2/22/26

As it seems I start many of my blogs, I had a very interesting conversation today! This time, my conversation was with a group of Christians regarding, among other things, the Great Commission. It was a very interesting conversation because I feel that it highlights some common pitfalls or misapplications of misunderstood passages in the modern evangelical world (and likely beyond). I'll probably tell you various parts of our conversation that stood out to me, and then I'll eventually land at the big enchilada of the conversation.

In our conversation, we were primarily focusing on the Christian mission and purpose in life. I appreciate that we were having this conversation and not merely assuming Christianity is merely fire-insurance, but I was puzzled by a few things in our discussion. One of those things being a sharp distinction being made between restoration and salvation. It was communicated that Jesus is about restoration and not just salvation, but I think this separation demonstrates an ignorance to what salvation actually is. Restoration is salvation. What am I being saved from? Are we not being saved from our rebellion from God and the chaos that produced? Wouldn't salvation from that look like restoration of God as King and all things subject to his perfect authority? It's dangerous to create a distinction between these as this produces a paradigm that feels forced to live a good life instead of celebrating the life of salvation we get to live in. If we separate these two things we do good works because of our eternal destination and guilt liberation, but if we understand them together, then we do good works in participation in our salvation. We aren't just doing good things because God arbitrarily decided we should, but rather because that is the life we were saved back into - a life under the rulership of the good King. It might seem like the smallest splitting of hairs, but this mindset shift is the difference between desiring sanctification and dreading it.

The next thing that caught my attention in our conversation was when we discussed God's desire to reach the whole world. The conversation started in Genesis 12, with God's promise to Abraham that He will bless Abraham with many descendants and that through Abraham's descendants the nations will be blessed. I love this passage because this is central to the gospel that Jesus preached; however, the issue came with how this passage was later applied in our conversation. There was one primary conclusion that was pushing various texts outside their scope, and that conclusion was that Christians should be well versed and up to date with world news. This claim primarily was formed between two passages misunderstood: Genesis 12 and Matthew 28. Their claim stated that the great commission tells us to personally influence the entire world and the Genesis 12 passage shows Abraham being a blessing to all nations. This was their interpretation of these passages. They interpreted Abraham to be the one personally blessing the nations of the world, and they interpreted the great commission to be primarily about us being DEI in our outreach. There are nuances of this that sound really good and even really close to accurate, but I might explain why I think this is not accurate or helpful.

Firstly, it wasn't Abraham who blessed the nations - it was God blessing the nations through the offspring. So, we cannot use him as an example of us needing to be personally engaged in every world affair. This got addressed in the conversation when they went around asking where different people get their world news to be a good "globally-minded Christian". They asked a few different people, and then, making comment that I would probably have the best insight on this given my work, they asked me how I kept informed on global affairs - to which I simply answered, "I don't." I must say, the words packed a heavier punch than expected, but I think it was actually fitting. So, I decided to add a few more words as the silence of my response was begging explanation, so I added, "Paul didn't." I'm not sure if it was just me, but it felt very uncomfortable in the room at this point! So, I began to explain why I don't care to engage in world affairs - let alone claim it is a Christian duty. I pointed out that Genesis 12 is not even close to addressing Abraham personally engaging with every nation. It is literally God who is doing the blessing portion and all Abraham is responsible to do is to faithfully obey the things God has told him to do. So, we should imitate Abraham by being faithful to obey what God has actually commanded us to do. Then we moved into the Great Commission as I needed to correct this idea that all Christians must engage globally to obey the command. I actually think this interpretation of the Great Commission is counter to the original command as it draws the focus of believers away from where they are right now and puts it on being a keyboard activist in a foreign land. What would Satan want more than to have us so focused on global issues that we never actually obey the meat of the command: to make disciples. Jesus isn't saying that every Christian needs to go to every nation, but rather that all Christians are called to teach people to Obey Him as God - regardless of their nationality or background. The weight of the passage is on making the disciples, not traveling the world. I'm not inherently opposed to Christians being aware of global events, but it certainly seems that most Christians who are simply become detached from the place God has them to actually make disciples and consumed by pointless controversies - especially surrounding the middle east and end times. Don't get me started! I'm so tired of the obsession over the middle east and end times because in almost every example I've seen this leads to people becoming much like the wicked servant who never obeyed the master by putting what he was given to work and producing a return. Instead of obeying Jesus' clear commands, so many evangelical Christians choose to sit around and try to decipher the second coming. By the time they figure it out (which they won't - Jesus said it's not for us to know) they'll realize they've disobeyed the One they've been so eagerly awaiting and will be cast away like the one who didn't do the will of the Father in Matthew 7:21. Thank you for pardoning my brief soapbox, but I truly think this is a threat to the health and growth of the American Church. We need to stop our pathetic "global mindedness" which never actually does anything valuable for anyone - let alone make disciples - and either make disciples where you are or actually go oversees as a missionary. The Bible doesn't have a category for missionaries and laypeople. Everyone is called to make disciples and teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded them to do. The Great Commission doesn't say, "Therefore, send missionaries...", so we should just choose to obey it and make disciples of all nations - which includes YOURS! It seems that our culture really enjoys doing virtual charity, but that is not the Christian call. We are called to make students of Jesus who actually obey Him - and that should start where you are, not on your global news channel. I don't know why we have to have this weird understanding of the Great Commission. It's really quite straightforward: go and teach people of any kind how to obey what Jesus said. I could further support my point by appealing to Daniel 7:13-14, but I fear I've already worn my welcome :)

