![]() ![]() The ancient Church applied this command to the apostles and rarely applied this command to any concept of universal evangelism. “baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the holy spirit.” This phrase is part of a famous last saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew now generally known as “The Great Commission.” The passage has elicited much discussion because it is an important declaration of Jesus to his disciples before he ascended into heaven. 10:5-6), now he says to go to the nations and disciple them. ![]() Whereas before his resurrection he clearly said, “Do not go on any road of the Gentiles, and do not enter into any city of the Samaritans, but go instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. It seems clear that after his resurrection Jesus expanded the missionary work of his disciples. Translators differ as to which translation is closer to representing what Christ said, and so both translations exist among the English versions. Thus, if we say, “go and make disciples of all the nations,” we clearly understand that they were not disciples before, and we have to get them saved and then disciple them, whereas if we say, “go disciple all nations,” they may already be disciples and we are going to give them further instruction. Thus, in one sense, a more proper translation is “go disciple all the nations.” Normally we would want to avoid the genitive in this case because it can be limiting and mean “out of, “ thus referring to make some of the people disciples, whereas the accusative is a clearly broad goal, “disciple all the nations.” The reason that most versions read, “make disciples of all the nations” rather than “disciple all nations” is that the Greek word mathēteuō (#3100 μαθητεύω) more naturally refers to both the making and training of disciples. “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” The phrase, “of all the nations” reads as if it was a genitive when in fact “nations” is in the accusative case (direct object), not the genitive case. ![]()
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