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Rethinking the Great Commission
THE SO-CALLED "Great Commission," from Matthew 28:1620, has been the obligatory reference in the literature and the discussions on mission and evangelism during most of this century. Unfortunately, this missionary mandate from Matthew has usually been used in a rigid and prescribed way, and most of the time it has been read out of context.1 A fresh reading of this crucial passage of the gospels, in its own context, reveals several ungranted assumptions and a few surprises. The first surprise is that the expression "the great commission" is not in the text. It is an editorial title supplied by the King James Version and those versions that follow the KJV precedent. In calling this passage "a commission" and "great," this title implies an interpretation and a value judgment. It could better be called "the final commission" (Phillips) or "the last mandate of the resurrected Lord," since "the greatest" is a title reserved in the gospels for the commandment of love to God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40).
It also may come as a surprise to realize that there are at least four different versions of the last commission, one in each gospel. Each version appears in a different context and with a different emphasis (Mark 16:15-18; Luke 24:44-47; John 20:21, cf. 17:18).
So, if we are serious about understanding Matthew's version of the commission, read it in the context of that gospel. Viewed in context, the "great commission" is the climax of Matthew's Gospel, "the summary," and "the key to the understanding of the whole Gospel.2 In other words, to understand the Gospel of Matthew we must decipher this "last commission," and, conversely, to understand the "last commission" we must comprehend the totality of Matthew.
I will try to read back the meaning of the commission through the text of Matthew, and I will try to spell out its implications for our mission today. As I do so, I will keep in view some crucial questions about the content of the gospel, about the method for evangelism and
Mortimer Arias, bishop emeritus of the Bolivian Methodist Church, is currently professor of evangelism at Iliff School of Theology. He has also taught at Claremont School of Theology and served as president of the Latin American Biblical Seminary in Costa Rica. He has published many books and articles, including Announcing the Reign of God (1984) and The Cry of My People (1980, with Esther Arias). This article is adapted from his forthcoming volume The Great Commission: Four Versions and Four Agendas (Abingdon Press).
1 Cf. Leslie Newbigin, Mission in Christ's Way: Bible Studies (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1987), p. 32.
2 Otto Michel, "Der Abschluss des Mathausevangeliums," Evangelische Theologie 10 (1950-51), pp. 16-26 (English translation in The Interpretation of Matthew, Graham, ed., Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983).
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mission, and about the motivation, the subjects and addressees of mission in our pluralistic world?3
I
The method for mission jumps out of the text and sounds loudly and clearly in the Lord's mandate: "Make disciples of all nations." This mandate is both specific and universal; mission is discipleship.4 In the light of this call to make disciples, it is fascinating to observe how thoroughly Matthew's Gospel is, in its entirety, a didactic paradigm, a gospel written for teaching and making disciples. Jesus himself is presented as the new Teacher with authority (7:29).
For some time it has been noted that the teaching in this gospel has been divided into five didactic discourses by Jesus, preceded and followed by narrative material. The clue to the divisions is that all of the teaching sections end with the words "When Jesus finished these sayings" (7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). The outline of the gospel is as follows:
Narrative-chapters 1-4
I-First Discourse-Sermon on the Mount-chapters 5-7
Narrative-chapters 8-9
II-Second Discourse-Missionary Discourse-chapter 10
Narrative-chapter 12
III-Third Discourse-Parables of the Kingdom-chapter 13
Narrative-chapters 14-17
IV-Fourth Discourse-Teachings on the Church-chapter 18
Narrative-chapters 19-23
V-Fifth Discourse-Eschatology and Parousia-chapters 24-25
Narrative-chapters 26-28
Krister Stendahl has gone so far as to suggest that there was a "School of Matthew," a group of Christian scholars working with the Old Testament to interpret the significance of Jesus for the Jews. In this interpretation, the gospel would be a handbook for teachers and church leaders in their missionary work with Jews and Gentiles.5 Victor Furnish also affirms that the evangelist was a teacher as well as his readers, and that the gospel is a pedagogical summary.6
3 I will be depending upon the best biblical scholarship on Matthew. See, for example, Jack D. Kingsbury, Matthew: Structure, Christology, Kingdom (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975) and Matthew as Story (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986).
