- Matthew 28.18-20 KJV
- 18And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
There are two passages which Christians tend to call Jesus’s Great Commission: The instructions to his students in the Long Ending of Mark, and this passage here. This one’s shorter, so more Christians have memorized it. Probably a good idea for you to memorize it. It’s not just a commission for the first apostles; it’s for every follower of Jesus ever since. Including you.
In it, Jesus instructs his students to disciple the ἔθνη/éthni, “ethnics,” which the KJV translates “nations”; which the students would’ve understand to mean gentiles. This is why some skeptics aren’t so sure Jesus legitimately said this: If he told his first followers to go to the gentiles, why’d they struggle so much with the idea, they had to have a whole council about it? But if you’ve ever worked with kids, you know they don’t always listen. Jesus traveled to other Roman provinces in the area—to the Dekapolis, to Tyre and Sidon and provinces north of the Galilee, to Samaria—and while there were plenty of ethnic Israelis in those areas, you know there were gentiles intermixed among ’em. He’d demonstrated many times his message was for everyone. So yeah, this is a legitimate Jesus command. Go teach all nations.
We’re to teach everyone, everywhere, everything Jesus taught us. We’re to baptize people in the name of the trinity. We’re to create new disciples, new students of Christ, new Christ-followers, new Christians, to preserve what he teaches, and obey him. And, lest we think he’s abandoned us to do it alone, he intends to be with us every day till the monumental job is done.
Which is… when? At the second coming? Seven years before? A thousand years after? Jesus only says “the end of the world,” which is kinda left open to interpretation. After all he’s gonna rule the world for a millennium, so the world won’t end for a mighty long time. All we do know is this age has an end-point. When that day comes, Jesus expects his kingdom to be full of people whom his apostles brought to him. We gotta get busy!
“Go ye therefore.”
Most bibles translate the aorist participle πορευθέντες/porefthédes, “you² who go forth,” as a command, like the King James Version’s “Go ye.” When people unfamiliar with Greek discover its verb-form is a participle, not a command (like πορεύεστε/poréveste, “you² go!”), some of ’em get a little bent out of shape: “Hey waitaminnit! The command isn’t to go. It’s—wait, let me check—it’s μαθητεύσατε/mathitévsate, ‘you² disicple!’ Jesus is commanding us to disciple, not go. What’s the deal? Are missionaries futzing with the translation, so they can trick us into going?”
Chill out; no they’re not. It’s a quirk of ancient Greek: Whenever you have an command verb, an imperative, in a sentence, it turns all the participles in the sentence into commands. So “you² who go forth” becomes “you² go!”
And since that’s true of all the participles it also means
- “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” should properly be “Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
- “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” should properly be “Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
Two more commands than you realized. ’Cause Jesus really does want us to follow all of it. The baptizing and teaching parts aren’t meant to be optional. But I’m gonnna assume you aren’t trying to weasel out of obeying the Great Commission, right?
I will point out there are some missionaries who alter the Great Commission—who quote it thisaway: “Go into all the world and make disciples.” What they’re doing is mashing up the Great Commission in Mark, with that of Matthew. Here’s the Mark version, by the way:
- Mark 16.15-16 KJV
- 15And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
I’ve heard the mashup version a bunch of times. Missionaries use it to promote the idea of doing some form of missions work, whether full-time or short. I agree every Christian should do some form of missions work, but I also believe if we’re gonna quote bible, let’s quote it properly, okay? “Go teach all nations” and “Go into all the world and preach” are two different verses, and oughta be memorized individually and quoted individually. Not combined into a saying someone can’t easily find in a bible.
