Thoughts on the "Great Commission"

“Going into all the world, disciple the ethnic groups…” “Going into all the world, preach the Gospel to every created thing…”
     These were some of the last commands Jesus gave before ascending into the sky that day. He doesn’t say, “get people to believe in Me.” He doesn’t say, “preach the Gospel to every human being.” What He says explicitly is to instruct and make students of the various people groups in the world, and to preach the Gospel which He taught to everything that isn’t God Himself, that is, everything which is created, regardless of what it is.
     It stands to reason that if someone is a student, a disciple of Jesus Christ, then they will believe in Him. Belief in the one to whom you are discipled is implicit in discipleship. Belief in Him wasn’t His concern, but teaching people from every people group how to follow what He taught, how to practice and imitate His example, the pattern He laid down and lived His own life by; this is what was of utmost concern before He physically left in mid-May of 33CE almost two thousand years ago.
     I write what I write on these subjects for this reason. My objective isn’t to make believers in Jesus Christ. Nearly every person who has heard of Him believes in His existence and teachings, either literally or as a metaphor, and almost everyone, even the church’s detractors, has little bad to say about Jesus Himself. Even if they only accept Him as a good moral teacher, they still believe in His existence in some way. Not everyone, that’s true, but for most who reject the existence of Jesus, it’s not because of Jesus Himself, but because of those who profess to follow Him yet do anything but.
     No, my objective is to teach people how to follow Him, how to follow what He taught, and to give them the foundations of understanding to do so. I use the arguments I do, and the unconventional resources I do, to achieve this by any means necessary. If traditional resources and theologies don’t work, then let’s try non-traditional resources and theological frameworks. If someone doesn’t get it one way, let’s flip it on its head and try to explain it that way. If that doesn’t work, let’s turn it inside out and look at the inner workings in detail as much as possible. And if we don’t know what the inner workings look like, let’s explore it and figure out what explanation fits the data we’ve got. And if we acquire more data, let’s plug it in and see how it holds up and fits in. But the goal, the overarching, all consuming goal is to give people the tools to practice and imitate, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
     It is explicitly not my objective to make disciples of Martin Luther, John Calvin (God Forbid), any of the Protestant Reformers, the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, or any other denomination, church, pastor, theologian, or guru for that matter. It is my explicit objective to do what Jesus said, and provide the resources to teach people how to follow and imitate Jesus Christ. I am not looking to add notches to my Bible. I am not looking to rack up the number of “saved” people under my belt. My sole objective is Jesus Christ.
     If this means I reveal personal or even humiliating struggles or mistakes, so be it. If this means my positions on certain matters change and evolve, so be it. I too am still learning, even after thirty plus years and counting, and I still feel like I’m only barely now getting something of a handle on it. Everything I learn, I share for others to make use of one way or the other. Everything needs to go to this one goal, teach others how to follow and imitate Jesus Christ. Not how to be successful and prosperous, not how to achieve their life goals, not how to be happy; always and only how to follow and imitate Jesus Christ.
     And as for the second thing He said, how do we preach the Gospel to every created thing? Do we start reciting Matthew to rocks? Do we quote John to the trees? Do the flowers need a lesson from Paul? Clearly not. The Gospel is not a theology or a doctrine to believe in. This is our first mistake and misunderstanding. The Gospel is Jesus Christ Himself. To preach the Gospel to every created thing is to preach Jesus Christ to every created thing. The most effective means of preaching the Gospel to anything or anyone is by stepping back, disengaging, and letting the Spirit of Jesus Christ take control so that it is Him the creation around you encounters. It is His words and His actions people around you see and hear. Peter preached Jesus Christ to the Sanhedrin not just by lecturing them, but by displaying Jesus Christ through himself for all of them to see so that it was Jesus Himself accusing them of His own murder through Peter. We preach the Gospel to anything and everything around us when it is Jesus Christ who is in control and speaking and acting through us. When they can see and hear Him through us, and not we ourselves. There is no greater evangelization than having someone encounter Jesus Christ through you. Preaching the Gospel to every creature is being a disciple of Jesus Christ yourself, and doing nothing which He does not say or do through you, just as He did nothing which the Father did not say or do through Him.
     I admit, it’s a lot easier to just subscribe to this or that doctrine. It’s a lot easier to just tell people all they have to do is “believe,” assuming that they know what that even entails. Of course they have to believe. If someone doesn’t believe they can do something, then they can’t do something. If someone doesn’t believe something will work for them, then it won’t work for them. They themselves are creating the barrier through disbelief. And being an actual disciple necessitates actual belief in Jesus Christ. It’s an assumed prerequisite.
     Subscribing to a particular religion or set of doctrines is easier, and can be more personally comforting, but it isn’t the mandate Jesus gave His disciples before He was taken up. His mandate was to teach people to be like Him, to do like Him, to walk as He walked, to be Him for the world around them. And in the first and second centuries, this was the very definition of the word “Christian,” because the followers of the Way didn’t consider you one if you weren’t displaying Jesus Christ and living as He taught. Even John says as much in his first epistle. You may have been saying all the right things, but if they didn’t see their Master and Teacher in your behavior, you weren’t considered one of them.
     So, I write what I find and learn. I present what I have in order for whoever reading it to have an understanding of how to actually be His disciple. And more importantly, I pray every day that I do the same myself, that I be Jesus for everyone around me, give Jesus to everyone around me, receive Jesus from those around me, and see Jesus in everyone around me. This is what it means to fulfill the “Great Commission.”