We call it the Great Commission:
Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 NET)
Let’s break that down.
We have learned that “all nations” is less about location and more about peoples. It’s not so much a goal for us to accomplish as it is Jesus telling His Hebrew disciples that the whole of humanity is the field of harvest for His Covenant. The identity of “Chosen People of God” was no longer ethnic Jews, nor were all of them the Chosen. The Chosen/Elect will be found in every nation, people who respond to the call, never mind whether Jew or Gentile.
Baptism refers to the ritual of allegiance. The Chosen will be anyone who can embrace Jesus as their feudal Master and Lord. As Jay reminds us, the key issue has always been loyalty and belief, AKA trust, faith. The loyalty is from your heart; the belief is what follows. You would expect obedience to became that person’s new orientation.
The gospel message is not words; it is introducing people to Jesus. People get to know Him first by getting to know us as His feudal vassals. We incarnate His Word in our lives; we represent Him. The best way to get better at that is for us to invest our earthly resources into other believers. We form a covenant community and work hard at making divine sacrificial love real among humans. It’s not just the individuals, but the communion of souls longing for the Spirit Realm. We manifest our identity as His human family.
His Law (obeying all the things He taught) is summed up in what He said at the Last Seder: “I give you a new commandment — to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples — if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35 NET). The strongest witness we have is conspicuous communion with each other, an obvious commitment to each other’s welfare followed by compassion for outsiders.
The whole community together will draw only a targeted portion of the Elect. Even more so will the individual members feel driven to seek a particular slice of humanity among whom to seek the Elect. We typically recognize this in terms of what sort of activities we engage as the means to whittling down the audience to something we can handle.
For example, this blog is rooted in my personal burden for those who have suffered institutional abuse in churches. All my work in seeking to recover a Hebraic understanding of Scripture is aimed largely at restoring divine justice for people who come to the realization the mainstream church is not doing the job. It’s not as if I seek to sour everyone on the mainstream, but I’m trying to restore faith for those who are already soured on the mainstream because the church refuses to address their particular needs. Most churches build institutions, not people or community.
I won’t hide from you that mainstream church leaders don’t want me around, and I’d rather avoid any unnecessary conflict. Yet, coming under my spiritual covering does not guarantee you’ll be required to leave any church you may have joined. All I’m doing is filling in the blanks they have left. They don’t want me calling attention to those blanks. Thus, the mainstream church membership turns out to be my main mission field. Even then, I strive hard not to interfere directly in what the mainstream churches are doing. I’m just not allowed to help folks from inside the organization.
Because I’m outside mainstream organized religion, it just so happens that I also draw a few who aren’t already part of it. This is not a movement to reform church. I generally avoid making reference to the organizations in my ministry. They can just keep on rolling along their current path for all I care. I’m quite cynical about church leadership. Rather, I’m trying to build faith despite religion. In or out of any church, let’s look at the issues the Lord has called me to examine. Whether that means you stay with church or leave it is between you and the Lord. What matters most is that you are loyal to Him first, not some human proxy, including me.
