What Makes the Great Commission So Great: The Agenda Christ Has Set

October 14, 2020 at 5:00 pm (Church, Evangelism, Instructing the Body, Matthew, Preaching)

Posted by R. Fowler White

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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 all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:18-20)

According to Matthew 28, the second of three truths that make the Great Commission so great is the agenda Christ has set, the program He has undertaken. Notice 28:19-20a, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. The point here is to tell us that Christ the King, as He executes His office, has a mission of outreach for ingathering. He is going to build His church. He is going to call out a people from the world to Himself. He will give them His laws, by which He will govern them, reward their obedience, and correct them for their sins. This mission, set by Christ our King, is a disciple-making agenda for all nations, and it has two parts.

The first part of Christ’s agenda is to make disciples by baptizing. Through baptism, those among the nations who repent and believe the gospel are admitted into Christ’s visible church, together with their children. Uniting us with His church under the name of the triune God, baptism marks the end of our life outside His assembly of disciples and the beginning of our life inside of it. The second part of Christ’s agenda is to make disciples by teaching. Every congregation of Christ’s church is supposed to be an extension campus of His ministry of education. Assembled as His disciples, we learn and teach all that Jesus taught about His own person and work and about the privileges and duties of discipleship. In the ministry of His word, we hear His gospel of grace and His law of love, His promises of salvation and His warnings of judgment. All this because Christ is not only the King on the mountain of the Great Commission; He is also the true Prophet who brings the word of the Lord from the mountain of God above.

As we said, this two-part program that Christ has undertaken is for all nations. His universal kingship means worldwide mission. Through Jesus the Son of Abraham, blessing goes to all the families of the earth from the Lord God. Through Jesus the Son of David, obedience comes from all the peoples of the earth to the Lord God. It was this transnational, transgeographical, transgenerational agenda that united and motivated the apostles of Christ in the years immediately after His resurrection and ascension. His Commission was an agenda so grand that the apostles could pursue it only by the power of His Spirit and according to His Word through prayer and preaching. So it is now, until the end of the age.

What is it that makes the Great Commission so great? In addition to the authority Christ exercises, it’s the agenda Christ has set for His church. There are no substitutes, no alternatives. The apostles, from Peter to Paul, took the agenda that He had set, the program that He had understaken, as their own. Those who would be His church today will do the same.

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What Makes the Great Commission So Great: The Authority Christ Exercises

October 12, 2020 at 5:01 pm (Church, Evangelism, Gospel, Matthew, Preaching)

Posted by R. Fowler White

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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 all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:18-20)

In what follows, take a look at the first of three truths that make the Great Commission so great. The first truth before us is the authority Christ exercises, the position He fills. Look at 28:18, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Jesus tells His disciples that He now occupies and executes the office of king. As a reward for His obedience to the Father’s will, Jesus is now King of kings and Lord of lords. He is in control of all things in heaven and on earth, including—notice—Satan, the world, sin, and death. He is Lord of all. He now has and now wields all authority over the entire order of creation, both heaven and earth. All creatures, visible and invisible, be they nature, angels, and man, are at His disposal. He is King of kings and Lord of lords.

Other writers in the NT testify to the great truth of the authority that Christ now exercises. In Ephesians 1 Paul speaks of how in Christ God exerted the immeasurable greatness of His power and the working of His great might when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. The apostle John refers to the same truth in Revelation 1 where he speaks of Jesus Christ as the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. Still further in Hebrews 1-2 we hear that Jesus is the Son of God, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. Jesus, says Hebrews 1, after making purification for sins, has taken His seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high. As a result, according to Hebrew 2, we do see Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.

Too many in the church today believe and teach that Christ does not here and now occupy and execute the office of king. At best, this false view gives us a Great Commission without a King to issue it, while it deprives us of the motivating vision of the present glory and majesty of Christ. We dare not forget that Jesus is truly now His Royal Highness from whom we have the edict to lead others to a saving knowledge of Him. In fact, let’s recall that Christ’s present kingship is one of the truths that caused doubters on the mountain of commissioning (Matt 28:17) to become witnesses of mighty faith.

