Ep. 248. Matthew 28 | The Resurrection

EPISODE 248

THE RESURRECTION: MATTHEW 28

I figure the hardest part of this particular lesson was the discussion on the phrase "The Great Commission." My entire life has had those last three verses of Matthew shaped by those three words. Unfortunately, those three words don't exist in the actual text. I've made the mistake in the past of saying, "The Great Commission doesn't occur in the Bible." More than once, someone came up to me after the sermon with their Bibles opened and a finger pressed next to the words "The Great Commission," usually followed up with, "I have those words in my Bible." Obviously, I needed to be clearer. The words themselves are in print in our Bibles, but only for the last hundred years, give or take a decade or two. However, the phrase "the great commission" wasn't even used as descriptive language for this passage until about 160 years ago.

I have never heard someone preach or teach that text without saying something like, "Today, we are going to study the greatest commission Jesus left for us to fulfill." In other words, they use the editorial heading as the framework for those three verses. Immediately, we are constrained to think of Matthew 28:18-20 as "the greatest commission" Jesus ever left for the believer, and therefore, we don't consider the context at all. The heading that someone added along the way tells us how to consider the text, and we don't ask for a moment if perhaps the first 1860 years of Christianity may have viewed that text differently.

Just once, I'd love to see someone teach this section of Scripture without using the subject heading provided by the editors; just once, I'd love to see someone teach it contextually, but let's be honest, I'm half a century old, and I've only ever heard it taught from the perspective of the heading assigned to it. It is the only way my parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents ever heard it taught, and if we are reading modern-day authors, it is likely that they are writing the exact same things. We would have to go back to sources that are nearly 200 years old to answer the question, "How did the church historically view this text?" But that is more work than most of us ever even consider necessary. That's not a knock on us. Usually, if something is taught for a hundred and fifty years one way, we tend to trust it. Why would we ever naturally listen to a sermon and wonder to ourselves, "But why did the editors call it 'The Great Commission' when the Biblical authors didn't call it that and when Paul never once mentioned it?" It may be time for us to ask those questions.

I am not saying evangelism is unnecessary or unimportant; I'm just saying that perhaps this text isn't the strong arm of compulsion we've been taught that it is.

ADDITIONAL READING: Romans 10:9-10; Matthew 16:21; Matthew 26:32