THE GREAT COMMISSION

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” (Matthew 28:19). What more need be said?

Here our Lord has informed us; no, He has commanded us to “make disciples”. We are not being commanded here to “go” anywhere. There is only one command in the Great Commission. This being said, however, it is understood that if we are to “make disciples of all the nations” some going has to occur. Nevertheless, we are in fact being commanded here to do one thing. And that one thing is to “make disciples”.

God has always intended for His people to be like He is. Anything short of this is sin (i.e. missing the mark). God incarnate, using men and women dedicated to being like He is, has gathered a people in every generation unto Himself. And He has done so through a process called discipleship.

Merrill C. Tenney has helped me to understand that discipleship is both a teaching and a learning process. A process, I might add, requiring more than simply the imparting of knowledge from one person to another. It always involves a relationship between the one teaching and the one learning.

The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible.

Tenney goes on to tell us that discipleship, as initiated by Jesus, “…involves a commitment to His Person even more than to His teachings”. This is not to say, however, that we are not to be concerned with what he taught. The very opposite is true. We are to first appropriate His teachings in our lives and then we are to pass His teachings on to others. And pass them on we must. For Jesus has commissioned us to make disciples.

Allen Hadidian, in his book titled Successful Discipling, defines discipleship this way: “Discipling others is the process by which a Christian, with a life worth emulating, commits himself for an extended period of time to a few individuals who have been won to Christ, the purpose being to aid and guide their growth to maturity and equip them to reproduce themselves in a third spiritual generation.”

Jesus spent three intensive years discipling others. Throughout His ministry He committed Himself to the growth and maturity of His disciples and to equipping them to reproduce. He poured His thoughts, His time, His love and His life into discipling those the Father had given Him. We cannot examine the Lord’s ministry without seeing the emphasis He placed on discipling.

Jesus provided the example for us to follow. It is a continuing process. As we mature in the faith, we are to disciple others. As they mature, they are to disciple others.

It is my conviction that most believers know they should be making disciples. God has been very explicit with us about this (Matthew 28:19). What many believers lack is the practical means to do what He has commanded.

Having been sent, we are to “make disciples of all the nations.”