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    Understanding the Great Commission
    Understanding the Great Commission
    Understanding the Great Commission
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    Understanding the Great Commission

    By Jonathan Leeman and Mark Dever

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    About this ebook

    God means to fulfill the Great Commission through local churches.    How did the apostles and the churches of the New Testament obey the Great Commission? By gathering Christians together in churches. The church is God’s plan for evangelism, discipleship, and the Great Commission. This connection between the Great Commission and the church dramatically impacts how both leaders and members should think about their work of making disciples. We do it together.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBH Publishing Group
    Release dateApr 15, 2016
    ISBN9781433689055
    Author

    Jonathan Leeman

    Jonathan Leeman (PhD, University of Wales) is the editorial director for 9Marks and cohost of the Pastors’ Talk podcast. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books and teaches at several seminaries. Jonathan lives with his wife and four daughters in a suburb of Washington, DC, and is an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church. You can follow him on Twitter at @jonathanleeman.

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      Book preview

      Understanding the Great Commission - Jonathan Leeman

      Copyright © 2016 by Mark Edward Dever and 9Marks

      All rights reserved.

      Printed in the United States of America

      978-1-4336-8894-2

      Published by B&H Publishing Group

      Nashville, Tennessee

      Dewey Decimal Classification: 260

      Subject Heading: CHURCH \ EVANGELISTIC WORK \ CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

      Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the Holman Christian Standard Bible (hcsb), copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

      Also used: New International Version®, niv® copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

      1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 • 20 19 18 17 16

      Church Basics Series Preface

      The Christian life is the churched life. This basic biblical conviction informs every book in the Church Basics series.

      That conviction in turn affects how each author treats his topic. For instance, the Lord’s Supper is not a private, mystical act between you and Jesus. It is a meal around the family table in which you commune with Christ and Christ’s people. The Great Commission is not a license to head into the nations as Jesus’ witness all by oneself. It is a charge given to the whole church to be fulfilled by the whole church. The authority of the church rests not only with the leaders, but with the entire assembly. Every member has a job to do, including you.

      Every book is written for the average church member, and this is a crucial point. If the Christian life is a churched life, then you, a baptized believer and church member, have a responsibility to understand these basic topics. Just as Jesus charges you with promoting and protecting his gospel message, so he charges you with promoting and protecting his gospel people, the church. These books will explain how.

      You are like a shareholder in Christ’s gospel ministry corporation. And what do good shareholders do? They study their company, study the market, and study the competition. They want the most out of their investment. You, Christian, have invested your whole life in the gospel. The purpose of the series, then, is to help you maximize the health and kingdom profitability of your local congregation for God’s glorious gospel ends.

      Are you ready to get to work?

      Jonathan Leeman

      Series Editor

      Books in the Church Basics series:

      Understanding the Great Commission, Mark Dever

      Understanding Baptism, Bobby Jamieson

      Understanding the Lord’s Supper, Bobby Jamieson

      Understanding the Congregation’s Authority, Jonathan Leeman

      Understanding Church Discipline, Jonathan Leeman

      Understanding Church Leadership, Mark Dever

      Chapter 1

      The Great Commission, You, and the Local Church

      One way to describe the goal of this book is to help you understand the Great Commission and what it means in your individual Christian life.

      The Bible does not use the words Great Commission, but Christians have long used this phrase to describe the final glorious command that Jesus gave before ascending into heaven. Do you remember it? Here it is:

      Then Jesus came near and said to them, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18–20)

      During his ministry before the crucifixion, Jesus had said that his mission was only to the lost sheep of Israel (Matt. 15:24). But now, after the resurrection, he is the exalted judge of all the earth. He rose with the authority of the Almighty, like the Son of Man mentioned in Daniel 7. Jesus’ rule extends beyond Israel to all nations. He has all authority in heaven and earth.

      After asserting this authority, Jesus tells his disciples to make disciples. Grammatically, this is the one imperative verb in the original Greek: make disciples. And that command is surrounded by three participles, so that we could translate the verbal phrases like this:

      Going, make disciples, baptizing and teaching.

      The first participle—going—is usually translated go. This is not a bad thing because it is the first word in the sentence and it occurs before make disciples. Greek readers would have understood that it should receive special emphasis. It’s fine then for us to translate it as go.

      But if making disciples depends on going, baptizing, and teaching, who is sending the goers? And who is doing the baptizing and teaching? Is this work

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