4 The Church Growth School has coined the new word "discipling." For a critique of D. MacGavran's distinction between "discipling" and "perfecting," see Leslie Newbigin, op. cit., pp. 35f.
5 Krister Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968).
6 Victor P. Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1978), pp. 98ff.
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If this is so, what is the method for mission, the way of making disciples? Obviously, the way is through teaching, through what has historically been called catechesis and, more recently, Christian education. Mission for Matthew is catechetical mission, evangelism through Christian education. Whoever told us that evangelism and Christian education are two and separate things? Certainly we didn't get this idea from the "Great Commission!"
Christian education is already evangelism, and should be done evangelistically. Christian education is the evangelization of each generation, learning the way of the Kingdom at each stage of life and through all human experiences. Disciples are made, not born, and that means that the church must engage in discipleship through the whole of life, with no graduation day in sight! Disciples may be initiated, but not made by some practice of quick membership transfer or impromptu vows of membership.
This understanding of the "Great Commission" is a warning to those churches that are not doing well in their Christian education program, or in their biblical preaching and teaching, fostering generations of Bible illiterates. On the other hand, this text can give reassurance about their evangelistic work to churches that are taking seriously their Christian education and discipleship programs!7 But it also can be a word of judgment to much of contemporary evangelism, through professional and transnational organizations, or through the so-called "electronic church," without the support and discipline of a discipleship community. Through these mass means, we are producing millions of consumers of religion. But consumers of religion are a far cry from true disciples.
II
Discipleship in the Kingdom, however, is much more than the study of the Scriptures and theoretical teaching and learning. It means the engagement of the whole life in following Jesus on the way of the Kingdom. Jesus' disciples were trained not only in orthodoxy, the right doctrine, but also in orthopraxis, the right way of doing, living, and dying. Peter was commended because of his orthodox confession of Jesus as the Messiah, but he was rebuked because of his misunderstanding of the cross as part of Christian orthopraxis (Matt. 16:15-23). As Jack Kingsbury has said, "The corollary to suffering sonship is suffering discipleship."8 And William R. Farmer has shown that the Gospel of Matthew was a presentation of the suffering Jesus for those Christians facing martyrdom in their own situation. "The great
7 Two excellent approaches to contemporary discipleship are Thomas Groome, Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980) and David L. Watson, Accountable Discipleship: Handbook for Covenant Discipleship Groups in the Congregation (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1984).
8 J. Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, p. 68. "Suffering, defined as servanthood, is the essence of discipleship" (p. 114).
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temptation of the second generation Christians," he says, "was to go from suffering discipleship to intellectual gnosticism."9
The temptation to go from suffering discipleship to gnosticism, or to conformity for that matter, is always present, both for pastors and for all of us who are engaged in teaching and Christian education. The temptation is to water down the demands of the gospel preaching from a comfortable pulpit, to a comfortable pew, or teaching from a comfortable academic chair speaking to the more or less comfortable seat of the student.
What is the content of the gospel we are supposed to teach to the nations? The last mandate is clear: "Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Strangely enough, most of those who appeal to the "Great Commission," do not often go to the Gospel of Matthew for the content of the gospel. The most common formulas for the evangelistic message are soteriological summaries taken mostly from selections of verses from Paul's letters or other parts of the New Testament, such as the so-called "plan of salvation," "the Fundamentals," or the "Four Spiritual Laws." It is unusual for an evangelistic preacher to struggle with the implications of Jesus' ethical commands in the Sermon on the Mount or to explore the implications of the Great Commandment. And yet, those are two specific areas of the Lord's command, "teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." As Dr. John R. W. Stott, the British evangelical leader, said at the 1974 Congress on Evangelism in Lausanne, "There is no Great Commission without the Great Commandment."
One of the characteristics of Matthew's Gospel is a strong emphasis on commandments. Even though there are soteriological foundations and implications in the teachings of Jesus in this gospel,10 the emphasis of Jesus' teachings is on action and deeds (ch. 7), for example in the parable of the Two Builders at the climax of the Sermon on the Mount (building on the rock of doing Jesus' words). Jesus insisted on producing and showing the fruits of the Kingdom (7:16; 21:43) and the absolute requirement of "a higher justice," higher than that of the Pharisees and scribes, to enter into the Kingdom (5:20).
