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Are The Great Commandment and The Great Commission Incompatible?
John Shore
I have a question I’d like you to consider. I raise it because yesterday I was interviewed about this very question by Jim Burns for his wonderful radio program, HomeWord. (Jim was talking to me about my book, I’m OK--You’re Not: The Message We’re Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop, which is an exploration of the relationship between The Great Commandment and The Great Commission. Jim, whom I'd never met or spoken with before, read and liked I’m OK enough to invite me on his show to talk about it. Our conversation will air sometime in June: I’ll let you know exactly when).
The question I explore in I’m OK - and the one I’d like to ask you now - is whether or not you think that The Great Commandment and The Great Commission are (at this point in our culture) incompatible. I’m OK asserts that they are (and then, lest I be accused of being just a troublemaker, goes on to reconcile the two). I don’t want to sum the book up here; it is, after all, a question that demands some real respect and time to deal with properly. But let me here throw out this basic Stack O' Propositions to you, and see if they don't bring you to the same conclusion I keep coming to:
- Fulfilling Jesus' “Great Commandment” means loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.
- Fulfilling Jesus' “Great Commission” (“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…”) means sharing the gospel with nonbelievers, in the hopes that they’ll really hear the message of Jesus, believe in Him, and become Christians.
- Putting The Great Commandment into words means saying to a nonbeliever something that, in essence, amounts to, “I love you with all of my heart.”
- Putting The Great Commission into words means saying to a nonbeliever something that, in essence, amounts to, “You should exchange whatever you believe in now for belief in Jesus Christ.”
- Boiled down even further, "You should exchange whatever you believe in now for belief in Jesus Christ,” amounts to, “You need to radically change who you are.”
- “I love you with all my heart,” and “You need to radically change who you are” is a confusing, unhelpful message.
- Maybe we should rethink how we do evangelism.
What do you think? Does all that make sense? Have I totally missed or boggled something in this line of reasoning?
I’m no logician; I’m no theologian; I’m no Bible scholar. I’m just a regular guy who, before I was a Christian, used to wonder how Christians could think that anyone would ever react positively to the message “I love you; now change.”
And now that I am a Christian, I still wonder about that.
It seems like a good thing to talk about, anyway, doesn't it?
A former magazine writer and editor, John Shore’s life as a Christian writer began the moment when, at 38 years old, he was very suddenly (and while in a supply closet at his job, of all places) walloped by the benevolent hand of God. He is the author of I'm OK--You're Not: The Message We're Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop (NavPress), Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang: Why I Do The Things I Do, by God (as told to John Shore) (Seabury Books), and is co-author of Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation (St. Martin's Press). He is currently co-authoring a book with Stephen Arterburn.
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gshagena
6/5/2007 9:40 PM
I cannot agree with trying to pit one scripture against another. As our Lord said a house divided against itself cannot stand. Yes of course we must love our neighbors and also we are called to make disciples. If we just love them and remain silent about the gospel, we run the risk of never giving them the most loving information they need - that Jesus is the Way, the truth and the Life. If Jesus is the best thing we have then sharing him in word is just as important as sharing him in deed. How do you do that without being judgemental - you do it with humility - as one broken person to another. Sin is stil the biggest killer of all and we all have it in our life what we all need is the cure. It is not about some magic evangelism words but it is about loving someone and being open and honest about what we believe while at the same time admitting that God is still working on us too. It is possible to be a loving evangelist. Read Pippert's - Out of the Salt Shaker & Hybels Just Walk ...
connelly
6/4/2007 10:27 PM
John brings up a good point, one that I identify with.I used to be an atheist. When Christians would tell me that I had to change, I resisted and resented their message. Even when the messenger was my wife. She was saved 3 years before me. It's the "I'm holier than thou, therefore better than thou" attitude that really got to me. When a non-believer hears, "I love you" followed by "now change," the latter negates the former and reinforces the non-believer's preconceived notions about Christians. Many Christians, and I include myself, have a tendency to judge non-Christians...which Jesus told us not to do. When the change message comes from a judgemental point of view, it is not received well, if at all. An earlier post talked about being an example. That is what we need to do. We need to be the miracle. We need to be compassionate. We need to preach the GOspel...and sometimes even use words. Let our light shine through so that people see it is our Father in Heaven who is at work.
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"I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,[a] just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."