one advertisement reads,

“Win-Build-Send Matt.28:18-20″

yet the text reads,

“ThenJesus 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.”

how do we go from such organic, radical, mysterious language to dry, disconnected, and vapid words not even found in the text?

win, build, send. okay – we got 1 out of the, not three, but four verbs. what gives?

not to mention this alarming context: out of the four verbs included, only one is an imperative command: to make disciples (of all nations).

it is not to go and be evangelists. it is not to baptize and become a public fast-food-lookalike. it is not even to teach people to obey everything yeshua has commanded.

it is to make-disciples. that’s our command from yeshua in this context.

we go as the wounded healers, the ones with a sordid past, yet we go with honesty and humility before us: to bring the good news, that YHWH rescues, redeems, and restores; that there is one true living god, and he will be for you whatever you are needing in your most desperate moments – he is “I AM.”

i think this somehow lets in more light than the narrow openings found in the “win-build-send” hole.

“for everything exposed by the light becomes a light” and “we will overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony” because “he makes all things new” and his purpose is to “make one new humanity.”

so what are your thoughts? where do you see this played out?

–

lately. my mind has been inundated with “conversation” themes and illustrations and parables and what-to-the-not – probably because i have been taking some interviews and talking vocational ministry left and right.

the latest to come to mind: NOT HOW IT HAPPENED.

a conversation centered around the myths, or more common, the lies we’ve come back to believing, about certain experiences yeshua had here on earth. take for example the woman caught in adultery. we all know the story – which really isn’t true – you ask ten people about that story and you learn all kinds of things, haha! – but we think we know the story. and many of us do kind of know the gist of the story. but as time goes on, and as we meet various “kinds” of people, we begin to isolate and justify that story. soon, the story becomes fictitious and unreal.

though we know the story. we tend to live (and respond to people) as if this happened,

(paraphrase) so there was this woman. she was caught in the act of fornication and adultery. clearly, that’s wrong. who cares where the man is! she’s obviously a filthy, unholy, inglorious daughter of an adulteress herself. anyways, she’s laying in the dirt, accused by the religious and political symbols of the day – rightly so – and then jesus comes along. after he graciously sends them away, he leans down and whispers in her ear, “you lay condemned, brace yourself for the stoning.”

or as if this happened,

(paraphrase) when it came time for the last supper, yeshua, the most powerful man in the room, got up from the meal, deceived his followers and conquered the world by sword and force!

and on we could go. but this is not how it happened. yet we tend to live with stones in one hand and swords in the other: our local assemblies (ekklesia) seem to bind freedom and free religion.

may we return to the stories of yeshua with new eyes. may we examine ourselves. may we examine our local communities. may we have ears to hear. may we come to know the truth and be set free, so that we can live as yeshua lived, bringing glory to YHWH in all we do.