When Overdoing Something Results in It Being Underdone

Imagine a carpenter building a table. He puts all his time, energy, and resources into crafting one leg—strong, polished, beautifully carved. But he neglects the other three legs. When he finally lifts the table, it topples. It can’t stand, no matter how perfect that one leg is.

In the same way, some churches and believers place an excessive focus on the Great Commission — making disciples and spreading the gospel — that they neglect the rest of Jesus’ teachings: loving one another, pursuing justice, cultivating spiritual depth, stewarding creation, and working with excellence.

The Great Commission is essential, but it was never meant to stand alone. Christianity without the fullness of Christ’s commands becomes unstable and imbalanced.

Jordan Raynor, in his book, The Sacredness of Secular Work, explains that the idea that evangelism is the only thing God calls us to do is relatively new in Christian history.  For the first 1,600 years of the Church's life, Matthew 28 was not read and understood as fanfare for Missiology. In fact, before the 17th century, the Great Commission was largely ignored when discussing the Church's missional assignment. In fact, the "Great Commission” label didn't even appear in print until the 1600s. But in the last few centuries, we've begun acting as though sharing the gospel is the only eternal, significant thing we can do.

The CEO of Operation Mobilization said, “I may be labeled a heretic here, but I actually think we have overplayed the Great Commission.” I believe this to be true, especially as seen in mission movements.  Millions and even billions of dollars are spent on helping every person hear the gospel, but comparatively, almost none is spent on helping people know how to live it out.  We make converts but we don't make disciples.  I don't say this lightly.  However, after twenty years of mission work, watching and participating in mission organizations and church-planting movements, we continue to reduce the message and teaching of Christ to one part of His message, rather than the whole package.

Please don't get me wrong.  I believe we are to share the good news with those who have not heard it.  However, I think that we need to invest in the priesthood of every believer to equip them to integrate their faith and work, so that they are living disciples, "preaching constantly and using words only when necessary." 

The real heresy of overdependence on the Great Commission is that it hurts our people by devaluing 99% of their lives in which they are not explicitly preaching the Gospel.

Jordan Raynor shares that there are five problems with making the Great Commission the only Commission:

1.      Jesus never did. Jesus told them to obey, teach others, to obey everything he had commanded them to do. The Gospels recorded him giving about 50 unique commands. After Jesus's resurrection, he appeared to the apostles over 40 days and spoke about the Kingdom of God. But the Great Commission text takes about 20 seconds to read out loud. And yet we have interpreted it as the exclusive mission of the Church.

2.      It leads to a diminished view of Christ's redemption. Jesus came to reverse the curse in full and usher in the renewal of all things. But when we only preach that the church's Commission is to save souls, it inevitably leads us to an implicit and often explicit message that the only thing God will save in the end is people.

3.      It neglects the other aspects of the Kingdom. God's Kingdom contains far more than just the King and his subjects. It encompasses the intangible qualities of justice, peace, and love, as well as the tangible work of our hands. When we focus solely on the Great Commission, we can easily overlook these other aspects of the Kingdom. Justice doesn't matter. Beauty doesn't matter. Cultural excellence doesn't matter. This leads to the fair accusation that Christians are so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good.

4.      Ironically, it makes us less effective at the Great Commission, for at least three reasons. First, it is when Christians are the most “earthly good” that Christianity becomes the most attractive. Quote from NT Wright: “It is when the Church acts with decisive power in the real world, to build and run the successful school or medical clinic, to free slaves or remit debts, to establish a housing project or a credit union for those ashamed to go to the bank, to enable drug users and pushers to kick the habit and lifestyle, that people will take the message of Jesus seriously. Second, when we turn the Great Commission into the only Commission, Christians feel guilty for working in the very places where they're most likely to carry out the Great Commission. According to Tim Keller's research, 80% or more of evangelism in the early church was done not by ministers or evangelists, but by mere Christians working as farmers, tent makers, and mothers. That was true in the early church and is likely to be true in the foreseeable future, as non-Christians are more reticent than ever to darken the door of a church, and entire nations are closing their doors to Christian missionaries. Third, making the Great Commission the only Commission creates unbiblical obstacles to following in Jesus. Young people are leaving the Church in part because of our overemphasis on the Great Commission. We tell our young people that if they really love Jesus, they will move to a mud hut 5000 miles away from home to work as a full-time missionary. Overemphasizing the Great Commission may keep people from ever committing to Christ in the first place.

5.      It blocks us from seeing the full extent of how our work matters for eternity. God has set eternity in the human heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11). But if our work has only instrumental value, then most of us are wasting most of our time. What is the purpose of building a business, working a register, or planning an event if those actions don't lead to an opportunity to share the gospel? Sure, they are a means of loving our neighbor as ourselves in the present. Not beyond the here and now. How do these actions matter for eternity? Due to our modern emphasis on the Great Commission, we must travel an unexpected path to find the answer to this question.

Sadly, our emphasis on the Great Commission has not yielded the results that were hoped for, according to the "State of the Great Commission report" released by Lausanne last year.  In this report, we observe that the percentage of Christians has remained relatively unchanged for the past 125 years, at approximately 33%.  As Rick Warren says, "Methods are many, principles are few; methods change often, principles never do."  If we aren't seeing the return on investment, we must look at other ways.  Doing more of the same - or overdoing something - doesn't work.

The principle of making disciples is important.  But it must be done within the context of whole-life discipleship by every believer.