September finds us at the end of our journey through the Gospel of Mark. For me, it has been a wonderful look at the life of Jesus through the narrative voice of our earliest biographical sketch. More than that, it has been transformative in my own appreciation for the book, and for the picture of Jesus presented therein. I have never experienced the stories of Mark in the way that I have in 2023, talking through them with our daily podcast audience. That was enhanced by my spring trip to the Holy Land, and the invasion into my otherwise secular existence with a week-long encounter with the sacred. That trip came early in our journey through Mark, and I can see how it enhanced the color and saturation of those stories into my own conscience.
My prayer is that we have done the same for you. I am confident that we have, at least for many, as we have had numerous reports from listeners who have been positively impacted by Mark this year. That is like the icing on the cake for me. Thank you for your faithfulness in listening, and your excitement to share what it has meant to you.
The last few verses of the concluding chapter include the famous passage often called The Great Commission. Mark’s version is rather abrupt, a simple, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” He adds a few lines about salvation and damnation and the promise of signs that will follow those who believe. This segment also contains the controversial, and oft misunderstood, “you shall take up serpents and if you drink any deadly thing it shall not harm you.” Some have taken to picking up vipers or drinking poison to prove the power of God. Many have died in the attempt.
Jesus does not tell his disciples to pick up snakes or to drink poison, for that would violate his previous instruction of Matthew 4:7 that they were not to put God to the test. Rather, his assurance is that he will be with them and be their protector. Nowhere do we see the disciples drinking poison, or taking up vipers, though Paul was bitten by one in Acts 28 and did not die. This miracle caused the crowd to think he was a god, which led to his presentation of the gospel to them. Here, as in the Mark story, the miracle seems connected to the presentation of God’s goodness, not to the powerful faith of the one being bitten or drinking the poison.
Beyond that, what do we make of the Great Commission? Mark’s Jesus says to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Preaching is the art of proclamation, and the gospel is good news. In short, Jesus tells the disciples to go everywhere and proclaim the good news. The good news has been called the gospel of the kingdom in the earlier chapters of the Gospels, so the commission is not to go extend an invitation but to make a proclamation. Proclaim the good news that the war is over, and the king has come to claim his kingdom. Believing in him is entrance to that kingdom, and the gates are open for all who want to come home.
This understanding has had a profound influence on the way I preach. I love the art of it all; the cadence, the set-up, the delivery, the ability to persuade. I think working on the art of preaching is necessary if you are going to improve, and improving is necessary if you are going to grow and reach more people, more effectively. But the art of preaching is only one portion of it, and it is a portion that has little to do with fulfilling the Great Commission. I have transformed in many ways due to seeing the gospel as a proclamation rather than simply as an invitation. I am less inclined to work toward persuasion that leads to an immediate decision, and more inclined to have good news to tell you about, so that you can rejoice with me. I have found that preaching centered on the proclamation of good news leads to an examination of the king, while preaching meant to persuade toward an invitation is always in search of a problem to exploit so that the threats can be properly defined. That preaching sounds tenacious and full of fire, but it is often used to exploit, while masked in concern.
For a fuller picture of this commission, let’s borrow Matthew’s version of the same, where his Jesus tells the disciples to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and to teach them to obey everything that he had commanded them. Here, Jesus says nothing about preaching or the gospel, but instructs them to make disciples, a command that is more process than performance. You do not make disciples overnight; any more than Jesus formed the habits and practices of his twelve followers overnight. They went through ups and downs; moments of great faith and moments of profound doubt, and they were direct disciples of the Master. Making disciples is a test of perseverance and patience. This is no invitation to a salvation prayer. This is a commitment to a lifestyle.
The formula that he gives is baptism, which includes emersion in water, as that was the most understood interpretation of the word, but what they are being baptized into is more than a substance, it is the very name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words, discipleship is a total immersion in the person of the Trinity.
For the first three hundred years of church history, the writers of the early church used Matthew 28 as a proof text for the doctrine of the trinity. This text was foundational in understanding the Godhead: that God functions as our Father, that he died for us as the Son, and that he moves among us as the Holy Spirit. Amazingly, we have no writings that emphasize these verses as an impetus for evangelism. That might have to do with the fact that we have little evidence that the early church, post-Acts, bothered with much public evangelism. Many of the writings and catechisms seem to indicate the opposite—the church was silent about their doctrine and their practices in the public forum. New converts were to be won by Christian’s living lives that inspired people to attend their meetings to learn more. Even then, salvation was no easy matter that came when you agreed to pray a prayer. Conversion was a process, where the adherent sat through teaching, had their lives monitored by the leadership, and then agreed to a public baptism. These were known as baptismal “candidates,” a term I remember hearing in church when I was a kid. It was not used in my day to indicate anything other than, “Here are the people we are going to baptize.” But in its earliest form it was meant the way it sounds: “Here are those who want to be baptized, but we are going to see if their lives indicate that they are serious.”