Through Matthew the Evangelist, God would teach us and have us believe that Christ now occupies and executes the office of king. As such, He restrains and conquers all His and our enemies and powerfully orders all things for His own glory and our good. This truth is the first of three in Matthew 28 that make the Great Commission so great. Confessing the authority Christ now exercises, the position He now fills, let’s go and make disciples.

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If Necessary, Use Words?

January 29, 2016 at 5:31 pm (Bible, Evangelism, Preaching)

St. Francis of Assisi is credited with the proverb “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.” I think I know what most people mean by this. Most people mean that the gospel has to be embodied in our lives, and that if unbelievers cannot see that, then the ethos of the gospel will not match the evangelist’s life. Integrity is the ultimate thing at issue here. To this extent, the quotation has a useful place.

However, some people take it too far, as if evangelism doesn’t need to use words. Just evangelize by means of your lifestyle. People don’t need to hear the Word. Preaching is over-rated. We don’t need to study apologetics, or have an answer ready for the person who asks us for the reason of the hope that lies within us. Readers can probably guess where I’m going with this one. The quotation can lead to a despising of preaching, of the Word, and of evangelism by means of talking with people.

I hate to break it to the lifestyle-evangelist folks, but the ethos of our lives is not enough. Sooner or later (if our lifestyles are Christian ones), the unbeliever is going to ask us why we’re different. When that happens, we should have an answer ready.

Some people use the Assisi quotation in order to avoid speaking with people, and thus lose many opportunities. Still others use it to ridicule the role of preaching, and thus promote other forms of worship that God has not commanded.

The fact of the matter is that words are necessary. That doesn’t mean that conversion is dependent on us, as the Finneyites would have us believe. The Holy Spirit is the one Who converts. So, we should not get ourselves into a sweat about whether we have the right words or not. Our best arguments, if not accompanied by the Holy Spirit, are useless to convert. By the same token, the Holy Spirit can use our most imperfect efforts to convert. Faith comes by hearing, which implies words. Therefore, I think that even Assisi went too far in the comment, and his zealous followers certainly have.

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A Great Book for the Burned-Out Pastor

August 15, 2014 at 10:40 am (Assurance of Salvation, Books (reviews and recommendations), Church, Communion, Prayer, Preaching, Preaching)

The author of this book is a pastor in the same Presbytery where I labor. He is the chairman of the shepherding committee in the Presbytery, and this book certainly helps explain why. Clay is a warm, pastoral man with a heart for hurting people. I heartily recommend this book to any pastors who are discouraged and beaten down with the routine or with crises in the ministry. This book is also a good antidote to the almost universal naivete afflicting good-hearted young men as they come out of seminary ready to fix all the world’s problems (if only the stupid world would listen to them!). Heck, I would even recommend it to pastors who are doing just fine, so that they stay that way!

Clay is certainly honest about his own journey, which makes the book all that much more interesting and compelling. The first five chapters are diagnosis, and the last five are solution. The diagnosis section is painful but healing to read. Chapter 3 comes to mind. Here are a few things that zapped me: “It’s as if God has been saying, ‘Clay, let my people go!'” (p. 51). “Yet we often want to press fast-forward on our ministry remote and make people mature faster and our churches grow quicker because we so desperately want these things now” (44). “Constant conflict made me seek comfort anywhere I could find it, especially in a quiet office with a closed door in the safety of reading books” (60). “Resurrection power may heal the hurt, or it may simply give us the strength to endure. Either way, resurrection power meets us in our weakness” (85). “[T]he love inside of our hearts can be padlocked, whereas our anger often has a hair trigger” (89). The book is well-designed to make a pastor feel really, really guilty, and then really, really forgiven in Christ.

