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The Great Commission and The Authority
The Great Commission and The Authority
GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 18 When Jesus came near, he spoke to them. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 So wherever you go, make disciples of all nations: Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach them to do everything I have commanded you. “And remember that I am always with you until the end of time.”
The “Great Commission” as spoken by Jesus. This fundamental passage has to be at the core of all a Christian does and all any group of Christians do no matter if they are a church, a part of a church, a para-church organization or a group of Christian friends. At all levels this is your mission statement, your calling and should becomes the basic foundational drive of all you do as a believer.
The message is very basic, but can often become lost in the systems and plans of groups and individuals in a way that many individuals feel this is not for them to do because it is not their job. The fact is that the way this statement was made and how this passage reads it is clear that every individual is called by Jesus to do this by the power and the guidance of Christ Himself.
The first statement here is the fact that
Matthew 28:18 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 18 When Jesus came near, he spoke to them. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
What is this “authority” and how is it relevant. Lets start with the word authority as defined in the dictionary:
› the power to control or demand obedience from others:
› An authority is someone with official responsibility for a particular area of activity:
Using this definition from the dictionary, Jesus has the responsibility for some area or areas of activity and has the power to control or demand obedience from some group. What areas of activity and who He is controlling or demanding obedience from will be defined by whatever He says next and the context.
In context Jesus is speaking to the eleven disciples that were to be the catalysts of what would become the church. The people to whom He is speaking directly are the fathers of every Christian church.
Matthew 28:19 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 19 So wherever you go, make disciples of all nations: Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
They are instructed to “go make disciples.” In this translation the idea is also tied to being “wherever you go.” The instruction here is for them to not only go to everywhere on the earth to make something called disciples, but to do that everywhere they go.
The area of responsibility that Jesus has been given can be seen as two distinct areas from what we have read so far: the first is obvious because the passage said it: all authority in heaven and earth” which includes the entire world. The second is clearly and more directly to those who are His disciples (in this case the ones He is speaking to).
The responsibility that He is delegating is for each of them to do their part in making more disciples. They are the instruments that He will use to exercise His authority as well as being subjects of His authority.
Then, these disciples are told to take the people that are willing to become disciples like them and have them make an outward expression of being under this authority by being baptized. These disciples will not only learn new things will be washed of the old and brought into the new way of living that is voluntarily living under Christ’s authority.
Matthew 28:20 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 20 Teach them to do everything I have commanded you. “And remember that I am always with you until the end of time.”
Here we find the definition of what a disciple is and what it means to make one. A disciple is a person who is taught TO DO everything that Jesus taught the Disciples He is talking to here to do.
The big teaching being the teaching given in the context of this statement: The teaching to go and wherever you go make disciples that get baptized and do everything that Jesus has commanded those disciples because of his authority over the world and over each person in it.
For most people, there is some limiting factor to our ability to do this and for some of us this seems impossible or as if our job is to just give support to the others that do this.
While there is something to be said for that, the truth is that each person who is truly a disciple is to go and wherever you go you are to make disciples in the manner outlined here. If that seems impossible, then that is awesome. That simply means you understand the fact that you cannot do it. If you could do it on your own power then what would you need God for. It is His authority that you are exercising, not your own. It is his power that you are exercising, not your own.
This is the core component of our relationship with Jesus is living this out. This is to love Him and be a disciple of His. Sitting in a building full of people who believe in Jesus, giving money or other support to others who do this, and such things are great and are amazing expressions of your belief, but are not what you are told here to do. That is not the “go” or the “everywhere you go” that Jesus taught his disciples to teach their disciples of Him that they would teach.
There are places and people that you as an individual are the person Jesus has put in place to spread his “authority” over.
This actually is impossible for you and is outside of what you are wired to do. That is why you need Jesus. This is the point:
REMEMBER THAT JESUS IS ALWAYS WITH YOU UNTIL THE END OF TIME!
The New Church Members: The Harvest or the Seeds? – Part 3
The New Church Members: The Harvest or the Seeds? – Part 3
Luke 10:23-24 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 23 He turned to his disciples in private and said to them, “How blessed you are to see what you’ve seen. 24 I can guarantee that many prophets and kings wanted to see and hear what you’ve seen and heard, but they didn’t.”