I am not advocating a return to that sort of entrance examination process for church membership or for salvation into the family of God. I use it to show the attitude of those much closer to the church of Acts than we are. They saw the commission as instructions in Christian living, not as mandates to evangelize. Were they right or wrong? Maybe ours is not to land on a solid answer, but to determine why the way they saw it was so important to them, and of so little importance to us.
Before Constantine, the church was an underground enterprise. It was not popular within the Roman Empire to be a follower of Jesus, as to do so meant that you had to eschew all other gods, namely the cult of the emperor. Persecution was a common occurrence, and more than the kind where you are made fun of or marginalized. This was the persecution that took lives and destroyed homes. This was the kind that exposed who was truly a follower and who was along for the community of help and support that was the bedrock of the Christian community.
Constantine was taken with Christianity, though not enough to actually convert. He wasn’t baptized until his deathbed, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to live the life demanded by the followers of Jesus, though he had an overwhelming fear of an afterlife filled with judgment and doom. His contribution to the church of his day was that he made it legal to publicly follow Jesus, and he even made it lucrative, supporting church projects and reforms that brought the faith out of the shadows and the underground and into the halls of power and influence. He put the cross on the shields of Roman troops and married power to the faith, giving it a cache in secular society. In some ways, this marriage led to the demise of the faith as the first three centuries had known it; for a faith built upon the death and resurrection of its founder has a tough time finding its way once it holds the power to kill.
In an environment of persecution, the threat of subversion was constant. The church was an underground repository of food, shelter, and helps to all who needed it, as they took the instruction of Jesus quite serious that they should care for the stranger and the poor and give a cup of cold water in his name. This setup was ripe for exploitation, as people were known to associate themselves with Christians just for the generosity, and then live lives that brought shame and embarrassment to the body as a whole. The church’s interpretation of the Great Commission as instructions in immersive discipleship seem to be in response to that threat of exploitation: they needed to make sure that the members of their community were truly members of their community.
After the Roman Empire accepted the faith and even made it the official religion of the state, it took up the responsibility of spreading its newfound religion to wherever they could set foot. As they expanded outward, they took the state religion with them, and in no short order, the world of the missionary was formed—notice that missionary is not one of the fivefold ministry offices mentioned by the Apostle Paul. At this point, we see early Christian writings begin to shift. No longer is the Great Commission text a proof text for the trinity or for instructions in discipleship; it is now a mandate to dunk new converts in water and make them Christian. Taken to the extreme, explorers across the centuries forced baptism on natives in foreign lands to justify their journeys as missionary projects. No wonder we lost the discipleship aspect of these Scriptures. It takes too long, and the reward is not obvious.
As for the church of the New Testament, they have no New Testament scriptures to quote; they were living them out. We see them evangelize the world of their day, but not quickly. By Acts 8, they are stuck in Jerusalem, even though Jesus had told them to go out. The death of Stephen stirs them, as they finally take the message elsewhere. By Acts 10, Peter preaches to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius and the gospel is now accessible to all. By Colossians, Paul said the gospel had been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, a claim that was obviously untrue, though he could have meant that it had reached the edge of the world as they knew it. Namely, it had saturated the Roman Empire. In any case, they preached the gospel, or they proclaimed the good news, and they made disciples, as is evidenced by Paul’s care and concern over the churches in his letters.
For us, the Great Commission is surely alive and well, if any is in fact, alive and well. We want to proclaim the good news that the king has come, and his kingdom is open for business. We want to make disciples, washing them over in the reality that God is their Father, that the Son, Jesus Christ is their redeemer and that the Holy Spirit is their daily guide. We don’t need to see it as a burden, like God expects us to save the world, and to find no rest as long as there is someone who has not encountered the life of God. Never forget that we do not save, we simply proclaim his salvation. But let us also never forget to do exactly that. To watch what we are proclaiming and to affirm his love and his salvation in a world in such desperate need of as much. We are commissioned to proclaim. He is empowered to save.
Grace to you.
Deeper Daily Podcast- Essay Edition 