Our Great Commission is Too Small
Have you ever made the mistake of assembling Ikea furniture without first reading through the whole instruction manual?
I have.
On occasion, my impatience and overconfidence has led me to simply look at the first picture and get to work.
If you have ever made that mistake, you know how it ends. You get part-way through the assembly process only to realize you’ve used the wrong piece for something or installed something backwards. All the work you’ve put in was largely for naught.
Perhaps we’ve made a similar mistake with the Great Commission. We hear Jesus’ words: “Go and make disciples of all the nations,” and we get cracking. Strategists pour over demographics, cultural distinctives and surveys. We creatively find ways to leverage sports, medicine and humanitarian aid to make Christ known.
All of that is beautiful, and God is currently using everything I’ve mentioned to make Jesus known. But I wonder if in our earnestness to fulfill the Great Commission, we’ve neglected other parts of the manual. We’ve unintentionally shrunk the Great Commission.
That’s because when Jesus gave the commission to his disciples and then ascended, it wasn’t the final word. He then sent his promised Holy Spirit who inspired further Scripture that explained how to pursue the Great Commission. Any furniture we assemble without taking those later commands into account might end up a bit wonky (I thank God that he uses even our wonky efforts!).
Perhaps the most relevant later command is in Ephesians 4:11-16. Matthew 28 and Ephesians 4 should be welded together in our minds. Let me explain why. The main command in Matthew 28 is “make disciples of all the nations.” Ephesians 4 explains God’s appointed means for that to happen. It tells us how we grow “in every way more and more like Christ” (v. 15). It gives the antidote to being “immature … tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching” (v. 14).
If we want to make disciples of Jesus…
If we want to teach people to obey all that Jesus commanded…
…we must embrace Ephesians 4:11-16, because it tells us how to pursue those ends.
Put plainly, we can’t obey the Great Commission without grappling with Ephesians 4. They are conjoined twins. If we fail to make the link, we shrink the Great Commission.
So what does Ephesians 4 say? It says that God has established local churches as disciple-making factories. He’s given Bible-teaching leaders to the church, who in turn equip the saints, so that everyone is speaking truth in love to one another. As we speak biblical truth to one another in local community, equipped by our pastors and teachers, everyone grows more and more like Jesus. Disciples are made.
Ephesians 4 envisions the local church less like a restaurant and more like a potluck meal. We don’t simply show up and eat what the professionals have prepared. With the help of professionals, we all show up to feed others. As a result, everyone grows and everyone helps others grow. The local church is the God-ordained mechanism for disciple-making.
It’s not just Ephesians 4 that makes this point. 1 Timothy 3 calls the local church, “The household of God … the pillar and foundation of truth” (v. 15). Acts tells the story of God establishing local churches throughout the known world as a means by which his gospel spreads. The primacy of the local church for disciple-making is consistent across the New Testament. When the author of Hebrews is concerned that believers might peter out and grow cold, he exhorts them not to “neglect meeting together” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
The manual is clear: if we are going to fulfill the Great Commission, we must pursue planting and renewing local churches around the world. In God’s design, the local church is the epicenter of missions. And so it must be for us. Not merely by way of lip-service or tacit acknowledgement; our core disciple-making work should be driven through the local church.
Of course, God’s disciple-making manual has more than two panels. Matthew 28 and Ephesians 4 aren’t the complete set of disciple-making instructions. But my goal in this blog is to fuse those two together in our minds so that the Great Commission and the local church are inseparable.
I am part of Neopolis Network. One of Neopolis’ goals is to restore the local church to the epicenter of world missions. We create ways for local churches to partner with local churches in order to see cities and our world transformed by the gospel of Jesus. If you would like to talk more about how your church can center world missions around indigenous local churches, I would love to connect.
The “manual” is clear: the Great Commission and the local church go together. The question is: will we be doers of the word, or simply hearers?
James Seward is the Director of Ministry for Neopolis Network. He is passionate about biblical exposition, helping the vulnerable, church revitalization, world missions, and training. He has over 20 years of pastoral experience in Illinois, Texas, and Ontario. James lives in Wheaton, IL with his wife, Karen, and their five children.