Justice is a recurring theme in this gospel, and, consequently, an essential aspect of the "Great Commission." The Messiah is presented as the one who "will proclaim justice to the nations" and who "will persist until he causes justice to triumph, and on him all peoples will put their hope" (12:18-21).11
Justice is the name of the game in this gospel, as it is in the prophets. Justice is the foundation and the fruit of the Kingdom of God: "Seek
9 William R. Farmer, Jesus and the Gospel: Tradition, Scripture and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1982), pp. 154-59.
10 William R. Farmer has stressed the fact that Matthew and Paul have the same theology of grace in a different context, "a theology of empowerment, liberation ... a movement of compassion, servanthood, self-giving, risk-taking...... See Jesus and the Gospe: Tradition, Scripture and Canon. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 48-50.
11 Kingsbury, Matthew as Story, p. 68.
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you first the Kingdom of God and its justice and all these things will be given to you as well" (6:33). The justice (righteousness) of the disciple will be judged right here and now, and in the final judgment, by its works and good fruit (5:20; 6:1-4; 7:15-21, 24-27; 10:42; 12:35-50; 13:23; 16:27; 19:21-22; 21:18-21, 28-32; 23:2-3; 24:45-51; 25:14-46).
Justice is the concrete form of love in history. Jack Kingsbury asks, "Is there a center to Jesus' radical teaching concerning the life of righteousness, the law, and in general, the will of God? The answer is yes, and this center is 'love'"12 According to Jesus, the Great (and the Greatest) Commandment is two commandments! To love God and to love neighbor, are two sides of the same coin (Matthew 22:37-40). Love is made specific, visible, and real in the neighbor.
The same is true of Jesus' teaching on reconciliation: "If you bring your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar and first go and be reconciled with your brother..." (5:24). There is to be no vertical reconciliation without horizontal reconciliation. Again, the vertical and the horizontal come together in the parable of the two debtors and in the Lord's Prayer. There is no forgiveness effective from God unless one gives forgiveness to others (18:21-35; 6:12,14-15). The same is true with the last parable of the judgment of the nations: the way to serve the King and to enter into the kingdom of the Son of Man is to serve the neighbor in need (25:31-46).
So, when we ask for the content of the gospel, we are dealing with a gospel that has to do with action, conduct, relationships, justice, love, and specifically with the neighbor in all aspects of life. It is a holistic gospel, which Matthew calls "the gospel of the kingdom"12 (9:35, 24:14).
The proclamation and teaching of the Kingdom has a Christological center. Christ is the center of the gospel, the incarnation of the gospel of the kingdom. It is right there in the "Great Commission" itself: "All authority is given to me ... I am with you always ... all I have commanded you" (see also 5:21, 37, 33; 16:16-18; 11:28-30).
Discipleship in the kingdom is not merely obeying a commandment but following a person, a commitment to God and the neighbor in Jesus Christ. "If anyone wants to be my disciple ... take up your cross and follow me." And again, Jesus reminds us that we come to him through our neighbor: "Whoever receives a little one in my name receives me, " and, "Whatever you have done to one of these ... you have done it to me" (18:5; 25:40,45). So, everything we do for our neighbor is not merely activism, social service or social action; it is a service to Christ himself. All our social actions have a Christological meaning. The neighbor becomes "the sacrament of Christ."
Any presentation of Christ that leaves the neighbor out and calls us
12 On the Kingdom of God as the perspective for evangelization in Jesus original message, see Mortimer Arias, Announcing the Reign of God (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).
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to a purely individualistic spiritual experience is a false one according to the "Great Commission." We have many Christians who want "only Jesus" and do not care for the neighbor; they want the King without the Kingdom. And there are other Christians and non-Christians who work and hope for the Kingdom but who do not cultivate the personal relationship and commitment to the King. A holistic gospel has to include both the King and the Kingdom.
III
One of the crucial questions regarding mission and evangelism in our churches is the question of motivation. What is the right motivation for evangelism? What could motivate and empower the members of our churches to be mission-oriented, ready to share and to reach out? Is there anything in the Great Commission to indicate a motivation for mission?
The answer actually appears right at the beginning of the passage, in the context in which the disciples receive the last command from the resurrected Lord: "When they saw him, they worshipped him." It was this "seeing," this experience of the living Lord that motivated them. Indeed, the experience of the resurrection is behind the whole New Testament (I Cor. 15:8). The experience of Easter is the spring of Christian mission. It is not merely a command; it is an experience that issues out in mission.
