Mobilizing a Great Commission Church for Harvest

Voices and Views from the Southern Baptist Professors of Evangelism Fellowship

Johnston

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781621891062
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Mobilizing a Great Commission Church for Harvest addresses practical aspects of evangelism in the local church, with the voices and views of nineteen current Southern Baptist professors of evangelism. They address important topics to local church evangelism, such as Invitations with integrity and Preparing for Spiritual Warfare. Key leaders and professors write in their areas of expertise. For examples, Alvin Reid writes on Mobilizing Students, David Wheeler on Servant Evangelism, Josef Solc on Sports Evangelism, and Darrell Robinson on The Evangelist. In addition, the book begins and ends with two different applications of Matthew's Great Commission.Mobilizing a Great Commission Church for Harvest is a gold mine of information for both pastor and deacon, as it is for students considering the importance of evangelism to local church ministry. It is fresh, new, and true--as all of its authors teach at SBC-affiliated schools and are grounded in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God!

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Unleashing the Power of Matthew’s Great Commission

Thomas P. Johnston

For New Testament Christians, the Great Commission provides the spiritual engine, the driving force, and the forward thrust of their lives. The Great Commission encapsulates Christ’s marching orders to his Church. Chuck Kelley reminded members of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) that ours is a “Great Commission Hermeneutic.”1 In other words, we ought to read, interpret, and apply the Bible in light of the Great Commission. The Anabaptist Michael Sattler saw in both the Great Commissions of Matthew and Mark reasons why believers and only believers ought to be baptized. This belief he transcribed into the Schleitheim Confession in 1527,2 only to be martyred later that same year. Yes, and because of its prominence, the Great Commission provides both a meeting place and battleground for a discussion of evangelism, biblical interpretation, and the doctrines of salvation and the church.

In fact, the interpretation and application of Christ’s Great Commission, especially in Matthew 28, provides a unique biblical focal point for the multi-disciplinary study of the Bible. Interestingly, one’s interpretation and application of this Great Commission passage link together (1) one’s view of conversion and salvation (systematic theology), (2) one’s view of evangelism and the mission of the church (ecclesiology and missions), and (3) one’s approach to spiritual growth and discipleship (practical theology). The study of Matthew’s Great Commission passage, therefore, while linking all these concepts together, provides both a crossroads and a battleground for an evaluation of Christ’s thoughts on these ideas.

That one can take the words of Jesus in two or three verses as normative must be understood as part of plenary inspiration. One might say, “Two or three verses do not suffice to understand or interpret the thinking of Jesus on any topic!” To this I reply that, if these two or three verses do speak of a topic, then these verses have as much weight as any other words of Jesus on that topic (sensus plenior). However, before entering into this discussion please allow me to divulge several presuppositions. First, on the inspiration of Scripture: I believe that God the Holy Spirit exhaled every word of the original languages of the Bible (2 Tim 3:16). Second, on the inerrancy of Scripture: I believe that the Bible is wholly true in all it affirms, and likewise there are not at all any errors in any of the Bible’s affirmations. And third, following from point one, on the unity of Scripture: I believe that God the Holy Spirit does not contradict himself, but rather he speaks with one voice throughout all of sacred Scripture and through its multiple authors and genres. Therefore, with these presuppositions in mind, when looking at Matthew 28:19–20, it must be assumed that the teachings of Jesus in this passage do not contradict his teachings in other biblical passages. If anything, the teachings of Jesus in this passage conform to and confirm all his other teachings in the Gospels, as well as to all that is taught in the remainder of Holy Writ, as rightly interpreted.

So, what does Jesus teach in Matthew 28:19–20? In this commissioning Jesus commanded his disciples to win disciples from among all the nations of the earth. In this command, we have the earthly mission of Christ’s disciples, which is in perfect sync with Christ’s atonement on the cross for sin, the conversion of those who hear the gospel with a hearing of faith, along with the practical outworking of this mission in individual New Testament churches.

First of all, let us note that when Christ commanded his disciples to go, specifically to all nations, he took language from the cursing portion in Deuteronomy 28 and made it into a command in Matthew 28. For example:

• Deut 28:64–65: “Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known. And among those nations you shall find no rest, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.”
• Deut 28:37: “And you shall become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all the people where the Lord will drive you.”

Being driven, scattered, and sent to the nations was not necessarily a good thing in the Old Testament; rather it was the language of the curse. Perhaps this is why the Jews in Jerusalem reacted so vehemently and interrupted Paul’s testimony in Acts 22. Paul had just told them that God had said to him, “Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles” (Acts 22:21). Luke explained their interruption:

• Acts 22:22–24: “And they listened to him up to this statement, and then they raised their voices and said, ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live!’ And as they were crying out and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks . . .”

Can such vehement antagonism be understood? Yes, they were acknowledging the blessing of the promised land, as well as the curse of being “diaspora-ed” (driven out) of that land to go forth unto the nations. Yes, it is always a struggle for anyone to be exiled from their own land.

Paul himself faced this contradictory idea in his use of the words hungry, thirsty, and naked (or exposure). These three words in this exact order come from Deuteronomy 28:

• Deut 28:47–48: “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord shall send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.”

Notice how Paul refers to these three occurrences happening to him, using the same order as Deuteronomy 28 (not including his imprisonment):

• 1 Cor 4:11: “To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless.”
• 2 Cor 11:27: “I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.”

How did Paul deal with these difficulties in his ministry? He gloried in them (Rom 5:3–5), and he learned to give thanks in all circumstances (Phil 4:11–12).

We as New Testament Christians may try to sugarcoat the Great Commission. Either we relegate it to some overarching mission of the universal church, that has no direct application to our everyday lives, or we ignore that it will cost us dearly. Jesus, however, knew the language that he had borrowed from Deuteronomy 28. He knew that it would not be easy for the disciples. Note, for example, how he prepared his followers for difficult times in Matthew 10 and John 15–16. Therefore, the “Go” in the Great Commission ought not be philosophized into “stay where you are, and do as you please.” Jesus said, “Go!”

“Go,” Jesus said, “and win disciples.” But, you may ask, do not most or all contemporary English Bibles say “m-m-make disciples”? Then, from the word make is posited a long-term process of some type of Christian catechetic (or education). Yes, some churches insert multiple sacraments (or “means of grace/holiness”) into the word make. Others place a two or three year commitment of discipleship meant to “m-m-make” the convert into a true disciple of Jesus. However, exegetically and contextually, it would appear otherwise.

Two contextual arguments bring consternation to this long-term approach to “make.” First, the disciple is already “made” or “won” before he should be baptized. The key word for interpretation is the word them in verse 19. To whom does the “them” refer in verse 19? In the Greek, the form of this word does not agree with the form of the words of all nations. Jesus did not call for the baptism of every b...