What did these people do to hear this? What had these disciples seen that would have been something that everyone had wanted t see and were not able. The obvious answer is Jesus and while that is absolutely true, that is not the context of this verse.
Luke 10:17-21 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 17 The 70 disciples came back very happy. They said, “Lord, even demons obey us when we use the power and authority of your name!” 18 Jesus said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. 19 I have given you the authority to trample snakes and scorpions and to destroy the enemy’s power. Nothing will hurt you. 20 However, don’t be happy that evil spirits obey you. Be happy that your names are written in heaven.” 21 In that hour the Holy Spirit filled Jesus with joy. Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from wise and intelligent people and revealing them to little children. Yes, Father, this is what pleased you.
The disciples had returned from ministry with an amazing testimony of the power that had been unleashed through the ministry work that Jesus ha sent them to do. The ministry they had all been engaged in was so powerful and amazing that that Jesus goes on to tell them that even prophets and kings wished they could see what they saw in ministry.
Whatever these missionaries and evangelists did, I want to try and do because it obviously worked at least for them.
Why am I talking about this and what does it have to do with the starting of this new church? It has to do with a couple of verses the speaker referenced during the first service. These passages happen to be passages that had been used repeatedly in trainings and discussions I have had over the past ten years about how the New Testament church planters did ministry. These passages happen to be the ministry instructions of Jesus to these disciples that led to such a powerful outcome. These passages also give us a completely different idea of what it means to go into a city, area or culture to do ministry.
Luke 9:1-5 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 1 Jesus called the twelve apostles together and gave them power and authority over every demon and power and authority to cure diseases. 2 He sent them to spread the message about the kingdom of God and to cure the sick. 3 He told them, “Don’t take anything along on the trip. Don’t take a walking stick, traveling bag, any food, money, or a change of clothes. 4 When you go into a home, stay there until you’re ready to leave. 5 If people don’t welcome you, leave that city, and shake its dust off your feet as a warning to them.”
Luke 10:1-11 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 1 After this, the Lord appointed 70[a] other disciples to go ahead of him to every city and place that he intended to go. They were to travel in pairs. 2 He told them, “The harvest is large, but the workers are few. So ask the Lord who gives this harvest to send workers to harvest his crops. 3 Go! I’m sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Don’t carry a wallet, a traveling bag, or sandals, and don’t stop to greet anyone on the way. 5 Whenever you go into a house, greet the family right away with the words, ‘May there be peace in this house.’ 6 If a peaceful person lives there, your greeting will be accepted. But if that’s not the case, your greeting will be rejected. 7 Stay with the family that accepts you. Eat and drink whatever they offer you. After all, the worker deserves his pay. Do not move around from one house to another. 8 Whenever you go into a city and the people welcome you, eat whatever they serve you. 9 Heal the sick that are there, and tell the people, ‘The kingdom of God is near you!’ 10 “But whenever you go into a city and people don’t welcome you, leave. Announce in its streets, 11 ‘We are wiping your city’s dust from our feet in protest against you! But realize that the kingdom of God is near you!’
These are key verses for many of the things God has been showing me as the “new wineskin” that he is going to reach the next generation that repeatedly come up in completely unrelated contexts. This context included.
As I thought of the fundamental concepts that underlie the way Jesus sent these first missionaries and evangelists out every thought seemed to confirm the idea that the format I was sitting in was structured in a way that had to be at least one generation away from the ministry that they wanted to do.
The church I was in is the model seen in the book of Luke all the way up to this point. The basic model for reaching a new area up to chapter nine was that Jesus would go to a place and all of the disciples would congregate together in a crowd around Him.
In chapters nine and ten the equation is changed by Jesus. Jesus sends out the people that had been congregating around Him “…to every city and place that he intended to go.” The follows of Christ precede Him into the area looking for the people who were already prepared for Jesus to come.
