Thinking aloud

What’s that again? I thought as I reread the passage.

The mission of the church is paramount, and what propels the mission forward is an awakened mind, a mind ablaze with God and the things of God. This is the heart of the Cultural commission within the Great Commission. The Great Commission calls us to reach out to every person with the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the Cultural Commission calls us to lay hold of every nook and cranny of the world for the kingdom of God. They are not separate endeavours – they are the two edges of the single sword we are to wield.” - James Emery White in A Mind for God.

Lay hold of every nook and cranny for the kingdom of God. Can it be? What was the Great Commission again? Turning to Matthew 28:19-20 in my NRSV bible, it reads:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

I remembered that the first five words of the Great Commission if you look at the original language it would be better rendered as “As you go, make disciples…” It means then that making disciples is not an event or even a programme; rather it is part of your lifestyle – it should flow naturally from how you live and who you are. And the way you live, the way people live collectively is called the culture.

As we live our lives, as we go about our living, we are to make disciples. It then means that disciple-making should flow out naturally from the way we live. It means then that the things that comprise our lives – the way we behave and talk, the way we spend our time and resource, our world-view and deeply held values and beliefs must facilitate disciple-making. The transformation must originate from inside out.

At the heart of the Great Commission, there is implied a Cultural Commission – a mandate for us to redeem the culture for Christ. What does it mean then to redeem the culture for Christ? It means that in all areas of culture – in the creative arts, in science and technology, in education, in the industry etc, we are to live out our witness as Christians. It does not only mean that we have to “witness” and tell people about Jesus; rather it also mean that we put on the “mind of Christ” – we think Christianly and that we have the “aroma of Christ” – we behave like Christ. It means that as Christians we cannot huddle into the sub-culture and form holy cozy enclaves; we have to engage the world and be the salt the bible tells us to be.

Ollie

February 2007