Reason Five:
The Great Omission
There is one final reason we are not impacting the world as we expect to that I should mention here. It is Matthew 28:18-20. You may recognise that reference as what some call “The Great Commission”. Below are a few different renditions of the words of instruction that Jesus gave his disciples towards the end of his time on earth.
KJV
Matthew
All power is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye
therefore and teach 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.
Mark
Go ye into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth
not shall be damned.
Luke
Repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of
these things. And behold, I send the
promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye
be endued with power from on high.
Acts
But ye shall receive
power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost
part of the earth.
NASB
Matthew
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 the Son, and the
Holy Spirit: Teaching them to observe all that I commanded you: and, lo, I am
with you always, even to the end of the age.
Mark
Go into all the world
and preach the gospel to all creation.
He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has
disbelieved shall be condemned.
Luke
Repentance for
forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations,
beginning from Jerusalem. You are
witnesses of these things. And behold, I
am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the
city until you are clothed with power from on high.
Acts
But you shall receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses
both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part
of the earth.
RSV
Matthew
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, lo, I am with you always, to the
close of the age.
Mark
Go into all the world
and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not
believe will be condemned.
Luke
Repentance and
forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning
from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of
these things. And behold, I send the
promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with
power from on high.
Acts
But you shall receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
THE MESSAGE
Matthew
God authorised and
commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and
near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name:
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then
instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after
day after day, right up to the end of the age.
Mark
Go into the world. Go everywhere and announce the message of
God’s good news to one and all. Whoever
believes and is baptized is saved; whoever refuses to believe is damned.
Luke
And then a total
life-change through the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed in his name to all
nations – starting from here, from Jerusalem!
You’re the first to hear and see it.
You’re the witnesses. What comes
next is very important: I am sending what my Father promised to you, so stay
here in the city until he arrives, until you’re equipped with power from on
high.
Acts
And when the Holy
Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over
Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.
JAY P. GREEN
LITERAL TRANSLATION
Matthew
All authority in
heaven and on earth was given to me.
Going then, disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
things, whatever I commanded you. And
behold, I am with you all the days until the completion of the age.
Mark
Going into all the
world, preach the gospel to all the creation.
The one believing and being baptized will be saved and the one not
believing will be condemned.
Luke
And repentance and
forgiveness of sins should be preached on his name to all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of
these things. And, behold, I send forth
the promise of My Father on you. But you
sit in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high.
Acts
But you will receive
power, the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you will be witnesses of me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
In the Matthew version, we see a few things: a) Jesus uses his
recently-won authority in heaven and earth to give the disciples their kingdom
commission; b) the assumption of Jesus is that the disciples will continue on
with their new life (despite their doubts) and will be active in Jerusalem and
then leave to go other places; c) the active verb here is the verb form of the
word disciple or apprentice; d) in addition to apprenticing new believers, they
will be baptizing them and teaching them Jesus’ instructions; e) Jesus assured
the disciples of his continued and perpetual presence with them all the way.
My own 21st century Australian translation would be something
like this:
[Jesus speaking to his disciples]
I have received from my Father the
full authority to commission you.
Assuming then that you are continuing on – despite your doubts –
apprentice the nations to me, baptising them into the family name and household
of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to diligently
maintain the entirety of my charge to you.
Be assured, I am with you every step of the way right to the very end.
In general, the gospel according to Mark is more brief and it is
considered by many to be the first of the four records written. It is often Mark’s account that people today
remember even though they would often attribute it to Matthew. We can note a few things about Mark’s
account: a) the assumption of Jesus again is that the disciples are going –
‘go’ is not an active verb here but a participle, ‘going’; b) the active verb
is kerusso, the verb form of the noun
kerygma which is best translated
herald or proclaim; c) what is being heralded is the euangellion, the good news of the kingdom of God, not a religious ‘gospel’;
d) faith in hearers is linked to baptism for the ones saved; the absence (or
lack) of faith in hearers leads to a negative judgement.
My translation of this Mark passage would be something like this:
[Jesus speaking to his disciples]
As you go out into the world – even
with your lingering doubts – proclaim the good news [of the kingdom of God] to all God’s human creation. Those who put their faith in me [for
their relationship with God] and confirm
this by being baptized will receive salvation; those who do not will receive a
negative judgement – they do not have salvation.
So now to Luke. Luke wrote both
the gospel record that bears his name and the book of Acts. It is generally believed that Luke was both a
doctor and an historian of sorts, along with being a disciple of Jesus. It seems he travelled with Paul on his
apostolic journeys. He addresses his two
treatises to an acquaintance named Theophilus (which name means ‘lover of
God’). Luke wrote with a small overlap between
his two books. The end of Luke and the
beginning of Acts are both accounts of the same period of time: Jesus’ final
commission to his disciples and his ascension to the right hand of the
Father. The gospel record points forward
to disciples’ endowment with the power of the Holy Spirit, while the Acts
record gives a first-hand account of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the
first generation of disciple/missionaries.
There are a couple of important things to say about the gospel of Luke
reference: a) these words are part of Jesus’ final words to his disciples,
reinforcing both the necessity and the scriptural basis for his suffering and
resurrection: they fulfilled Jewish prophetic scripture; b) a complete change
of mind and sentiment from a position of self-reliance, self-justification and
self-righteousness to Christ-reliance, Christ-justification and
Christ-righteousness is to be proclaimed, along with the necessity of complete
trust in Christ for salvation, redemption, righteousness and justification; c)
this proclamation of repentance and faith has the imprimatur of Jesus Christ –
it has his blessing and carries his authority and power; d) the disciples are
to wait in Jerusalem for the endowment of the Spirit and the proclamation
begins from there and goes to “all nations” – Jew and Gentile; e) Jesus allays
some of their doubts by reminding them that they are witnesses to his words and
actions throughout his years of ministry.
How would I translate the Luke passage?
Something like this:
[Jesus speaking to his disciples]
And it shall be proclaimed to all
ethnic groups, starting from Jerusalem, that a complete change of heart and
mind from trusting in self and others to trusting fully in me is necessary for
salvation. This is not news to you. You are witnesses of my words and my life;
you heard as I showed you how my suffering and resurrection fulfilled your
sacred writings; you know these things are necessary. But wait here in Jerusalem because the
promise of my Father that I have told you about – the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit – is necessary for you. When you
receive that power from our heavenly Father into your life, then you are ready
to proclaim this good news to the nations.
And finally, Luke’s account in Acts: two main things to add here: a) the
New Testament Greek word for witness is the word from which we derive the
English word martyr. A martyr is a
witness, whether he is murdered or not.
It transpired that many of these original witnesses were murdered for
their years of heralding the good news of the kingdom of God – apostle John
being the exception most probably; b) the geographical progression was
important even though some chose to stay in Jerusalem right up until the
sacking of the city in AD70. If you look
at Paul’s record, even though he was not one of the initial witnesses, he
followed that geographic progression and was often found ensuring the Jews had
“first refusal” rights to his time and his proclamation of the good news as far
afield as Rome and possibly further.
So, how would I translate this Acts passage? A bit like this:
But hold on tight and
together in Jerusalem. You will receive
power – the Holy Spirit coming upon you; and you will be my witnesses, chosen
by my Father, in Jerusalem, in Judea as a whole, then out through Samaria and
on to rest of the world. You will bear
witness of me, of my words and deeds and of my salvation, and the Holy Spirit
will empower you and powerfully attest to your proclamations.
I have gone to considerable length to tease out these four passages
because, if a lot of preachers are to be believed, the bible says something
like this: “Go and preach the gospel to every people-group and establish
churches and ministries as you have done in your own nation. Those who accept Jesus into their hearts are
saved and will go to heaven and those who do not are not saved and will go to
hell.”
It seems to me that, in our unrelenting quest for simplicity and brevity
(often for our own convenience), we have lost just about every crucial matter
from the words of Jesus and the gospel writers.
We appear to be either too afraid or too lazy (or perhaps both) to do
one of the very things Jesus was at pains to say and the gospel writers were at
pains to include.
Amazingly, this very thing is still visible today through the fog of bad
translations and the passing of time. It
is this:
An essential part of
our commission is to ensure 1) that we diligently maintain the entirety of
Jesus’ charge to us and 2) that we ensure our apprentices do likewise and 3)
that the apprentices’ apprentices do the same until time is no more.
This is part of a proper translation of Matthew’s record of the “Great
Commission” of Jesus. It has led myself
and others to conclude that the popular, modern take on the Matthew 28 passage
can justifiably be called the “Great Omission”.
When properly translated, none of the four critical passages I have
examined here contain certain words that have become the stock in trade of
popular culture church and hundreds, even thousands of so-called evangelists:
preach, gospel, church for instance. On
the flip-side, the words they do contain are replaced with pop-christian
cultural language: salvation means going to heaven when you die; judgement
means hell; righteousness means good cultural-moral behaviour; justification
means sinlessness; preaching means sermon or homily or motivational talk;
gospel means whatever the particular preacher, denomination or association says
it means.
We need to grasp the fact that we are not, generally speaking, taking
our cues from the words and actions of Jesus and the first apostles but from
some cultural-historical tradition that conveniently ignores good and honest
translation and exposition, and chooses the bible translation that best suits
what we want to say.
I believe that puts many of us in a position where – whether we like it
or not – we do not have the imprimatur of God to do what we are doing. And we act as if we do not need what Paul and
his team understood and valued so keenly: “approved by God to be entrusted with
the good news.” We act as if what really
matters is having the permission and the approbation of peers and superiors.
So I come once again to the conclusion that church, gospel and preaching
together constitute a life form of a particular and distinct breed, engineered
by man and described by Paul as “of the earth, earthy” – a clone; while
ecclesia, good news and heralding together constitute a life form of the breed
“from above, heavenly, eternal” as Paul described it – the original.
It is not a case of a diseased ecclesia that needs healing, but another
species altogether – a species that needs to be starved out of existence. Likewise, it is not a motorcar with a
broken-down engine that needs to be fixed, but a pedal powered billy-cart that
we mistakenly assume is a properly functioning motorcar.
And two things result: 1) the name of God is blasphemed because of us;
and 2) we are not impacting the world as we want to and expect to. How long will we continue this charade and
façade?
And there is one other disturbing
thing I find that I believe is a result of the things I have been writing about
here: after two hundred years of church in Australia, I suspect most church
members go to their graves knowing very little of the basics of the good news
of the kingdom of God. And yet it is
this very thing that Jesus declared would be proclaimed before the end. So either it is being proclaimed and we’re
neither learning nor taking any notice, or it’s not being proclaimed. I suspect it’s the latter, since what I hear
proclaimed bears little resemblance to anything proclaimed by either Jesus or
the first apostles, including Paul.
So what is most often being proclaimed today? In short it is an horrific parody of what Jesus was talking about when he said “this good news of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole world as a testimony to all nations…”
Cheers,
Kevin.
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