I don’t have any quibbles with what he says. There are a few things that I would like to see in, say, a second edition of the book, or a “revised and expanded” edition (or a second book!). Of course, one can’t say everything in one book, and this is Clay’s first book. One question that nagged at me throughout the book was this: how do we pastors get this grace, when we are the ones “dishing it out”? I don’t mean that we are the source of grace, of course. But how do we get the benefit, for instance, of the Lord’s Supper and of the sermon, when we are the ones presenting those things to the congregation? This goes along with a parallel concern: I would like to have seen more emphasis on the means of grace, and how those factor in to relieve the burdened pastor. A second thing I would like to see addressed is the day off. How do we see our roles on Sunday? As work, or as our part in the worship services? And then, what do we do for a day off during the rest of the week? A third thing is coordinated with the last chapter. He has an admirable and biblical emphasis on pursuing unity (unity achieved is a great stress reliever!). What I would like to see is how that relates to the pursuit of truth and purity of the gospel. How do we avoid burnout, for instance, when we are fighting wolves in sheep’s clothing? What about the temptation to avoid conflict about gospel issues for the sake of our own comfort and avoiding burnout? What is the difference between pursuing our own comfort versus avoiding burnout? I would love to see these questions answered, if not by Clay, then by someone building on what Clay has done here.

This is a great little book. It doesn’t take long to read (and it is, by and large, well-written). It lays a great foundation for thinking about the ministry in a grace-driven way. It deserves a very wide readership by pastors of all stripes. Tolle lege.

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Anthropocentric Moralizing?

June 27, 2014 at 4:58 pm (Hermeneutics, Preaching)

Our Sunday School is going through the book of Daniel, with the ruling elders doing a fine job of teaching the text. I preached through Daniel while I was in North Dakota, but I wanted to freshen up and sharpen up my understanding of the book, so I got two newer commentaries to read through as we went through the book. One of them is by Sidney Greidanus, and it is entitled Preaching Christ From Daniel. Now, I have benefited greatly from Greidanus’ careful and nuanced approach to seeing Jesus in the Old Testament. The various ways in which a reader can do that are very helpfully spelled out by him in all his books. However, there can sometimes be a hesitancy to apply the text. It can be so much about Jesus that it is not about us much at all. This is a bit of an over-generalization, I realize, but I am merely pointing out what I see as a trend.

For my prime example, I will point out that he does not seem to like Iain Duguid’s commentary on Daniel much. Now, when I was preaching through Daniel, I found Duguid the most helpful commentary of any that has been written. I haven’t finished Dale Ralph Davis’s commentary yet (that’s the other one I got to read through), and it is outstanding as well. However, when I was preaching through Daniel, I found the most help in Duguid. Duguid is well-known for a Vossian progressive-revelation approach to Scripture that sees Jesus Christ as the climax of the story, and the main point of the Bible. However, Duguid, unlike Greidanus seemingly, also believes that the text can be about us precisely because it is about Jesus. In other words, if we are in Christ Jesus, then the text will always apply to us precisely because it applies to Jesus first. Greidanus, however, accuses Duguid of nudging “preachers toward anthropocentric moralizing” (84). After a quote from Duguid, Greidanus says, “This be true enough, but it is not the point of the passage.” If there were anyone out there less deserving of this censure of “anthopocentric moralizing,” that person is surely Iain Duguid. Furthermore, Greidanus is guilty of reading Duguid uncharitably and out of context. Duguid was not making his point the main point of the passage. It was an application of the text. I have not found much in the way of application in Greidanus. He gets to Jesus responsibly and well, but what to do after that or because of that, he does not seem to make clear.

The question really boils down to this: can we apply the text to our own lives even if we do not explicitly mention Jesus every time we make an application of the text? On one question at least, there would surely be agreement: the main point of the Bible is Jesus. Greidanus and Duguid would both whole-heartedly agree with that. The disagreement surfaces when we ask the question of whether the Bible also talks about us. Surely it does, since God did not just give the text to the people to whom the writing was originally given. The Bible was given to the entire church of all ages. Yes, historical context is important. But so is the fact that God gave the whole Bible to the whole church. Greidanus is rightly reacting against a mentality that bypasses Christ entirely, since this means there is no exegetical control over the application, and the application is usually wrong when we yank a text out of its progressive salvation-historical place. However, if we place the text correctly in its time and place, and correctly and carefully get to Christ, there still remains application, which flows from that whole understanding. If we cannot do this, then preaching is hamstrung. Greidanus seems to me to be throwing out the correct-application baby with the moralizing bathwater.