Lastly, we discussed how we are able to do this: the power of the Holy Spirit. This led into spiritual gifts and the interesting conversation regarding them. I want you to know that I fully believe in the gifts and am not trying to downplay their value, but rather address an unhealthy obsession over identifying them and the consequences. It seems that, when discussing the gifts of the Spirit, you either have those who don't touch them or those who make them everything. Much like the fad of personality tests or "which Disney princess am I" tests, the Holy Spirit giftings test can become quite the trendy thing for Christians to use and never apply. This is one huge eyesore of modern Christianity: we might love discussing spiritual gifts, but operating in them is another story. I'd rather get the girl scout badge than build the actual tent. This falls under the larger categorical threat to the American Church: unapplied information. God doesn't care what you know. Actually, that's not true - God will judge you by what you knew and whether or not you actually did it. It doesn't matter if we take 1,000 spiritual gifts tests if we never actually decide to participate in Christ's call to become ministers.

The other concern I have when discussing the spiritual gifts is that we excuse ourselves from obeying explicit commands of Jesus because "I don't have that gift." Over and over, Christians have this idea that if they discover their spiritual gift they won't have to do all these other things that "belong to other people." They'll say that they aren't an evangelist so they can disobey Christ's command to evangelize. Or maybe they'll say that they aren't a pastor so they can disobey Christ's commands to love one another sacrificially. Or maybe they'll say they aren't a teacher so they can disobey Christ's commands to teach other people to obey all of His commands. Whatever it is, it's not right. Consider if we applied this to all of the spiritual gifts - what would that mean? Only those with the gift of encouragement are to be encouraging and everyone else can ignore the clear commands to exhort one another. Only those with the gift of faith are to have faith and everyone else can ignore the clear commands and necessity of having faith. How about mercy? How about service? How about generosity? The list goes on. This is a toxic way of viewing the gifts of the Spirit. This also creates a weird pressure for people to discover what their gift is so they can be effective Christians. It almost feels like the career day in the Bee Movie. It shouldn't feel this way! We should be focusing on obeying Jesus and we will naturally discover where the Holy Spirit empowers us to do the work He has given us. I don't think Barnabas took a spiritual gifts test to find out he was empowered by the Spirit to encourage - I think he probably found out by obeying Jesus' commands to encourage each other. Maybe we should be less focused on finding our "soulmate" spiritual gift and just obey Jesus' commands.

Alright, you've definitely heard enough of my soapbox for one sitting, so I'll give you a break!