The people who were prepared for Jesus’ arrival were described as incredibly hospitable people who would go so far as to support the ministry and provide the center for the ministry (in a literal sense, their homes).
If such people were found, then the town would experience God to the level of the miraculous. If such a person was found then not only were they not going to experience the miraculous, but the arrival of Jesus (or the arrival of the kingdom of God) would be an evidence of their unbelief resulting in miraculously bad consequences. The kind of consequences that the ones being sent were sent to these places to help the people avoid. The kind of consequences that Jesus was going to these places to help the people there avoid.
The implication is that in every place that Jesus was getting ready to go that there was a person who was already being prepared for the arrival of those Jesus was sending. For there to be the expectation of that level of hospitality, God would have offered that person in each place opportunity to know it needed to be done. The expectation that refusal to be hospitable (by a nonbeliever) was a turning of ones back on God implies that somehow that person had a more than reasonable call from God to be hospitable, yet that person’s heart was so cold that it could not be done. That person also apparently had a call from God to represent the entire area and somehow must have been given more than the normal opportunity to respond in a receptive way, yet refused. In other words, this was the person God had picked and called to represent the area and this person’s response to God’s tug on his/her heart was representative of the receptiveness of the entire area.
He new church that I was standing in was made up of more mature Christians, who saw where Jesus was going, pooled their resources and congregated around Him. This is how church has been done in the western world for a few centuries now. The challenge is that it is reactive and not proactive. The focus is on starting with a group where He is already glorified and doing things and not on going to places where He is not glorified to prepare the way.
Here is what I am getting at. This church apparently is part of a larger organization that is an offshoot of an even larger organization. These organizations have been sending people regularly for years to this metropolis to minister (apparently to the poor and needy of the city in its more impoverished areas) yet the people that they have been ministering to were not present in the service. They were either not present, or had been completely changed to look and sound like the Christianese culture they were in to the point where they were no longer anything like the people they were from. (Sort of like teaching a church in China to have a complete service in English because that is the way we do it – that’s great, but they are highly unlikely to reach many people in china by building and English speaking church)
They had imported an entirely different culture than the culture they had felt that Christ was leading them to. It is as if they had been to the town where this person let them stay and took care of them was, but went and did ministry in the town next door instead.
That means that instead of being in the place where Jesus intends to go like the twelve and the seventy that Jesus sent out, they are clustered together in a place where Jesus is hoping that someone else who Jesus has sent out will bring those people to where they are at in a way that they are comfortable with. The Way Jesus traveled with crowds who watched various people com to him for miracles.
Please do not understand me to be saying that this new church was doing some great evil. As a matter of fact, from what I saw in the two weeks the church has existed, they are leaps and bounds ahead of just about every church I have encountered. The challenges I am describing that I was observing are more of a global, church-wide problem that I am processing that in fact they have been able to break much of the bondage of.
This is a cutting edge group and I honestly think that a study of the things that remain of the old wineskin that a group like this could not seem to get rid of or notice is an incredibly important study as it shows how strong of a grip on us these things really have.
I am left wondering why there are not more seekers and new converts instead of a new congregation of old believers. I suppose if this is just a training ground for those that will be sent to the unreached places that Jesus is about to go to, then it is exactly what it is supposed to be. The problem is that what the are doing now will either have to change completely at some point or the harvest will have to come from another entirely new church in the same city that is more of a new wineskin. At some point this training church would have to decrease to allow for the less nineteenth century modeled church to begin flourishing.
A key question that I have yet to ask is how the vision of the new wineskin looks in the end to the people who carry the vision. I wonder if it is based on a large building with the same Christianese cultural context or if it is one or more churches in that metropolis that express how God is working through and communicating with the various groups in that city.
Are they looking for the people that God has been calling and preparing in that city in its various groups or are they importing culturally Christianese trainees to communicate the old wineskin.
I am a big fan of the passages the speaker quoted from Luke 9 and 10. These are the first missionaries, evangelists and church planters that Jesus sent and this is the way He did it. This is also reflected in Paul’s ministry of going to places, training the people in a download of as much as he had time to (which could range from days to years) and then left them to figure it out by coming together and seeking God.