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Jon Payne on John Owen and the Means of Grace

April 19, 2013 at 12:10 pm (Church, Historical Theology, Preaching, Worship)

Word, sacraments and prayer are the means of grace. Owen is needed, because our churches are losing their Reformed moorings because of an over-emphasis on urban culture, and a substitute of our own means of grace for God’s means of grace.

Owen was raised by a non-conformist father. His time at Oxford was long and fulsome. He went to hear Edmund Calamy, but, in God’s providence, Calamy was not there. Yet the Lord used the substitute’s message to work powerfully in Owen’s life. Married Mary Rook. Had 11 children, only 1 of whom lived to adulthood. Owen was an ecclesiastical statesman, as being chaplain to Oliver Cromwell.

Public worship and liturgy was a hugely controversial subject at the time, and figured large in Owen’s work. As Mohler would say, if you want to know what a church is really like, go worship with them and listen to the preaching. You will learn who they are by looking at their worship. Lex credendi, lex orandi: the law of belief is the law of worship. If there is such a thing as acceptable worship, then there is such a thing as unacceptable worship. The persons of the worshipers need to be accepted first. Secondly, worship can only be of God’s own appointment. Evangelical graces need to be exercised in worship. Getting worship outwardly correct is not enough. There needs to be a subjectively active and pious attendance on worship.

God’s means of grace are efficacious: they work! In our modern age where people no longer believe this, we hear from the Word that the means of grace work as efficacious for salvation. Owen didn’t write anything on preaching. The sermons we have are parliament sermons, not his normal week to week sermons. Owen’s sermons on the Lord’s Supper are rich sacramental theology (and are in volume 9).

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Jon Payne on Charles Simeon

April 19, 2013 at 10:47 am (Historical Theology, Preaching)

The overall topic of the pre-conference is “Recovering a Reformed Ministry.”

God rests too inconsequentially on ministers and on ministry. He means this, of course, in the sense that we are not aware enough of God, not that God is at fault in any way.

Simeon’s life and ministry are a good corrective to problems in ministry today. He preached for over 54 years. For decades, Simeon was the object of scorn and derision by students at Cambridge. And yet, he persevered in preaching the true gospel. Born in 1759. Eton at that time was completely devoid of true piety. Simeon entered into Cambridge, which was no different. Simeon thought, upon being required to attend communion, that Satan was just as qualified to attend communion as him. He read William Law’s book on what was required of man, a very moralistic book. Then he read a different book that set out the substitutionary atonement, which converted him.

Simeon faced enormous difficulty in his church at Cambridge, where the people completely rejected him, and found many ways to make his life extremely difficult for many years. The students once threw eggs in his face. Simeon knew that the ministry would not be easy. So many stood against him. But Simeon knew he was on the Lord’s side. He was first and foremost a preacher.

Simeon preached the gospel, but did not forget the imperatives of the Bible. Our anemic preaching of the third use of the law is highly detrimental to the Lord God.

We need to preach when it is convenient and when it is not. Consistently cultivate personal, biblical piety. Cultivate humility. Simeon believed that downward was upward. We are making disciples of Jesus Christ, not disciples of us. We should not neglect the global task of the gospel just because of the local church ministry. Invest in the next generation of ministers. Never negotiate the primacy of preaching.

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Live-Blogging PCRT

April 19, 2013 at 9:44 am (Church, Preaching)

I will be live-blogging PCRT today through Sunday. The overall topic is the historical Adam. The pre-conference is starting with Rick Phillips doing a devotional on John 6:1-13, the story of the feeding of the 5,000.

Jesus is training the disciples (looking at verses 5-6). It is a primer in ministry. There are four points.

1. The motive for ministry- Note the contrast between the great compassion that Jesus found in the people versus the disciples’ lack of compassion. The disciples in Luke say “send them away.” This is an attitude that many people have towards needy people. We need to be discerning in this. The social gospel has often replaced the real gospel. He takes direct aim at the bad versions of “redeem the culture.” Obviously, we need to have two premises (via John Piper). We need to have the greatest compassion on the those with the greatest need, and we need to focus on the greatest length of need. And the greatest need in both categories is the gospel of salvation by faith. The only true motive for the pastoral ministry is the compassion of Christ for the lost and for the sheep. Being able to pontificate on matters of every subject when people have no choice but to listen to you should not be the motive (ouch! LK). Our motive should not be the joy of digging into the Bible, as beautiful a thing as that is, or the reading of learned books (again, ouch! LK).

