TUESDAY, MAY 19 · VERSE OF THE DAY
Then Jesus came to them and said, "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 of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
— Matthew 28:18-20
Context
This is Jesus's final recorded words in Matthew's gospel, spoken on a Galilean mountain after his resurrection. It's the most famous missionary text in Christianity—but in its original context, it wasn't about sending professional evangelists to foreign lands. Matthew's audience was a small, marginalized Jewish-Christian community around 80-90 CE, reeling from the temple's destruction and increasingly alienated from mainstream Judaism. They weren't asking 'How do we launch a global mission?' They were asking 'Do we even still exist as a legitimate people of God?' Jesus's answer: Yes. And your scope isn't smaller now—it's bigger. You represent something the whole world needs to hear. The word translated 'nations' is ethne—ethnic groups, Gentiles, the non-Jewish world that Torah-observant Jews typically kept at arm's length. This was scandalous reassignment.
What it's actually saying
The structure matters: authority, then mission, then presence. Jesus claims 'all authority in heaven and on earth'—exousia, the right to act and command. This isn't him becoming God; it's the crucified-and-resurrected Messiah now exercising the authority God always intended humanity to have (see Genesis 1:28's 'dominion'). The mission is to 'make disciples'—mathēteuō, a verb meaning 'apprentice people,' not just 'get conversions.' Baptizing and teaching are participles, describing how discipling happens. The Trinitarian formula (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is significant because it's one of the earliest explicit statements of the three-person nature of God in the New Testament. But notice what's absent: Jesus doesn't say 'build institutions' or 'win arguments.' He says 'teach them to obey everything I commanded you'—a callback to the Sermon on the Mount, to enemy-love and integrity and the kingdom's upside-down economics. The final promise—'I am with you always'—uses the Greek egō eimi, 'I AM,' the divine name from Exodus 3:14. It's not 'I'll help you.' It's 'I will be the constant presence sustaining you.'
How to apply it today
If you take this seriously, evangelism isn't a sales pitch—it's an invitation to apprentice under a different king. That changes the tone. You're not recruiting for your tribe. You're not defending a system. You're saying, 'This person Jesus—his way of being human actually works, and it's open to anyone.' Practically, that might mean you stop trying to win arguments online and start spending time with one person who's far from faith, listening more than talking, letting them see what following Jesus actually looks like in your ordinary decisions. Or it might mean you stop treating 'making disciples' as the church's job and start asking: Who in my immediate orbit could I apprentice? Not preach at—apprentice. Teach what you're learning. Bring them along. The Great Commission wasn't given to professionals. It was given to Galilean fishermen who'd just spent three years watching someone live.
Sit with this
Think of one person in your life who doesn't share your faith but whom you genuinely respect. If they asked you, 'What's one thing following Jesus has concretely changed in how you live?'—what would you say? Write it down. Not what you think you should say. What's actually true.
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