Worship is the most powerful means of conversion and evangelistic experience, if we look at it rightly and with the right expectations. It can also become a source of motivation and power for mission in the world, and if this is not happening, something is wrong with our worship.
However, the community of disciples was a mixed congregation: some "worshipped him...... but some doubted." This was true also of the congregations to which this gospel was addressed, made of those expelled from the synagogues, perplexed and bruised because of the rejection of the Jewish Messiah in which they believed. Their faith and their motivation for mission were at stake.
The reassuring words of the risen Lord came as the response to their missionary dilemma: "All power is given to me, go therefore, and make disciples of all nations ... I will be with you always to the end of the age." The divine company is the only assurance for the commissioned disciples, and it should be their overpowering motivation.
The community of disciples, through this gospel, had also the inspiring and challenging example of Jesus in his own mission to Israel. What was Jesus' motivation for mission? Of course, his roots were in his life of prayer, in his intimate communion with the Abba, Father, whose will he had come to fulfill (4:1-2; 11:25-27; 14:13; 17:1-2; 26:36; 27:45). Jesus was also deeply motivated by human beings: the suffering, the outcasts, the little ones, the searchers after truth and life. Jesus showed us the purest Christian motivation for mission, namely,
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compassion. Not only compassion for sinners but also for "the sinned-against," the victims of the sins of others and of the whole society.13
Jesus saw individuals with their particular needs (20:34; 9:18-22), but he also saw the crowds, marginalized and oppressed under unreliable leadership, "like sheep without a shepherd (9:36). He didn't look at the crowds with the eyes of an statistician in demography or a church growth strategist. He looked at them as God's children and felt compassion for them. Would it be presumptuous to say, in the light of Jesus' own example, that evangelism without compassion is not evangelism according to the "Great Commission" of the resurrected Lord?
IV
Who are the addressees of mission and evangelization? The last commission is all-inclusive; no one is excluded in the command to "make disciples of all nations." The Gospel of Matthew, which comes to its climax in these last verses, is clear that Jesus' mission is for both Jews and Gentiles. The whole gospel stresses the point that Jesus was the Messiah for the Jews (1:17; 2:2-6; 21:4-9; 27:37), according to the Scriptures, and the Messiah for the Nations, as illustrated by Jesus starting his mission in Galilee of the gentiles and also by Old Testament quotations (2:23; 4:15-16; 12:18-21; 21:43). In the temporary mission of the Twelve, Jesus sent them first "to the lost sheep of Israel" (10:6; 15:21-28). But now, after shedding his blood "for the many" (26:28), and after the resurrection, mission becomes universal.
This last command of the risen Lord was the standing orders for a church perplexed and bewildered because of the rejection of the Messiah by his own people, and the rejection of Christians from the synagogues. Marginalization and rejection were not to be the end of mission (10:16-42). And the destruction of Jerusalem was not to be the end of "the gospel of the kingdom," destined to "all nations" of the earth.
This is a word we need to hear in a time when some churches are perplexed about the new pluralistic context in former dominantly "Christian nations"; in a world of demographic explosion that is diminishing the percentage of Christians in the whole population every day; in areas of the world, like China, where Christians are a small surviving though renascent minority; or where churches have been in situations of minority and restriction, as in Moslem countries or in some modern Marxist nations.
This is not a call for imperialistic mission, for proselytism, for crusades, or for holy wars, but it is a call to share the good news, to trust the presence of the living Lord in God's own world. It is not a call to make proselytes but to make disciples of all nations.
13 Raymund Fung, Your Kingdom Come (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1980).
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To disciple the nations does not involve the sending of transcultural missionaries from a given center to the rest of the world. In our world of migrations, both forced and voluntary, the seed of the gospel is carried by disciples around the earth, and new missionary frontiers are opened up in the most unexpected places, both in the old missionary centers or in islands of peripheries of the Christian world. What about the "nations" that are already inside the United States? We are now excited about reaching the unreached "baby boomers," that is, young middle class America. All the churches are crowding around the same clientele in their effort to stop decline and to grow, but what about the growing ethnic America? Are we aware that by the year 2030 the American white population will be less than ethnic America, or the so-called "people of color?"