2. Our calling in ministry- Note that Bethsaida was the hometown of 3 of the disciples, and so they must have known the resources of that town, and they therefore despaired of providing the food for these people. Then Andrew brings someone to Jesus (which is something that he always does). Our calling is to take what we have and faithfully give it to Jesus- put it in His hands. The little boy gives what he has to Jesus. How much should we give? Everything! As soon as he gives it to Jesus, Jesus starts working. As Pink says, Jesus does not scorn the loaves because they are small and few.

3. God’s provision for us in ministry- We have a divine provision for our ministries in this life. Jesus will go on to say in John 6 that He is the bread of life. The disciples are looking down: where is the food, the money, the resources? Jesus looks upward to God, and thus accesses the infinite riches of God Almighty. George Müller’s example is wonderful in this regard. He did not look down, but always looked up in prayer. We do not have because we do not ask.

4. The boldness of faith we are to exercise in ministry. Verses 11-13 show the disciples beginning to act in faith. The Lord didn’t multiply the loaves and fishes before they started to ministry, but during the time when they were serving. We have no idea of the magnitude of what God will do through us.

 

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Two Verses, Twelve Questions

January 16, 2012 at 9:35 am (Bible, Difficult Scripture, Faith, Instructing the Body, Jesus, Luke, Preaching)

(Posted by Paige)

Here’s a whimsical Bible puzzle for you to bat around. These two verses have recently caught my attention and raised a handful of questions in my mind:

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” (Luke 17:5-6)

Here are twelve of my many questions. Tackle any that interest you, too!

1. What did the disciples assume about faith?

2. Were they correct in their assumption?

3. What did they assume about Jesus?

4. What did they expect Jesus to accomplish for them?

5. Is Jesus’ response intended as an affirmation or a correction of their request?

6. What does Jesus imply about faith?

7. Why a mulberry tree? Is there any symbolism here?

8. Is Jesus describing something that might literally happen, or is he using poetic hyperbole?

9. If hyperbole, what’s his point?

10. Is this the same message that Jesus intends in Matt. 17:20 (“…if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”)

11. Why is this exchange recorded here in Luke (i.e., in this particular location in the Gospel)? Are the apostles reacting to something, or has Luke collected similar material together?

12. How is this exchange related to what has come before and what will follow?

Bonus question: What would you emphasize if preaching from this passage?

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OT Israel & NT Church: A History-of-Homiletics Question

September 13, 2011 at 8:08 pm (Bible, Biblical Theology, Historical Theology, Preaching)

(Posted by Paige)

Here is a research question that might interest some readers.

I am trying to trace the history of a certain approach to the application of OT texts to the church, in which promises or commands spoken to historical Israel are understood to have a secondary and continued relevance for the “New Israel.” There may be something of an allegorical quality to such applications, as the concrete details of the OT setting are translated into the spiritual realities of the New (e.g., “land” and “temple” become the people of God themselves) – but as a hermeneutical approach it differs from pure allegory in that it doesn’t completely disregard the original historical context of a passage. It just doesn’t locate the significance of the text in that historical context, but finds the main pastoral value of the passage in its application to the church, whether spiritual or practical.

A simple example:

Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. (2 Chr. 7:15f.)

Application: Because the church is God’s new temple, we can be reassured by these verses that he has consecrated us, and that he will hear our prayers and dwell among us.

I would be interested to know if what I am describing rings any bells for anyone, and if you can identify for me any voices from past eras in Christian history who tended to write and preach in this way when working with OT texts. I am curious to know the roots of this approach, since it seems to differ in emphasis from a primarily redemptive-historical hermeneutic.

Comments on the pastoral value of this approach to preaching would also be interesting.

(Please note that what I am describing is a much “lighter” approach to OT application than theonomy, so let’s not make this another theonomy thread.)

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