What’s So Great About “The Great Commission?”
By Pastor Lance
For centuries the church has been about the business of evangelism and missions. These are great causes and biblical goals. I wonder, though, if we need a shift in our thinking about how this takes place. I have been kicking around this question in my head lately: “Why do we put so much weight on the Great Commission?” or, another way to say it would be, “What’s so great about the Great Commission?”
The main thing that bothers me about the Great Commission is, Jesus never called it that. The term “Great Commission” is from the man-made section headings of our Bibles. I don’t believe the people who titled the section had any malice when they did it, but in my opinion, it has certainly created a mindset that needs to be addressed.
I want to start off by saying, I wholeheartedly support “going into all the world and making disciples.” Jesus commanded it and we should do it. That tends to be my plain and simple way to apply biblical truth. The problem I have is calling it the “Great” Commission. That gives the impression that it is greater than any of the other commissions that Jesus gave.
If we want to talk about the greatest commissions Jesus gave while He was on earth, they can be found in His response to the Pharisees when they asked Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to them, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40
Based on what Jesus calls the greatest commandments and what the thrust of the rest of the New Testament is, I would say we have grossly misapplied the Great Commission. The Epistles stress a community of believers living together in such a way that causes people to want to know more about their lifestyle. This is done through counter-cultural relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves (or today, employee/employer), and in love for our neighbors as much as ourselves.
What we see in each of the Epistles is primarily instructions on how to live life with fellow believers in a way that will not damage the Gospel message. There are very few, if any, instructions on going out and evangelizing, or sending people from those local churches to other parts of the world.
Our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ should be an attractive thing to outsiders. By loving your brother and considering his needs above your own, you are fulfilling the two “Greatest” Commissions; loving God and loving people. But there comes a time when the Gospel has to actually be preached to non-believers. The Bible is clear that you can’t believe without hearing. When we live in a counter-cultural community of believers that is attractive to outsiders, they ask questions. When they ask questions we should “…always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15)
These counter-cultural relationships in different parts of the world seem to me to be the most biblical way to fulfill the “Great Commission.”
