"Go Into All the World" A Study of the Great Commission Texts

By Dr. Daniel L. Butler

The Great Commission stands as the single most important aspect of New Testament mandates, and
without its realization, Christianity would have died –believers would have failed to pass Christian
truths to others. Obviously, Jesus’ mandate to make disciples continues to impact the world, and
through this manuscript, author Dr. Daniel Butler has thoroughly examined the Great Commission texts.
Furthermore, by considering the only history book of the church in the New Testament – Acts – the
study examines the church’s understanding, implementation, and fulfi llment of Jesus’ commissioning
words. Although the Great Commission may appear fl awed with discrepancy at fi rst blush, the student
of this material will walk with the author through each of Jesus’ commissioned texts in detail, compare
their similarities, contrast any differences, and emerge with a consolidated grasp of Jesus’ mandate
to make disciples. By reconciling every potential discrepancy, distilling the commission elements
into a summary, and examining the disciples’ response in the book of Acts, the student of this study
will experience enlightenment and understanding through grasping Jesus’ most important words and observing the early church’s fulfi llment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781441575531

Dr. Daniel L. Butler

With his lovely wife, Pam, at his side Doctor Daniel L. Butler has faithfully ministered the gospel across North America and around the globe for thirty years. Dan was born and raised in central Indiana where he graduated from Purdue University’s Pre-Med Undergraduate program. Instead of enrolling in medical school, he pursued other interests, enrolled into Jackson College of Ministries in Jackson, Mississippi, and gave his life career to serve as physician of the soul. Academically, Dan graduated with Master of Arts, Biblical Studies from Vanguard University and Master of Divinity, Eq. from Fuller Theological Seminary. In 2006, Benjamin University conferred upon Dan the esteemed Doctor of Divinity degree, and Dan anticipates receiving the Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2010. In ministerial service, Dan has served as youth pastor, parochial school principal, assistant pastor, evangelist, senior pastor, denominational executive, Bible College president, and missionary evangelist. Dan has founded three parochial Christian schools, launched the A.C.T.S. – Alcohol/Chemical Treatment Series international drug and alcohol diversion program, served as the international director of Christian Prisoner Fellowship, and served as the founding president of the Los Angeles College of Ministry. His ministry and responsibilities have taken him across North America and around the globe. Dan regularly travels internationally to Guatemala, Kenya, and India where God has given birth to ministerial fellowships through Dan’s ministry. Dan continues to provide ministry and leadership to the organizations that emerged: the Nuevo Jerusalen Iglesia of Rio Bravo, Guatemala, the Pentecostal Church of One Faith of Nairobi, Kenya, and the Church of Pentecostal of Punjab, India. Presently Pastor Dan Butler and his family minister the Truth of Jesus Christ among the masses of Los Angeles, California. Every day, they witness the powerful effects of healing, deliverance and salvation in the name of Jesus Christ, and the International Pentecostal Church in Bellfl ower, California dynamically grows both numerically and spiritually. In 1983, the Lord blessed Dan and Pam with their cherished son, Dane.

Book preview

"GO INTO ALL

THE WORLD"

________________________________

A Study of the Great

Commission Texts and the

Church’s Response in Acts

Dr. Daniel L. Butler

Copyright © 2003, 2009 by Dr. Daniel L. Butler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage

and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Guide To Parsing Symbols And

Abbreviations

Chapter 1

Matthew’s Perspective Of Into All The World

Chapter 2

Luke’s Perspective Of Into All The World

Chapter 3

Into All The World From An Appendix To

Mark’s Gospel

Chapter 4

Constructing A Comprehensive Commission

From The Synoptic Evangelists

Chapter 5

The Church’s Response To

Jesus Whole-World Commission In Acts

Appendix

Bibliography

Endnotes

In loving devotion to:

Pretty Precious Pamela

&

Joshua Dane

PREFACE 

A small band of followers in a remote part of the world heard Jesus privately commission them to spread His message to the whole world. The seemingly impossible and insurmountable task to impact the whole world appeared even more destined for failure upon a brief qualifying survey of those followers: unlearned and ignorant as recorded in Acts 4:13. Additionally, they lacked any formal strategy, means, or resources to even being this unfeasible mission.

However, as history would bear out, in less than 1000 days, Jesus Christ made the greatest of all impacts on planet earth. In the approximate 3% years of ministry, He forever changed human life. Starting with His few followers and then sweeping around the globe, Jesus’ significant and challenging words uttered in a commission to His disciples touched and continue to impact the entire world, and they captured my heart with desire to study and examine.