I have.
On occasion, my impatience and overconfidence has led me to simply look at the first picture and get to work.
If you have ever made that mistake, you know how it ends. You get part-way through the assembly process only to realize you’ve used the wrong piece for something or installed something backwards. All the work you’ve put in was largely for naught.
Perhaps we’ve made a similar mistake with the Great Commission. We hear Jesus’ words: “Go and make disciples of all the nations,” and we get cracking. Strategists pour over demographics, cultural distinctives and surveys. We creatively find ways to leverage sports, medicine and humanitarian aid to make Christ known.
All of that is beautiful, and God is currently using everything I’ve mentioned to make Jesus known. But I wonder if in our earnestness to fulfill the Great Commission, we’ve neglected other parts of the manual. We’ve unintentionally shrunk the Great Commission.
That’s because when Jesus gave the commission to his disciples and then ascended, it wasn’t the final word. He then sent his promised Holy Spirit who inspired further Scripture that explained how to pursue the Great Commission. Any furniture we assemble without taking those later commands into account might end up a bit wonky (I thank God that he uses even our wonky efforts!).
Perhaps the most relevant later command is in Ephesians 4:11-16. Matthew 28 and Ephesians 4 should be welded together in our minds. Let me explain why. The main command in Matthew 28 is “make disciples of all the nations.” Ephesians 4 explains God’s appointed means for that to happen. It tells us how we grow “in every way more and more like Christ” (v. 15). It gives the antidote to being “immature … tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching” (v. 14).
If we want to make disciples of Jesus…
If we want to teach people to obey all that Jesus commanded…
…we must embrace Ephesians 4:11-16, because it tells us how to pursue those ends.
Put plainly, we can’t obey the Great Commission without grappling with Ephesians 4. They are conjoined twins. If we fail to make the link, we shrink the Great Commission.
So what does Ephesians 4 say? It says that God has established local churches as disciple-making factories. He’s given Bible-teaching leaders to the church, who in turn equip the saints, so that everyone is speaking truth in love to one another. As we speak biblical truth to one another in local community, equipped by our pastors and teachers, everyone grows more and more like Jesus. Disciples are made.
Ephesians 4 envisions the local church less like a restaurant and more like a potluck meal. We don’t simply show up and eat what the professionals have prepared. With the help of professionals, we all show up to feed others. As a result, everyone grows and everyone helps others grow. The local church is the God-ordained mechanism for disciple-making.
It’s not just Ephesians 4 that makes this point. 1 Timothy 3 calls the local church, “The household of God … the pillar and foundation of truth” (v. 15). Acts tells the story of God establishing local churches throughout the known world as a means by which his gospel spreads. The primacy of the local church for disciple-making is consistent across the New Testament. When the author of Hebrews is concerned that believers might peter out and grow cold, he exhorts them not to “neglect meeting together” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
The manual is clear: if we are going to fulfill the Great Commission, we must pursue planting and renewing local churches around the world. In God’s design, the local church is the epicenter of missions. And so it must be for us. Not merely by way of lip-service or tacit acknowledgement; our core disciple-making work should be driven through the local church.
Of course, God’s disciple-making manual has more than two panels. Matthew 28 and Ephesians 4 aren’t the complete set of disciple-making instructions. But my goal in this blog is to fuse those two together in our minds so that the Great Commission and the local church are inseparable.
I am part of Neopolis Network. One of Neopolis’ goals is to restore the local church to the epicenter of world missions. We create ways for local churches to partner with local churches in order to see cities and our world transformed by the gospel of Jesus. If you would like to talk more about how your church can center world missions around indigenous local churches, I would love to connect.
The “manual” is clear: the Great Commission and the local church go together. The question is: will we be doers of the word, or simply hearers?
James Seward is the Director of Ministry for Neopolis Network. He is passionate about biblical exposition, helping the vulnerable, church revitalization, world missions, and training. He has over 20 years of pastoral experience in Illinois, Texas, and Ontario. James lives in Wheaton, IL with his wife, Karen, and their five children.
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