Who is the Great Commission For?

I find the Great Commission to be virtually unexplored on the Baptist Board, and even in theology in general. So, my question is: Who is the Great Commission intended for, the individual believer, the church, or both? Please be aware, as a missionary I've been down this path before, so I recommend careful reading of all five statements of the Great Commission in context: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Acts!! :smilewinkgrin:

Further possibilities for discussion: what authority is given in the Great Commission? To who? On another thread I brought up baptism in connection with the Great Commission in Matthew--care to comment?

 

Hi, 4His_Glory.

So, who do you say the authority to baptize rests in? I say it rests in the leadership of the local church (as per Eph. 4:11), since the context of the Great Commission in Matthew indicates that it specifically was given to "the eleven disciples" (28:16), who were the original leaders of the church at Jerusalem. We find support for my position in the fact that in Acts 8 Philip, an evangelist, baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, and it wasn't in a church service, which is where it should have been if Matthew's Great Commission had been given to the church.

I look at Matthew's Great Commission as the church planter's (read "missionary" here) methodological Great Commission. It clearly outlines the structure we follow as church planters: evangelism, baptism and follow-up training. If someone wants a Great Commission specifically to the church or to individuals, there are those too, but not in Matthew.

 

Good post and good points, 4His_Glory. I just typed in a long post and then lost it all. I used to save to a word processor under the old software, but I can't find any place on this new software to "copy" so I can paste into a word processor.

Anyway, it's late here, so I'll just hit the high points before I go to bed.

(1) You are speculating about there being more than the 11 there in Matthew.
(2) I believe Luke's Commission, given to "the eleven and them that were with them" (v. 33) to be to the church in embryo. Even putting the first church at Pentecost, Jesus taught baptism, the Lord's Supper, evangelism, church discipline (even using the word "church" in Matt. 18), etc. during His public ministry. He had to prepare His disciples.
(3) If Matthew's Commission is for all believers, then any believer can baptize, right? You could have a six-year-old little girl baptizing her daddy, and that would be fine!

Catch you in the morning. :sleeping_2:

 

Thanks for the hint on copying and pasting.

"Strong indication" that there were others besides the 11 listening in Matt. 28 is still not proof, though it may be considered a step above speculation. The fact remains, the Bible simply says "the eleven disciples," so that is the fact that I work with.

You mention that the pattern in Acts is that the recognized church leaders did the baptizing. I will go even further and say that the only ones baptizing in the book of Acts were preachers. This includes Philip the evangelist, the Apostle Paul, etc. This to me bears out the idea that the GC in Matthew was considered by the early church to be given to preachers, church leaders, what have you, rather than the whole church.

As to how to recognize a church leader, I would say that, first of all, that is up to each individual to know whether or not God has called him to preach. Philip did not ask permission of the church at Jerusalem to baptize the eunuch. He just acted like he already had the authority. Of course whether or not an individual church would then acknowledge that baptism is up to each church, based on the autonomy of the local church.

 

The issue to me is one of authority. Remember that in v. 18, the "power" that Jesus is talking about is exousia, power in the sense of authority. So when Jesus gives the Matthew GC He is giving authority, because v. 19 has "therefore" (Gr. oun), making the GC (winning souls, baptizing them, teaching them, or in other words planting and building a church) in Matthew to be based on the authority of Christ. Virtually all Baptists agree that not just everyone has the authority to handle the ordinances, and this is one passage that can be used to back that up.

 

Okay, 4His_Glory, we'll agree to disagree on Matthew's GC--for now anyway! :smilewinkgrin: :smilewinkgrin:

Concerning the Acts GC, note first of all (again!) the target audience. It is very clear in v. 2 who the recipients were: "He through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen." So the Acts GC is specifically to the apostles.

Now I believe, as do most veteran missionaries I know, that "apostle" in the NT means "missionary." Thus, the passage is a lesson from Christ in missions strategy. Now I agree that it can be interpreted as instructions to act simultaneously in the different areas. I think the language "both...and" can be used to say so. I have preached whole furlough messages on that theme!

At a minumum, the Judea effort should have come soon after the Jerusalem effort. However, I see it further as a strategy to reach the big cities first. Jesus did not send them to their home area of Galilee, but to the city of Jerusalem. This gave them a base of operations to reach out into the wider area of Judea, and then to Samaria and the rest of the world. Here in Japan in particular I have seen others try for years, sometimes decades, to plant a church in a small town, and fail miserably.

I hope this answers your question--and maybe raises more! It's almost bedtime here in Japan. Oyasumi!! (Good night!) :sleeping_2:

 

The short answer is, we get to the mission field, make it through language study, start our ministry and then ask, "Where is this in the Bible?" The evangelist = missionary gig is very hard to defend, but the apostle = misisonary position comes quite naturally from a study of the book of Acts. We look at the apostles in Acts and say, "Well, that's what I'm doing."

The scholarly answer can be found in the article on "Apostle" in the original ISBE (of 1918, I believe). The revised ISBE replaced it with something more politically correct.

The common "wisdom" among everybody but veteran missionaries and Charismatics nowadays is that the office of apostle ceased in the first century. However for much of church history that position was not held by the majority of evangelicalism. I would be happy to interact with you gentlemen on a thread specifically about apostles and missionaries, if you want to start one. I can't start it now--have to go to the church with my wife to work, and then make a hospital visit.

If one of you hasn't started a thread on it by about 4:00 my time (at which time you will be snoring :sleeping_2: ), then I'll probably start one.

 

This is what you and everyone else (me, too) were taught in Bible college and/or seminary. Can you defend it from the Bible? I'd be happy to meet you on a new thread for that purpose.

 

Thanks for these links, rlvaughn. I gave them a quick glance, but they don't seem to address the major point I meant to make in my OP, which is that there are five (count 'em) different statements of the Great Commission, and each of them has a different target audience.

So who is the Great Commission for? It is for the individual believer, it is for the church, it is for the leadership of the church, all three!!:thumbs: