Tag Archive for: Bible

The Great Commission, Discipleship, and the Bible

There has been discussion for many years about the relationship between the evangelization of the world and the return of Christ. Completing the Great Commission, it is often said, paves the way for the second coming of Jesus.

Where does the idea of this connection come from?

It has its roots in Matthew’s telling of the story of Jesus, particularly the claims of King Jesus and his mission-defining mandate to his disciples. But to get to the heart of this definitive and vocation-creating call, we must take a closer look at what Matthew is actually doing and saying. (As always, the key to understanding short statements in the Bible is bigger and better reading of the context.)

The Great Commission: Jesus Is Building Something New

The ending of Matthew’s Gospel brings to a head and then resolves the narrative tension that’s been growing throughout his story. Jesus has burst onto the national scene as a rabbi and prophet, bringing a renewal movement to Israel. But Israel’s leaders want none of it—they have their own narrative about how Israel’s story is supposed to go. The heart of the confrontation has to do with authority: who is authorized to speak for God? who can see clearly where Israel’s God is taking their story?

This conflict reaches its breaking point when Jesus enters Jerusalem as a king, the blessed Son of David, to the adulation of the crowds. From this point on, every day Jesus is becoming more and more open with his challenge to Israel’s current regime:

Did you never read what the Bible says?” said Jesus to them:

“ ‘The stone the builders threw away

Is now atop the corner;

It’s from the Lord, all this, they say

And we looked on in wonder.’

“So then let me tell you this: God’s kingdom is going to be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the goods. Anyone who falls on this stone will be smashed to pieces, and anyone it falls on will be crushed.”*

Standing in the Temple courtyards, Jesus announces that he himself is the cornerstone of God’s new building. The challenge is to see and recognize what God is doing, or face the crushing consequences. Now Jesus gets specific and direct, predicting the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple within a single generation:

Jesus left the Temple and went away. As he did so, his disciples came and pointed out the Temple buildings to him. “Yes,” he said, “and you see all these things? I’m telling you the truth: not one stone will be left standing upon another. All of them will be thrown down.”

As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him privately.

“Tell us,” they said, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that you are going to appear as king, and that the end of the age is upon us?”

“Watch out,” replied Jesus. “Don’t let anyone deceive you. You see, there will be several who will come along, using my name, telling you ‘I’m the Messiah!’ They will fool lots of people. You’re going to hear about wars, actual wars and rumored ones; make sure you don’t get alarmed. This has got to happen, but it doesn’t mean the end is coming yet. Nations will rise against one another, and kingdoms against each other. There will be famines and earthquakes here and there. All of this is just the start of the birth pangs.

Then they will hand you over to be tortured, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will find the going too hard, and they will betray each other and hate each other. Many false prophets will arise, and they will deceive plenty of people. And because lawlessness will be on the increase, many will find their love growing cold. But the one who lasts out to the end will be delivered. And this gospel of the kingdom must be announced to the whole world, as a witness to all the nations. Then the end will come.”

The next steps in the story are clear enough: Jesus tells his disciples there will be turmoil and trouble, both for them and for the world. Something new is struggling to be born, and there is pain in this, as in any birth.

But God’s new world is surely coming! A stone building in Jerusalem can no longer contain God’s intentions.

Jesus tells his disciples that the announcement of God’s reign is not just good news for Israel, it is the gospel of the kingdom for all people. The biblical story is making a massive turn, telling us how God is reclaiming the world—the turn that God had in mind all along. The strange and surprising victory of Jesus (he went out, alone, to die? and this was winning?) has laid the foundation for a whole new building project.

The disciples are to persevere through suffering, misunderstanding, and persecution to tell everyone that Jesus is not merely Israel’s Messiah, but the world’s true Lord and Ruler. The turning of the ages—from the present evil age to the promised new time of God’s life and light—is happening now, so the disciples have to be ready for a fresh assignment.

The ending of Matthew’s Gospel clearly confirms that the gospel announcement is precisely news to the nations about a new king:

So the eleven disciples went off to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had instructed them to go. There they saw him and worshipped him, though some hesitated.

Jesus came toward them and addressed them.

“All authority in heaven and on earth,” he said, “has been given to me! So you must go and make all the nations into disciples. Baptize them in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Teach them to observe everything I have commanded you. And look: I am with you, every single day, to the very end of the age.”

Making disciples is all about teaching allegiance to the new Lord of the cosmos, instructing them to do what he said. These followers of Jesus from all the nations, who live by their loyalty to King Jesus, together constitute God’s new global structure, the place he is taking up residence.

Knowing and Living the Bible Is the Doorway to Discipleship

For those involved in ministry with the Bible, the implications of all this are clear. Jesus said disciples must be taught—the peoples of the world are called to know and understand and live the story of the Bible. To follow Jesus one must know the story of which he is a part. To know that story is to be immersed in the Scriptures.

It is not enough to translate and distribute the Bible globally, as crucial as that is. Disciple-making on the model Jesus instructed requires big reading and deep engagement with God’s word. Having a Bible in my language does not automatically make me an effective follower of the Lord of the world. Having it on my shelf or my phone does not automatically transform me into a disciple. The research into Bible reading and literacy reveals that Christ’s church has to be more intentional about helping people actually read and understand the Scriptures they already own.

Reading, knowing, understanding, and living—this is what a fully formed follower of Jesus does with the Bible. Making more followers like this is what the church is called to.

Jesus said disciples are made.

Jesus said disciples are taught.

There is no gospel of the kingdom without deep Bible engagement. This is the task we all must embrace. Then the age that Jesus said is coming will indeed fully come, and God will return and make his home with us.

* All Scripture quotes are from The Kingdom New Testament, HarperCollins Publishers, 2011.

The Story Behind Immerse

Another Bible. Another curriculum. Another study guide. Another campaign. Pastors are constantly being bombarded with offers for the “next big thing.”

Immerse wasn’t dreamt up as a clever way to sell more Bibles. Rather, it’s the result of more than a decade of research into the biggest barriers to Bible reading. Out of that research and experimentation came a philosophy of what it means to read the Bible well, which has finally led to Immerse.

Learn more and get involved: ImmerseBible.com

The Story Behind Immerse

Verse of the Day “Therapy” is Shrinking the Bible

Image designed by Anthonyboyd

It turns out the modern Bible is getting smaller with use.

That is, increasingly those who use the Bible, particularly in social media, are focusing on a shrinking numbers of verses.

Dr. Pete Phillips, director of the CODEC Research Center at Durham University, reports in Premier Christianity magazine on the growing phenomena of therapeutic or “feel good” Bible verses being passed on in tweets and posts. As he says, it is “good ‘clickbait’ in our age of social media to share these Bible verses which speak of the positive, healing influence of Christian faith.”

It turns out that electronic Bible providers are employing “a data-centric model” which regularly regurgitates those verses which are already the most tweeted or shared by their user communities. The result is basically a repeating loop of verse of the day Bible balm. This means those who get their Bible online will receive plenty of “I can do all things” (Philippians 4:13) and “I know the plans I have for you” (Jeremiah 29:11), but not so much of the rest of the Bible.

Apparently no one is intentionally choosing a wide selection of verses to more adequately convey the wider range of biblical teaching. Dr. Phillips particularly laments the absence of verses on what he calls “propositional” Christianity—texts which “set out what God has done for us; how we are saved; the power of the cross.”

The prognosis is not so good, however. Phillips ends with the less-than-hopeful question: “Does this mean that we lose out on doctrinal or propositional input into our Bible reading online?” And if we do put more than therapeutic Bible verses out there, will they all merely land on “deaf ears, blind eyes and dead screens”?

The concern here is appropriate. Constantly engaging the Bible verses that make me feel good is perilously close to turning the Bible into a prophet that tells me only what I want to hear.

This is the kind of prophet the real prophets warned us about.

But is simply adding more verses—propositional ones—to the playlist really the solution?

Isn’t there a deeper problem here?

Constantly engaging the Bible verses that make me feel good is perilously close to turning the Bible into a prophet that tells me only what I want to hear.Click To Tweet

Exposure to a wider variety of Bible verses might offer me more than therapy, but the entire approach is still based on providing would-be Bible readers little more than a morsel. The bigger issue is that we can’t rely on tweets, Facebook posts, or verse of the day deliveries to our inbox to fulfill the promise of Bible engagement.

The social media channel as a communication medium has built-in limitations. The Bible itself is so much more than a collection of verses, so much richer than a sourcebook of one-liners, be they therapeutic, propositional, or whatever. The Holy Scriptures are a gathering of complete literary works, meant to be read as a whole. These books come together to tell a story that can only be taken in, understood, and lived if it is fully encompassed, apprehended at length, and deeply embraced.

Sound bites can’t do this.

A constant diet of atomized fragments is a disservice to the Scriptures that God gave us. Let us rather respect and read the Bible holistically. Let us honor the word of God by giving it the gift of our time and full attention.

We don’t need a shrinking Bible delivered to us with a diminished set of expectations. May we rather welcome back a full-sized Bible—the stories, wisdom, instructions, and visions overflowing with all that God has for us and all he wants to teach us. Words to encourage and inspire us, yes, but also to instruct and correct and welcome us wholly into this long and winding narrative that in the end leads us exactly where we need to go.

