How do we understand what Jesus is calling us to do as His disciples?[i] A primary text is His call for us at the end of Matthew that we know as the Great Commission.[ii]
[Art: “The Last Supper” Duccio di Buoni Segna c 13th Century]
Mt 28:16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated to them. 17 And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
But…
What does this mean? How are we to know and understand this text, this instruction, this calling, this command? We need to grapple with this language, how it is used in Matthew, the rest of the gospels and in the epistles.
This final instruction framing our identity and task is not the only primary text where Jesus instructs and commissions us. At the end of the gospels, Jesus gives the disciples their instructions, His command, to commission them for their task as disciples. It is useful to see the other commissioning passages from Jesus[iii]. The commissioning passage in Mark is not as detailed[iv], but echoes both Matthew and Luke.
Mk 16:15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
Luke in both the gospel and Acts has Jesus commission the disciples.
Lk 24:45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and He said to them, “So it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Acts 1:7 But He said to them, “It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed times which the Father has set by His own authority; 8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and as far as the remotest part of the earth.”
In these three synoptic gospel accounts and Acts, the commission is to go to the world as witnesses and proclaim the gospel. In John’s account after the resurrection, Jesus meets the disciples in the upper room and has an extended commissioning in the Last Supper discourse.
Lk 20:21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be to you; just as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them and *said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, their sins [d]have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
Jesus here sends them as well. He gives them the Holy Spirit and commissions them to forgive sins. But in John, Jn 13:1-17:26, there is an extensive clarification of the meaning of discipleship supplementing and clarifying the commissioning passages of the synoptics.
Jn 13:34 I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”
Jn 15:12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.
Jn 17:16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. 18 Just as You sent Me into the world, I also sent them into the world.
As we are challenged with the role of being Jesus’ disciples, Christians, we need to be guided by what Jesus teaches about being a disciple in the gospels. His explicit teaching and acts should frame and guide us. Why does he commission us to baptize and why is that a part of our role? What commands are we to keep and teach others to keep? What is involved in being a witness? Where is He sending us? How does this fit into life? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to become?
It is challenging because we have a legacy set of practices and understandings that are true but…
They are also limited and incomplete. Part of our current challenge and our big opportunity is to know more about being a disciple. Why were we baptized? What happened? What were we taught? What are His commands? What does it mean to love one an
[i] This text is an effort to grapple with the meaning of Christianity based on the revelation of God contained in the Scriptures of the Hebrew text, the Old Testament, and the Greek text, the New Testament. Much of what it means to be Christian is wonderfully a part of our heritage with phenomenal resources readily available. But our current understanding, as in every age, needs to be broadened and refined so we better understand and live out our identity as those called by His name.
Much of our heritage benefited from the careful work of the church fathers trying to make sense of the resurrection and incarnation in light of the Hebrew Scriptures that Jesus fulfilled and the Greek gospels and epistles that document His life, teachings, death and resurrection. We are the beneficiaries of the careful philosophical, rational reflection of the Church through the medieval period and more sharply focused by the reformation. Our systematic and propositional approach to the truth revealed has guided our understanding but also has limited us. In a postmodern correction, the narrative structure of the Hebrew and Greek text needs to be re-read to allow revelation and not rational taxonomies to frame what it means to be a disciple. This suggests that we allow Jesus and God in their primary proclamation texts to frame our understanding. This is consistent with the historical understanding of our faith as all believers learn the basic framework of the faith in the Ten Words (the commandments), the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles Creed.
[ii] If we are to rely on the proclamation passages to define the faith and the meaning of discipleship, we can start with Jesus’ commissioning texts in the gospels and His initial proclamation passages of the gospel.
[iii] Christians are disciples of Christ, Acts 11:26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers of people; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. In the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, the disciples are called to make disciples. Understanding what is means to be a disciple is to understand what it means to be a Christian, what the good news or gospel is, who we are, what life means….
[iv] There are few notable passages that modern scholarship reviewing all the most ancient texts find absent in some of the oldest copies of the text for certain books. In the rational defense of inerrancy, one aspect was that the original autograph was inerrant, and the copies were adequate. In critical reviews not committed to inerrancy, the texts of Hebrew and Greek books were seen as compilations from varied sources with questions about their origins and value. Careful review of the range of old texts available uncovered very few significant discrepancies from the earliest records even between texts that were distant in location and communities. Three notable passages absent from some of the oldest manuscripts include the end of Mark after 16:8, The end of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:13b, and the woman accused of adultery in John 7:53-8:11. Like many questions, the inclusion of these passages is a mystery. They are not problematic although Mark is weird with the snakes and poison in Mt 16:18. The end of the Lord’s Prayer seems like a fitting response for us to make for the prayer. Since the Holy Spirit not only inspires the text, He guards it and continues to refine our understanding of it. How are we to know what to do with these passages?