Christ’s Great Commission

The Process Defined

Disciplemaking is seeking to fulfill the imperative of the Great Commission by making a conscientious effort to help people move toward spiritual maturity— drawing on the power and direction of the Holy Spirit, utilizing the resources of the local church, and fully employing the gifts, talents and skills acquired over the years.

Four Key Components

The fulfillment of the Great Commission

The Holy Spirit

The Local Church

The Disciplemaker

The Divine Imperative

Go therefore and MAKE DISCIPLES of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 28:19–20.

At first glance we look at Matthew 28:19,20 and see the verbs thinking “Oh, I get it, Jesus commanded us to GO, BAPTIZE, and TEACH. What is actually going on in the greek is that the command is to MAKE DISCIPLES and Christ gave us the exact way we are to carry out that command. Making Disciples is the END by which we carry out the means of the method (GO) and the activity (BAPTIZE and TEACH).

Lets imagine how Paul Revere’s boss might have instructed him just before his famous ride. The three participles are italicized, and the main verb is bold-faced:

As you are riding through towns, shout, “The British are coming!” — waking up anyone who’s asleep and stopping at each tavern where patriots might congregate.

The main thin Paul’s boss wanted him to do was to shout. But he was to do it in the context of riding, waking people up and stopping in taverns. If he did those three things without shouting about the advance of the British, he not only would have disobeyed orders, his whole ride would have been in vain. Conversely, if he shouted about the British only while standing in his barn, and didn’t bother to ride through towns, wake up sleepers and stop at taverns, the residents of his barn would have been well prepared for the invasion, but the rest of us might be eating a lot more fish and chips these days.

It is the same thing with the Jesus’ instructions. If all the church does is to go, baptize and teach, with no concerted movement toward making disciples, she is not following His orders. On the other side of the coin, if she tries to make disciples outside of divinely mandated process of going, baptizing and teaching, she’s still setting herself up for failure.

Going

In the original Greek sentence, an even more precise translation would be “As you are going…” It presupposes that the hearers are already going. This presents itself as evangelism and puts the weight of the initiative on the disciple of Christ.

It is pretty tough to make a disciple out of a non-Christian, so the first step in moving people toward spiritual maturity is to move them toward being born-again into the spiritual realm. Jesus is saying “Make disciples by winning people to the kingdom.”

Second, it directs us to take the initiative. The job won’t get done if we are staying, only if we are GOING.