Only the complete Bible can do this.

Only the books God gave us can do the work in our lives that he intended his word to accomplish.

So read big.

Why Bible Translation and Access Aren’t Enough

How do we get from here to there?

That is, how do we move people from unfamiliarity to deep knowledge of the Scriptures? How do we mobilize them from passivity to an alive and active implementation of the biblical vision in their own lives?

For two hundred years, the modern Bible missionary movement has been addressing the critical needs of Bible translation and distribution. Millions of dollars and millions of hours of labor have been spent on the exemplary task of giving people Bibles that speak to them in their heart language.

Bible translation and distribution are important foundations for the Bible to begin its intended work in human lives. But is that all? Does putting a well-translated Bible into someone’s hands mean our work is done? The evidence would say no.

Nowhere in all of church history has anyone had easier access to so many quality Bible translations as English-speakers do in North America today. The free YouVersion Bible app installed on most of our cell phones has nearly 60 English translations. We have a wealth of Bibles and resources to help us understand the Bible in depth.

And yet.

The research tells us that people own Bibles but mostly don’t read them. When they try to read them they struggle. They feel ashamed and dumb. Therefore, more and more people are completely giving up on Bible reading. Many of those who stick with it resort to merely referencing small pieces that seem accessible. Even seminary professors lament the biblical literacy levels of incoming students – and some have confided that it’s not much better when the students graduate.

These trends have been growing for some time, causing the spirituality pollster George Gallup, Jr. to remark, “The Bible is the best-selling, least-read book in America.”

We have a superabundance of access, which has been the goal of Bible agencies for two centuries now. But the state of things, we can safely conclude, reflects a failure.

It has become clear that people need more. Not more Bibles, but focused, intentional help in actually engaging the Scriptures well. The Bible is not the kind of book you can just hand someone and assume they’ll do fine with it. It’s actually easy to go wrong when reading the Bible. It’s quite old. It’s quite complicated. It’s quite long.

The Bible is not the kind of book you can just hand someone and assume they’ll do fine with it. It’s actually easy to go wrong when reading the Bible.Click To Tweet

The miracle of transformation does not happen just because there are Bibles on our shelves.

Readers of this sacred, vital text need to know:

  • What kind of book is this?
  • What are we supposed to do with it, exactly?
  • What’s the right way to engage this kind of material?
  • How does an ancient text relate to our lives today in a very different world?

It is not immediately obvious to people how to walk down the path of Bible engagement. People really do want help going deeper and understanding their Bibles. The hard work of supporting and walking alongside these people so the Bible can be all it was meant to be in their lives has to be done.

The translation of Bibles is important. The distribution of Bibles is important. But when the story ends there, it’s not enough.

Bible engagement leading to life transformation is the goal.

The Scriptures themselves assert that they are a divine speech act. That is, they are active words—words that do things: instruct, inspire, reveal, judge, convict, heal, and save. The Scriptures promise that they contain the power to bring change to the world, to transform the creation in the direction of God’s ultimate purposes for the flourishing of life. For this promise to be fulfilled, however, the Scriptures must be received, understood, and lived on their own terms.

The Institute for Bible Reading is focused on helping people reach this one goal. We’ve already been working on it, and some amazing progress has already been made. But until all people around the globe have experienced this revolution in Bible reading and understanding, we can’t and won’t rest.

This Church Read the Entire Bible With Immerse

A year after its initial launch, one church has read through the entire Bible together using Immerse! Macedonia Temple of God started Messiah in 2017 and went straight into Beginnings once they’d finished. Once they finished that, they didn’t want to stop, so they continued into Kingdoms. And so on.

Sometimes pastors are hesitant to continue into the First Testament after their church finishes Messiah. It’s less familiar and more difficult to understand. But as Pastor Chris Morrison describes in the video below, diving in to the story of Israel with Immerse makes it come alive like never before.

Immerse - “It felt fresh…like reading it for the first time”

P.S. Chris contacted us after his church finished Immerse with a message about their plans for the future:

“Hope you’re all doing well. We finished all volumes of Immerse last week. I’ve been concerned about what to do after such a great experience. I didn’t want to go back to ‘stale’ teaching after the excitement of Immerse.

“I kept thinking that I was looking for the right lesson or program, and I was getting nervous because I couldn’t find one like Immerse.

“But there is no ‘next’ Immerse-like study. Immerse has literally changed how I want us to learn and share as a church family. If I stay true to that, our Immerse experience will last forever.

“Thank you again for Immerse. It has altered me and my church family in a great way.”