The Great Yet Completely Misunderstood Commission of Jesus

By Brian Wright

What did Jesus mean when He told His followers to make disciples of all the nations? Did that mean that they were to “get them saved” ? Make them members of the local church? Teach them creeds and doctrines? Baptize them? The Church has overlooked the undeniable fact that not only did God choose to reveal Himself through the Hebrew people, language, and culture; but that He continued to do so throughout the “New Testament.” The Church has nothing left to lose and everything to gain by returning to the original patterns of life, scholarship, liturgy, and fellowship that marked the original Way of a Disciple of Yeshua of Nazareth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Calvert Biblical Institute for Study of Religion & Society
• Release date: Dec 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386333043

Brian Wright

ABOUT BRIAN S. WRIGHT, Ph.D(c) Founder and Executive Director of Calvert Biblical Institute ​      Brian Wright is a biblical scholar and author, having spent most of the last seventeen years of his studies investigating the Ancient Near Eastern languages, cultures, and history that birthed Judaism and Christianity. He holds a Master of Religious Education in Middle Eastern Studies from The American Institute of Holy Land Studies, has studied sociology and religion at Oxford Graduate School, and is completing a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies at Trinity Theological Seminary.  Following this, he intends further post-graduate and doctoral study in Semitic languages, biblical interpretation, and sociology of religion.  His latest book, The Great Yet Completely Misunderstood Commission of Jesus was published in February of 2011.  His other works include Blood & Seed:What Is The Eden Story Really Telling Us? released in October of 2010, its sequel, The GodBlood, due in 2017, and What the Biblical Text Actually Says About Speaking in Tongues, due in late 2016.

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A Few Questions

Before you begin this book, I’d like to ask you a few questions. 

Are you a New Testament Christian?

What does that mean?

What is the most important book in the entire Bible? (don’t just say all of them — actually think about it and pick one).

What translation of the Bible do you use? Why?

Do you trust that your pastor, priest, elder, rector, etc. is capable of understanding the Scriptures as they were originally written and then teaching you what they mean?

Do you think you and your church are accurately depicting the type of fellowship seen in the New Testament? How and Why?

True or False: Early Christians worshipped on Sunday because that’s when Jesus rose from the dead, and God changed the Sabbath to Sunday because of this. Provide Scripture for your answer.

True or False: The Jews rejected Jesus, therefore God set them aside and has made the Church New Israel.  Provide Scripture for your answer.

Think about these as you move through the book.  We will return to them at the end.

Got Fruit?

The Bible is a book that has been read more and examined less than any book that ever existed.

—Thomas Paine (Author, 1737-1809)

The Scriptures repetitively present the image of a tree or vine producing much good fruit as a metaphor of faithful members of the biblical covenant living within the dictates and guidelines of that covenant; actively engaging the society in which they live as advocates and practitioners of justice and mercy.  Using this tree metaphor, Jesus said that every tree is known by its fruit, whether good or bad (Matt 12:33).  However, this does not necessarily relate only to moral behaviors, i.e., being kind, gentle, charitable, and just.  In a holistic view, would this not also refer to the producing of good fruit in the mind, and by extension, to the production of good, scholarly consideration and articulation of the things of God?  After all, learning constitutes the very core of the heritage that Jewish civilization has bequeathed to the Church (Wilson, 1989), and the Great Commission was to Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations (Matt 28:19).

Ironically, it is within the Great Commission that the lack of Christian scholarship is perhaps evidenced most clearly.  Most Christians have no idea that according to the Hebraic language and understanding within which Jesus and his followers functioned, disciple, or from the Hebrew talmid, literally meant student.  They furthermore neglect the second half of the Commission. Consider the entire passage