won't try to do that here; instead, a super brief summary --
- Consider the answer put forward by the Westminster Catechism: The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. The word translated glorify in new testament scripture often carried the meaning "reveal the essential nature of" -- in this case, God's Love and Grace expressed in Christ. And to enjoy living with this Good God forever. Glorifying and Enjoying: Celebrating a loving God with our everyday lives.
- Or consider the answer put forward by Christ himself: When asked what is the "Greatest Commandment" Jesus replied that it was to love God first and most, and to love your neighbor as yourself -- and then went on to say that "...all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."
Given these two imperatives, one could reasonably think that loving God, loving our neighbors, and reflecting and celebrating God's goodness with our everyday lives would be an appropriate and scripturally correct answer to the question of overarching purpose and mission in our lives.
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To review: the Great Commission is less a matter of overarching purpose in life, and more a way -- one way of many -- of executing on the Great Commandment, which should be our overarching purpose in life... and that nurturing the spiritual welfare of others is one of the highest and best expressions of love that we can make. Certainly, that was the essence of Christ's love as he expressed it on earth! So, we do indeed need to take seriously the Great Commission -- making disciples of all nations, nurturing the spiritual well being of those God has placed in our lives.
Often it seems that the Evangelical church has reduced this "commission," this expression of Love, to simple proselytizing (or evangelizing, as the word is commonly understood). This view sells short both the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.
It sells both short in that the phrase "make disciples" goes beyond simple conversion, to helping people grow and mature in their faith. It sells both short because simple proselytizing is only one activity on the wide spectrum of nurturing another's spiritual growth. If the only acceptable outcome of evangelical activity is a turnkey (immediate and complete) confession of faith -- well, that is a pretty big ask of both evangelizer and evangelizee. And perhaps more than a bit disrespectful of the evangelizee's individual circumstances, nature, and inherent value. And it denies the obvious effectiveness of a more patient, incremental approach.
Certainly there is a place for proselytizing; we see the apostles doing so to great effect in Acts, and Paul, just about everywhere he went. And certainly, there IS good news to be shared, God's love and grace and kingdom, freely available to all. As Paul wrote -- some are given to be evangelists; certainly, that was the case with him -- but, as he notes in Eph 4:11-16, not all. So, what are some of the other points on this spectrum of making disciples -- of nurturing spiritual growth in others? Ephesians also identifies prophets, teachers, and pastors as special assignments. The question that we must consider is this: Are there disciple-making obligations that we are all called to in the context of the Great Commission?
Absolutely..... Consider: Love, Witness, and Ambassadorship.
- Love always speaks of God, if only subliminally, because as the apostle John says, God is love, that love is inextricably entwined with the "light" that is Jesus, that love has its origins in God. Every act of kindness, patience, goodness, other-centeredness -- the fruit of the spirit (Gal 5:22) and the nature of love (1Cor 13) -- these all point to God.
- Witness answers the real-world questions of why or how. 1 Peter 3:15 speaks of being ready to explain the hope you've found in Christ -- the peace you demonstrate in the midst of haste and confusion, or the patience in suffering, or the positive outlook in uncertain circumstances, or why you believe in scripture, or even God. In this context, you will probably be asked -- you don't even have to initiate. The heart of witness is personal experience, something that each one of us is qualified to talk about. And it's not a high pressure sales job with a particular short-term goal in mind; significantly, Peter urges us to do this gently and respectfully. It's a simple sharing of what you saw or heard or understood or felt or did that made a difference; a simple report of what happened, from your personal and unique perspective. Much like a witness in a courtroom... or sometimes a witness coming forward in a detective story... here's what I saw, make of it what you will. It can be as simple, and lifesaving, as one hungry beggar (that's me) telling another where he has found food. Gently and respectfully, remembering that you can count on the Spirit to be actively involved when you earnestly seek to nurture another's spiritual well being.
- Ambassadorship is a lot of syllables for the fact that, mean to or not, you are representing Christ and his kingdom to a watching world. Conducting ourselves in the ways of a fallen world sends one message; conducting ourselves in the way of God's grace and love, quite another. Not surprisingly, this is the single most effective tool we all have in our disciple-making kits. And, not surprisingly, this can at times be difficult, and often requires help from the Spirit -- a help that He is most pleased to give.
These are everyday ways that we can make good on the Great Commission while keeping our eye on our larger purpose -- the Great Commandment -- being about and rooted in love, and in so doing, connecting in a meaningful and productive way with the very essence of God.
You could call this planting, or perhaps watering, the seeds of a choice for God -- something we do out of loving concern for our friends' spiritual welfare. They are the little bits that, taken together with all our acts of love, result in a flow, a current, that sweeps the ones to whom these bits are given, along with ourselves, inexorably towards the One in whom we live and move and have our being.