Through intrinsic and extensive analysis of the texts in which Jesus commissioned His followers to take the gospel into the whole world, significant components harmonized the synoptic passages. Each passage initiated the commission with validation of authenticity of the commissioning agent—Jesus is authenticated as being One authorized to commission. Second, Jesus authorized his disciples to continue with His earthly mission. Third, Jesus empowered and committed sufficient support to His followers as they should go forward to accomplish the spreading of His message to every ethnicity of the world.

The name Jesus emerged as the ultimate agency and strategy to accomplish Jesus’ commission. Disciples should utilize Jesus name for their own authenticity and authorization, and employ Jesus name as the means of empowerment. Hence, disciples should be baptized in Jesus name, and as stated by the apostle Paul in Colossians 3:17, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Indeed the church set forth in Jesus name and authority to accomplish what had appeared to be impossible, but Jesus had commissioned them to go into all the world. In fact, they and their followers fulfilled the supreme commission, and continued to authenticate Jesus and His divine words.

INTRODUCTION 

When saying last good-byes, people often relate most important thoughts, such as: Come see us soon and I love you. In His last good-bye, Jesus gathered His disciples together at the Mount of Olives and shared the concerns that were apparently closest to His heart—that His gospel should go to the whole-world. These last words of Jesus remain etched in related passages in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts and have been christened The Great Commission.1

Jesus Christ labored for three and one-half years in devoted ministry in order to establish a heavenly kingdom on earth. As recorded in Matthew 9:35, He initiated the process by campaigning in cities and villages of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. Over time, His ministry spread from Galilee to Judah, Samaria, Decapolis, Tyre and Sidon. After three and one-half short years, Jesus departed from earth and left the future of the church in hands of a few unproven followers.

While ministering on earth, Jesus consistently focused His ministry upon Israel. On a few occasions, the gentile peoples gained His favor and received supernatural blessing; however, Jesus repeatedly stated that His principal purpose was to minister to the Jewish people as in Matthew 15:24: But He answered and said, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’

From the Jewish nation, Jesus had chosen twelve special disciples upon whom He specifically directed his three-and-one-half years of ministry. Although performing miraculous healings and deliverances upon individuals and blessing the multitudes of Jewish people, Jesus maintained a priority upon teaching His chosen disciples, especially the inner circle of the three closest to Him. Jesus equipped and trained them in order that they could carry on His ministry after He would leave them.

After leading them by example and allowing His Person to represent the disciples’ curriculum of study,2 Jesus first commissioned His small band of disciples to engage His principles. However, in Matthew 10:5-6 Jesus limited His disciples to reaching only the Jewish population. These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them, saying, Do not go in the way of the gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

In Luke 14:21, Jesus had told a parable to His disciples that would teach an upcoming shift in focus: a man had made a great supper and invited many, then sent his servant to bring those invited into the feast. Those invited offered excuses why they could not attend, and as a result, the man simply turned to another population, the less fortunate: the poor, crippled, blind, and lame. Likewise Jesus’ primary ministry focused upon the Jews, God’s chosen people, but when they rejected and crucified Him, Jesus shifted His focus to the spiritually less fortunate gentiles and subsequently instructed His disciples to invite them to participate in His kingdom.3

During His earthly ministry, Jesus occasionally demonstrated contact with those beyond Galilee’s border and discretely foreshadowed a worldwide mission.4 Although animosity raged between the Jews and Samaritans, Jesus rebuked His disciples for their hostility to the Samaritans in Luke 9:55-56, honored a Samaritan for his neighborliness in Luke 10:30-37, healed a Samaritan leper in Luke 17:16, and praised a Samaritan for his gratitude in Luke 17:11-18.5 In the apparent object lesson of how His ministry would reach beyond Galilean Jews, the cleansed Samaritan leper returned to Jesus to offer thanksgiving and worship, thus indicating Christ and the Samaritan’s mutual acceptance of each other.

Toward the closing of His ministry, Jesus widened His focus of ministry and indicated that the Good news about Christ would include the human family beyond the limited Jewish population. Prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, the Matthew 26:13 and Mark 14:9 passages report that a woman anointed Jesus in preparation for His burial, and Jesus said that her actions would be told "wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world." Additionally, in the Matthew 24:14 account of Jesus’ final message before His crucifixion, the Olivet Discourse, he told the disciples, "and this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come."

Nations, Greek ethnos, designates an ethnic group, a people or nation with its own cultural, linguistic, geographical, or political unity.6 The term often is translated into gentiles and denotes all nations and populations except the Jews.7 In the biblical milieu and throughout this writing, nations, gentiles, ethnic groups, and ethnicities refer to the same group of people: the non-Jews.

Although Jesus had indicated that His gospel should include the gentiles, Jesus did not personally deliver it to them. Rather, Jesus gave the responsibility to reach the whole world to His followers.

