The Great Error
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”
I believe I’ve misunderstood The Great Commission all these years. I thought it was about introducing people to Christ and teaching them His ways. And foolishly I thought we were supposed to teach obedience to His ways and even teach others to go and teach these same things.
I see now my great error.
Obviously the ones who would understand The Great Commission the best are evangelicals themselves, right? Using the example of the most prominent evangelical leaders of the day, let’s break it down and look at what must actually be meant.
Go - This is by far the most important command of The Great Commission. Whatever you do, you must “go” and the further you go, the more obedient you are.
Make Disciples - This is slightly less important than “going” (Go is the first word, after all) and it doesn’t really have much to do with actual discipleship. It really just means to tell people that Jesus loves them.
Of All Nations - This means we need to go everywhere, but we should never try to make “Christian Nations.” The nations themselves must absolutely remain godless, at all cost. It wouldn’t look good for Christ followers to allow Christ’s Lordship to interfere with governments and world systems.
Baptizing them - This is the key to knowing who your people are and the ultimate goal. Go and then Baptize. That’s our mission. Now, you can’t control people, so you’ll have be creative here. You want people in that water! There’s really nothing off limits here. The more creative you can be, the more people you’ll win, and the more celebrated you’ll be - on earth and in heaven.
And I’m pretty sure that’s the whole of it. Whatever you do, don’t read verse 20.