Mission as the Center: Reminders from Jesus' Great Commission

Jesus' Great Commission remains a vital text for understanding God's mission. Here are some reflections that seek to draw out its key components.

¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (NIV)

1) Cross centered. The backdrop of Matthew’s view of discipleship is the death of Jesus on the Cross. The Cross is paradigmatic for the life of discipleship (Matt 10:38; 16:24). The cruciform life defines the essence of following Jesus Christ. Jesus’ death on the cross is the ground of salvation. Matthew does not provide a detail discussion of the “how” of atonement, but instead simply states its reality (e.g., Matt 1:21; 8:17 [cf Isa 53:4]; 26:28). Modern Christ followers must resist any pragmatic or theologically driven attempts to whitewash or marginalize the centrality of the Cross. Jesus’ call to “deny oneself and take up the cross” is a counter-cultural and revolutionary. It envisions a movement of Christ followers who live as dead (wo)men walking–persons who have died up front to self so that they can follow Jesus into the world to bring the Gospel to those who desperately need it. Mission assumes that Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is the defining reality for our world.

2) A Sent Church. Jesus modeled movement during his earthly ministry. Following his resurrection this movement is expanded to encompass all nations. Communities of faith that follow Jesus must engage the world by going. As my friend, Alex McManus says, "Christ followers must either be sending or being sent." Jesus did not wait for persons to come to him. He moved around the countryside modeling a ministry that actively seeks out lost persons so that they may be found and welcomed into the movement.

3) All hands on deck. Matt 28:18-20 contains the marching orders for all Christ followers. It is not merely a call to overseas mission work or the game plan for an evangelism committee. It is the modus operandi for all who follow Jesus. Making disciples requires each follower to deploy his/her gifts for the sake of the community and the world. It assumes that each follower exerts kingdom influence in the world. Sociologists have learned that each person has the opportunity to influence 10,000 people during their lifetime. What would happen if all Christ followers used their lives to influence even a fraction of these 10,000 with the Gospel?

4) Shaped by Scripture. The third leg of making disciples involves teaching everything that I commanded you. Disciples are mandated to instruct and shape the ethos of the community to reflect the teachings of Jesus. Disciples access the teachings of and about Jesus through the Scriptures. This is a point where serious reflection and reformation is needed today. Scripture is to be transformative, but too often the study of Scripture become merely a transfer of information or facts about the Bible. The mark of a mature Christian is how much a person knows about the Bible apart from how well a person’s life reflects the Scriptures. Ironically, this has led some leaders to de-emphasize the study of Scripture in some cases or in others to base the interpretation of Scripture on the personal experiences of the reader. Neither of these options is faithful to the message of Matt 28.

The way forward here is to read the Scriptures in light of God’s mission. Matthew 28 offers the mission of making disciples of all nations as the centerpiece of the Christ following movement. It is vital then that the disciples learn to read the text missionally.

For a primer on a missional reading follow this link: A Short Primer on Reading the Bible Missionally

5) Conversion and Personal Transformation. Making disciples means the transformation of lives. The core of Jesus’ message was (Re)Align with the new reality that God is bringing about in our day (matt 4:17). Matthew’s Gospel is not about easy believism. It assumes that the Gospel changes lives and shapes persons to reflect the character of God. The Gospel is inherently counter-cultural. It challenges both the ideological/theological systems of the world as well as those of cultural Christianity. It invites persons to participate in God’s mission to save the world. This means that we ourselves must be saved and transformed into the sort of persons that can follow Jesus into the darkest places on earth because we have become persons of the light.

 © 2007 Brian D. Russell (revised 9/2015)

Reading Matthew's Gospel Missionally

I am teaching an applied hermeneutics course at Asbury Theological Seminary. It focuses on the text of Matthew’s Gospel. I am working hone a missional approach to Scripture as a key lens for appropriating the message of the text in the West for the 21st century.

When I talk about a missional hermeneutic, one of the key questions that I am asked is this: Is a missional reading or hermeneutic something that we as readers impose on the text?

My short answer is this: A missional reading of the Bible arises out of a close reading of the text itself. The reader however does bring the issue of mission as part of the investigation. This is not a foreign imposition on the text because the Bible itself assumes mission. We have often missed the missional element in Scripture because we have grown up in a Church culture in which mission was not at the center. This was not the case for the recipients of Matthew’s Gospel. The NT (and the OT) assumes mission. If we are to understand truly the Scriptures, we need to locate our own readings within a context of missional engagement with the world.

How can I say that Matthew assumes mission?

Here are some representative texts and comments:

1) The Gospel of Matthew reaches its zenith in Jesus’ commissioning of his disciples to Make Disciples (Matt 28:18-20). Notices that this is not merely a call for certain followers to serve as ambassadors. It is the mission of all followers of Jesus. This was true in the initial call to “follow Jesus and learn to fish for people” (4:19). The book of Matthew is a manual on missional discipleship.

The Great Commission is the no brainer “mission” text, but Matthew from beginning to end is about Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom and call of disciples to follow him into the world announcing the good news.

2) Matthew opens with a genealogy (1:1-17). Part of this genealogy affirms Jesus as “Son of Abraham”. It was to be through Abraham that “all peoples of the earth will be blessed” (Gen 12:3). The possibility of persons outside of Israel being saved is opened up through references to Abraham in the Gospel of Matthew (see Matt 3:9 and 8:11). Moreover, Jesus’ ministry begins in “Galilee of gentiles” (4:15) and Jesus gives the Great Commission from Galilee (28:16­–20).

3) Matthew focuses on the inclusion of outsiders in the scope of Jesus’ mission. This begins with the Magi (2:1-12) and continues on with Jesus’ ministry to those outsiders desperate for the Kingdom (see especially Jesus’ mighty acts in chapters 8-9). Who are the recipients of Jesus’ ministry? Lepers, foreigners, women, Roman centurions, tax collectors. This is a significant demonstration of the expansion of the scope of Israel’s ministry through the person of Jesus the Messiah.

4) Jesus’ ministry begins with his calling of the first disciples (4:18-22) on the heels of his initial proclamation of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven (4:17). This is a significant linkage of the core of Jesus’ message and the necessity of calling together a new community. This community is given a missional ethos from its beginning as Jesus calls this new community to follow him into the world on mission. Jesus even models incarnational language by describing the fishermen’s new evangelistic vocation as “fishing for people.”

5) Jesus practices boundary -breaking ministry. After teaching the ethos of the Kingdom for his disciples (Matt 5–7), he then models it in a series of mighty acts in Matt 8:1–9:34. Jesus does not allow uncleanness, foreignness, or sexism to stop the advance of the kingdom.

6) The “missionary discourse” (Matt 9:35-11:1) is Jesus’ empowerment and deployment of his followers to engage in the same sort of ministry that he had modelled for them in Matt 5-9. The Gospel of Matthew serves to teach God’s people how to live as a holy missional community to/for/in the world.

7) Jesus does not call persons to faith faith per se. Instead, Jesus calls people to “follow me”. This is significant. The Christian life is not merely about right thinking; it is about right living as well. But right living cannot be subsumed under the heading of ethics. Instead the ethos of the Christ following movement is centered on mission. When Jesus called persons to follow him, Jesus led them on mission. This is model for the Christ following movement. The Risen Christ continues to lead his people on mission to save the universe (Matt 28:20).

What do you think? What else would you add?

© 2007 with significant revisions in 2009 and 2015.