The time came when Jesus gave His disciples their commencement address and commissioned them to continue His ministry after His departure. Most significantly, His charge to them expanded their scope of evangelism, and He shifted the gospel’s targeted audience from the Jewish people to all the populations of the world. This formal commission made the disciples His physical representatives on earth, and they should reach all the world.

The New Testament contains numerous commissioning settings in which a superior charges and commissions a subordinate to do something, and scholars generally agree that the apostolate called the Great Commission is contained in Matthew 28:16-20,8 Mark 16:14-20,9 Luke 24:36-53, John 20:21-23, and Acts 1:4-8.10 However, Jesus whole-world commission that includes His shifted expectations and instructions to reach the gentiles occurs only in Matthew 28:1620, Mark 16:14-20, Luke 24:36-53, and Acts 1:4-8.

Rather than mentioning the gospel going to all of the world, John 20:23 records that Jesus’ commission was directed to anyone. With their narrow focus, the disciples could have interpreted this vague pronoun as anyone Jewish. Accompanying his failure to specifically target the nations of the world, John generalizes Jesus’ commission in John 20:21: as the Father has sent Me, I also send you. The disciples could have interpreted this statement to exclude the gentiles, since Jesus’ ministry narrowly focused upon the house of Israel. Since John’s account fails to specify the gentile mission as Jesus’ focused target of His commission, I will exclude John’s commissioning story from the discussion of this thesis.

Each evangelist that makes reference to the gospel going beyond the Jewish population offers a unique perspective of Jesus’ whole-world commission. Matthew 28:16-20 tells of Jesus leading the disciples to a specific mountain in Galilee where He charged His disciples to make disciples of all nations. Mark 16:14-20 records that Jesus appeared to the disciples while they were eating, there He commissioned them to proclaim the good news, and then He ascended into heaven. According to Luke 24:36-53, Jesus joined an assembly of disciples in Jerusalem, explained the prophecies concerning His life, death, and resurrection, indirectly instructed them to preach in His name, and led them towards Bethany on the south slopes of the Mount of Olives where he ascended into heaven. In Luke’s addendum to his account of Jesus’ commission that is recorded in Acts 1:4-12, Jesus joined the disciples for a meal, explained His expectations of how they should continue in His ministry, took them to the Mount of Olives, and ascended into heaven.

Significance and Justification

Although he provided a unique perspective of the whole-world commission, each synoptic evangelist’s story was incorporated into the canon of Holy Scripture. Christians have always believed that the Bible stands as God-inspired word given to mankind, and each thought carries tremendous significance, greater in importance than any other literary work in the world. However, some portions of the scripture seem to bear greater consequence and worth than others. The words from Christ’s mouth carry enormous weight in importance, but Jesus’ commissioning statements that His disciples should take His gospel to all of the world emerge as some of the very most valued words in scripture.

Because they serve as the bridge from Jesus’ ministry to the ministry of the church on earth and because Jesus gives the mandate necessary for the church to be established, grow, and maintain, the texts that commission the disciples to take the gospel to all the peoples of the earth stand as some of the most significant passages for the New Testament believer. The importance of the passages lends great significance to this study, and believers who engage the concepts presented should emerge challenged and enlightened.

The instructions that Jesus gave to His disciples for all peoples on earth to hear the gospel affect the church of all ages and continue in significance to today. Since Jesus words applied to those who heard Him as well as those who would read them later, these texts that mandate the gospel message to all flesh maintain value and weight for the church today.

Additionally, since each of the synoptic evangelist’s whole-world commission that Jesus gave to His disciples falls into the larger literary genre of the Great Commission texts, careful scholarly scrutiny of the these whole-world texts will contribute to the further study, analysis, and understanding of the Great Commission texts. As one of the most important set of passages in all of the Bible, scholars continue to examine the texts. Since the passages contain materials that the church has considered as Jesus’ mandate to the church for all ages, the passages need continual scrutiny, observation, and examination by the church of this age.

Since Acts records the church’s response to Jesus’ whole-world commission, an examination of this book completes the earlier discussion of the structure and content of Jesus’ whole-world commission. Specific attention to Acts will reveal the disciples’ initial resistance to reach all the world and their ultimate fulfillment of Jesus’ mandate. The discussion will demonstrate the disciples’ approach to reaching all the world, according to Luke’s outline in Acts 1:8 and utilized by the early church. Additionally, a model from the discussion could serve the contemporary church of today.

Purpose

Given the tremendous significance of this study, I intend to explore the accounts of Jesus commissioning His disciples to take the gospel to the whole world and examine these statements of Jesus to observe and analyze any words of encouragement, equipping, and/or expectations that He has for His disciples