Paul trusted God so much that he would leave them the opportunity to mess the whole thing up completely and listen to God for correction. Then if they really got way, way out there, he merely sent them a letter outlining the problem. These letter are available for you reference if you would like: They are a large chunk of what we call the New Testament.
I wonder if we are so worried about doing things right and not allowing for error to slip in that we have stopped trusting God and began leaning on the crutch of systems and legalism.
What will it take for this church or any “new wineskin” church to really be able to be all things to all people?
This church, as it has been is clearly the seed planting phase of a much bigger picture. The question then becomes, do they understand it to be that way.
Do they realize that to go from being the seed to being the harvesters means being sent away from the Jesus environment to prepare new places and groups of people to become new Jesus environments that may not look anything like their current Jesus environment (all the churches Paul planted, for example, did not look and act the same way).
Overall this is an awesome group of people doing an awesome thing that is a step beyond most of the church planting I have seen in an American context. They have done such a great job of following the new direction that God seems to be calling so many people in, I could not help but look at the few things that they still have as things that even the best of us will have deep struggles breaking free of.
Thanks for patiently walking along this road with me as I process through the details what I feel God is revealing to me and my thinking out loud. I hope and pray that this sparks deep introspective thought, deep prayerful conversation with God, deep conversation with others, and even heated debate all in a passionate desire to do the will of God.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 GOD’S WORD Translation (GW) – 19 Although I’m free from all people, I have made myself a slave for all people to win more of them. 20 I became Jewish for Jewish people. I became subject to Moses’ Teachings for those who are subject to those laws. I did this to win them even though I’m not subject to Moses’ Teachings. 21 I became like a person who does not have Moses’ Teachings for those who don’t have those teachings. I did this to win them even though I have God’s teachings. I’m really subject to Christ’s teachings. 22 I became like a person weak in faith to win those who are weak in faith. I have become everything to everyone in order to save at least some of them. 23 I do all this for the sake of the Good News in order to share what it offers.
I hope and I ask God to make your life really cool all the time (non-Christianese for “May God bless you”);
W. Lawrence Hess
Related articles
- The New Church Members: The Harvest or the Seeds? – Part 1 (seaofgalilee.wordpress.com)
- The New Church Members: The Harvest or the Seeds? – Part 2 (seaofgalilee.wordpress.com)
- Luke 10. Jesus Sends Out The Seventy (bummyla.wordpress.com)
- http://dondavis.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/there-is-madness-in-the-model/
One Another/Each Other Bible Study for Small Groups Available
I just made the “One Another/Each Other Bible Study for Small Groups” available.
With Christ’s statements about what the greatest commandments are it seems immensely important to look at the details of what the Bible tells us about interacting with “one another” as that is the clear defining of what it is to love your neighbor and also the definition of what it means to not be loving your neighbor.
The studies are created to use the same discovery concepts the S.E.A. of Galilee Fellowship uses for all studies:
S = SCRIPTURE; read and discuss a passage
E = EXPLANATION; look at questions that help explore and discover what the passage is really saying (what God is saying through this particular passage to mankind, to your household and specifically to you)
A = APPLICATION; participants make a commitment to take action on what was revealed as what God wants from us through the study (the teaching them to obey from The Great Commission.
The studies are designed for leadership to be done by a person who is facilitating the study and not by a teacher etc. the facilitators main job is to get everyone involved in the discussion for each question.
The other task the facilitator has is to teach the group to lovingly ask “Where do you see that in this passage” if someone brings up something that is not related to the passage being discussed or some perceived heresy.
The actual page for this study is: https://seaofgalilee.wordpress.com/s-e-a-of-galilee-fellowship-bible-study-outlines/one-anothereach-other-bible-study-for-small-groups/
The study can be accessed directly as a PDF file by clicking https://seaofgalilee.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/one-another-verses-bible-study-study.pdf
You can print the PDF file from there or you can go back and forth to the page for reference as needed.