What are we doing to "make disciples" of all nations, those already coming to this country, entering into our cities and communities, and surrounding our shrinking older churches in the cities or the suburbs? And who are, in the present situation of the church in America, the "lost sheep of the house of Israel"? Is it possible that there might be a call to discipleship in the nominal Christian fold, or among what have been called the post-Christian "neo-pagans" of Europe and America?"14
All people, all nations are the addressees of mission and evangelism. But in the Gospel of Matthew there is a strong emphasis upon a particular sector of addressees: "the little ones." Who are they? They are "the poor in spirit" to whom the kingdom belongs (5:3) and the sheer poor to whom the kingdom is announced (11:5; 19:21). They are also the children, to whom also the Kingdom belongs (19:14-15); they are the most important in the Kingdom (18:2), and the mediators of Christ's presence (18:3-5). "Little ones" are also the "simple," adults called "little children," to whom is revealed what is hidden from the wise (11:25). They are also the "babes," who acclaim the Messiah in the Temple (21:14-15), and the "weary and overburdened," who are the privileged recipients of Jesus' tenderness (11:28). They are also the "little ones" in the churches, greater than John the Baptist in the Kingdom (11:11), and about whom Jesus made one of his most severe warnings (18:6, 10, 14). Even "a glass of cold water" given to them counts before God (10:42). Finally, "the least of these" are the deprived and needy, the forgotten and neglected, who are the entourage of the Son of Man at the judgment seat, the "brothers" and 6 9 sisters" of Jesus (25:40, 45).15 All of these "little ones" are the priority and privileged addressees of discipleship mission.
Where are the "little ones" today? They are present in every society, in every part of the world, and in every church. But for the churches in
14 W. A. Visser't Hooft, "Evangelism in the Neo-Pagan Situation," in Mission Trends 2: Evangelization [edited by Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stranskyl (New York: Paulist; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), pp. 23-25; and Alfred C. Krass, Evangelizing Neo-Pagan North America: The Word that Frees (Scottsdale: Herald Press, 1982).
15 Xavier Pikasa, Hermanos de Jesus Y Servidores de los Mas Pequenos (Salamanca: Sfgueme, 1984), p. 311.
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the Third World, it is clear that the priority addressees of Christian mission, in the most inclusive understanding of mission, are "the poorest among the poor," who constitute the vast majority in three fourths of the world. These "poor" are not "out there" or "down there," outside of the church; they are the church and they are poor. If we miss these addressees of the "Great Commission," we may be missing the whole point about discipleship mission in the Kingdom.
V
There is a final question to bring to the last commission: Who is the subject of mission? Who are the responsible bearers of the gospel of the Kingdom? The subject of mission is the church, the community of disciples, represented in the gospel final story by the symbolic number of the eleven who met the resurrected Lord at the mountain. The subject of mission that produced and received this Gospel of Matthew was the real church of the end of the first century, communities of Jews and Gentiles in Syria and Palestine. They were the first ones to receive the last command.
That church of the original "Great Commission" was far from being a perfect church. Indeed, it was a very imperfect one, divided by conflict and fear. This can be clearly seen in Matthew, where the call to forgiveness and reconciliation inside the community of the church resounds once and again (5:24; ch. 18). The wheat is mixed with the tares, but they are supposed to stick together and leave the final judgment to the Lord of the harvest. There are hypocrites, false prophets, informants and traitors, and many whose love has grown cold, but they are called to persevere to the end (24:9-13).
Our churches today are far from being perfect. Divided, heterogeneous, with loss of nerve in relation to mission or involved in zealots' fights and imperialistic mission, confused about the issues and priorities of this world, supporting the injustices of the status quo, not being too different from their own society and culture and their values. Who could claim to be the right subject for discipleship mission? As Paul would put it, "Who can be sufficient for this ministry?"
And yet, it was to this church, imperfect as it was, that the last mandate was given. And thanks to that imperfect generation of Christians, and the following ones, we have the gospel and we have received the Commission ourselves. It is to our churches, and to us as we are, that the Great Commission is entrusted today. It is up to us to receive it and be faithful to it. We count with the promise of the last mandate: "I am with you always, to the end of the age."