The Key to the Great Commission!
Matthew 28:19-20 “Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
These two verses are often referred to as the “Great Commission”. They were the last words spoken by Jesus before He returned to the Father. The word that stands out to me the most in this passage is Disciple, which got me thinking, what exactly does a disciple look like today?
What is a Disciple?
English Definition:
Disciple /dəˈsīpəl/
noun
a personal follower of Jesus during his life, especially one of the twelve Apostles.
a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher.
Synonyms: follower, adherent, believer, admirer, supporter, advocate, student, devotee, learner, pupil
Greek Definition:
Disciple /Mathētēs/
A learner, or pupil
Root Word /Manthanō/ to learn, be appraised, to increase one’s knowledge, to hear, to hear, be informed, to be in the habit, or accustom to
Literal Translation: The “Believing Learning”
A disciple learns the disciplines of Jesus and makes them habits in his or her life! Jesus discipled men by removing them from their lifestyle, and taking them on his ministry journey. They followed him EVERYWHERE! They watched his every move and implemented the same moves into their own lives and ministry. The key to the Great Commission, the part that is most often overlooked, is the part that says, “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” You cannot make disciples, unless you have first become a disciple. You must studied & implement all of the principles that Jesus taught!
Jesus taught in parables, a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, many times they are multifaceted with multiple meanings. I don’t believe it was a coincidence that the very first one that He taught was on new & old wineskins & cloth. Both of these parables can be found in Matthew, Mark and Luke, which I believe, demonstrates the importance of this teaching.
Matthew 9:16-17 “Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.”
In order to understand the symbolism in these parables, we must look at both the natural processes of the wineskins & cloth, & the context in which the parables were spoken.
In the natural, both the process of fermenting wine and the process of shrinking cloths are very similar. In biblical days, both cloth and wineskins were made of animal hide. When removed from the animal and set in the sun, the animal hide would shrink over time. So in the natural, when a person sows a piece of new cloth on an old garment, it will rip away from the seams when it will shrinks, making the new fabric too small to cover the hole, that it was originally cut to fill. When new wine is placed into a new wineskin, there is a build up of gases inside that expand and contract within the hide. This process of expanding and contracting will eventually harden the animal hide and cause it to take a specific shape. If you place new wine, in an already hardened & shaped wineskin, the expansion of the gasses within will burst the skins, and ruin in the wine.
Before Jesus spoke these parables, John the Baptists disciples came to Jesus questioning why his disciples did not fast. At this point in time, the Pharisees were stirring up dissention and trying to find fault in Jesus. The Pharisees, most likely, put John’s disciples up to challenging Jesus. I believe, that Jesus used these parables to speak to the hearts of each person there, depending on their intentions.
The first group of people that Jesus was speaking to was His disciples (New believers). To them, the new wineskins & cloth symbolized the renewed person, transformed by the renewing of their mind. The old wineskins & cloth symbolized their old lifestyles. Jesus purposely asked the disciples to follow Him, because He knew that it would be impossible for them to grow and mature if they stayed in the same stagnant environment that He delivered them out of in the first place. Eventually, their old environment would have caved in around them, making it impossible to maintain their new found transformation.
The second group of people that Jesus was speaking to was John the Baptist’s disciples (Mature Christians and Leaders of the Church). The new wineskins and the new cloth represented baby Christians, those still new to their faith. The old wineskins and garment represented mature habits, things done by seasoned saints. Jesus was explaining to them that if you take a child, and expect more of them then they are capable of, they will eventually break from discouragement and pressure. You can’t expect to run a 5K or a marathon over night, without proper training. You build up the stamina for such habits, little by little, taking on challenges that are just a little harder each day. Jesus knew the intentions of John’s disciples was that they wanted to fully understand, so his parable expressed the importance of extending grace, while encouraging and training up the little ones in the faith.
Now the third group was the Pharisees (Religious People, who think more highly of themselves then they ought to). To these men, the new wineskins & cloth symbolized new principles, the new covenant, & fresh teachings (a new move of God). The old wineskins and cloth symbolized old traditions & religious works. Jesus knew their hearts as well. He knew that they were only there to makes themselves look higher, by putting Him down. Jesus was showing through this parable that the coming new covenant could not be contained by any religious work or man-made tradition. They say, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” And this is precisely why Jesus chose inexperienced, fresh minds to be His disciples rather than choosing rabbi’s and leaders of that day. He wasn’t after status; he was after the heart of a servant.
True discipleship is about learning to serve. It starts out with a burning desire to be all that God has called you to be, and over time it turns into a burning desire to help others become all that God has called them to be. The sign of a true Disciple is to want more for those who follow, than you know is even possible for yourself. Jesus said in John 14:12-14, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
This is exactly why our dream, should be to make other people’s dream happen for them. As disciples, we need to be like Jesus, unafraid of being outdone, or forgotten. Too often, I see older leaders of the faith refusing to move forward or pass the baton, simply out of a fear that those under them could do a better job. The truth is this: if they don’t do a better job, they were never truly discipled. You’ll know that you’ve completed your mission, when you have worked yourself out of a job.