Be blessed an be a blessing to “one another”,
W. Lawrence Hess
Related articles
- Prayer Bible Study Outline For Small Groups (seaofgalilee.wordpress.com)
- The Discovering Church Planters and Missionaries of the New Testament Bible Study – NOW AVAILABLE (seaofgalilee.wordpress.com)
- “Church Bible Study for Small Groups” is now available (seaofgalilee.wordpress.com)
- Marriage Bible Study For Small Groups Available (seaofgalilee.wordpress.com)
The Discovering Church Planters and Missionaries of the New Testament Bible Study – NOW AVAILABLE
I just posted the Discovering Church Planters and Missionaries of the New Testament Bible Study as a free download in a PDF format.
This discovery study outline was designed for studying what the Bible actually shows us about Chruch Planting and missions work. This study goes through the churches of the New Testament for our example of what we are supposed to be doing and how we are supposed to be doing it.
This is aimed at more mature Christians who are getting ready to work in a larger capacity as a church planter, as a missionary or a minister of some sort. It is a feirly intensive study with slightly longer passages than usual and can be used in stictly small group settings or can be used as part of a class that does small group breakout sessions and discussions as well as class discussion.
This study is not designed to be just about learning however, the focus is on going from learning, to doing to living a lifestyle of a church planer or of a missionary..
The studies are created to use the same discovery concepts the S.E.A. of Galilee Fellowship uses for all studies:
S = SCRIPTURE; read and discuss a passage
E = EXPLANATION; look at questions that help explore and discover what the passage is really saying (what God is saying through this particular passage to mankind, to your household and specifically to you)
A = APPLICATION; participants make a commitment to take action on what was revealed as what God wants from us through the study (the teaching them to obey from The Great Commission.
The studies are designed for leadership to be done by a person who is facilitating the study and not by a teacher etc. the facilitators main job is to get everyone involved in the discussion for each question.
The other task the facilitator has is to teach the group to lovingly ask “Where do you see that in this passage” if someone brings up something that is not related to the passage being discussed or some perceived heresy.
The Study Guide is rather large and may take a minute to download or print. Access the page at https://seaofgalilee.wordpress.com/discovering-church-planters-and-missionaries-of-the-new-testament-bible-study/ or you can just open the file directly at Discovering Church Planters and Missionaries of the New Testament Bible Study.
Blessings…
Wade Lawrence Hess
“Church Bible Study for Small Groups” is now available
“Church Bible Study for Small Groups” is now available
In a time where statistics, magazines and the people who are experts at church information are all saying that the church as we have known it is in trouble it seems like it is important to see if the “church as we have known it” is truly the only way that God said church is to be done.
The implication is that we need to also look if God gave us instructions that might lead us to experience church some other way. The key question is not what I am comfortable with, or my denomination says church is supposed to be or even what my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents said it was to be like. What does God say and what does God want right now in this day and age?
This study is designed to help small groups explore that question by studying passages talking about the New Testament concept of church or related topics. With whatever the Holy Spirit reveals through the scriptures we have to ask ourselves if I am more focussed on my way or God’s best for the here and now. Is God my co-pilot or pilot. If God is your co-pilot, you desperately need to change seats.
These studies are designed to be done in a small group context with a facilitator and led by the Holy Spirit. That means leadership only involves facilitation by one of the participants as the group discusses the passage using the S.E.A. of Galilee Fellowship discovery methods. The facilitators main job is to get everyone involved in the discussion for each question.
- S = SCRIPTURE; read and discuss a passage
- E = EXPLANATION; look at questions that help explore and discover what the passage is really saying (what God is saying through this particular passage to mankind, to your household and specifically to you)
- A = APPLICATION; participants make a commitment to take action on what was revealed as what God wants from us through the study (the teaching them to obey from The Great Commission.
The other task the facilitator has is to teach the group to lovingly ask “Where do you see that in this passage” if someone brings up something that is not related to the passage being discussed or some perceived heresy.
The study can be accessed by clicking https://seaofgalilee.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/church-bible-study.pdf
Or by clicking the button above marked “CHURCH BIBLE STUDY FOR SMALL GROUPS”
Be blessed…
W. Lawrence Hess