Day 30 (Friday): Matthew 28:18-20
Today’s Passage
Read the passage – Matthew 28:18-20
The Great Commission is very well-known, but what does it say about God’s people? It tells us that we are under authority and that Jesus is always with us. In saying “go,” the verb form is continuous, saying “as you go,” so wherever we are, we are to be making disciples.
- What are you doing about making disciples?
- How does it help knowing that we are under Christ’s authority and that he is with us?
Prayer
- May the changes in lives glorify You and inspire others to seek You.
- Spend some time praising God for what he has done and will continue to do in our local neighbourhood. Continue to pray for your neighbours asking for their salvation. Ask God to help you make disciples and that we as a church would be a disciple-making church.
Go Deeper
Craig Blomberg, Matthew, vol. 22, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 431.
The main command of Christ’s commission is “make disciples” (mathēteusate). Too much and too little have often been made of this observation. Too much is made of it when the disciples’ “going” is overly subordinated, so that Jesus’ charge is to proselytize merely where one is. Matthew frequently uses “go” as an introductory circumstantial participle that is rightly translated as coordinate to the main verb—here “Go and make” (cf. 2:8; 9:13; 11:4; 17:27; 28:7). Too little is made of it when all attention is centered on the command to “go,” as in countless appeals for missionary candidates, so that foreign missions are elevated to a higher status of Christian service than other forms of spiritual activity. To “make disciples of all nations” does require many people to leave their homelands, but Jesus’ main focus remains on the task of all believers to duplicate themselves wherever they may be. The verb “make disciples” also commands a kind of evangelism that does not stop after someone makes a profession of faith. The truly subordinate participles in v. 19 explain what making disciples involves: “baptizing” them and “teaching” them obedience to all of Jesus’ commandments. The first of these will be a once-for-all, decisive initiation into Christian community. The second proves a perennially incomplete, life-long task.
