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Alan Hirsch: "The Great Commission Isn’t About Evangelism"

Whenever a church or ministry emphasizes evangelism there will be the usual appeal to the words of Jesus when he stated to the disciples that all authority had been given to him for them to “go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” As straightforward as those words may be missiologist Alan Hirsch contends that those words are not really about evangelism. In the following video Hirsch explains why.

Hirsch reminds us that discipleship is the fundamental task of the church. The modern church has tended to treat discipleship as a preferential issue and interpreted the great commission as an evangelistic text. The great commission is fundamentally about discipleship but the problem is that many Christians don’t know how to do it. Evangelism should take place in the context of discipleship and not the other way around. Put more simply, evangelism should always take place in the context of relationship. Furthermore, we never get past the gospel and we are in need of continually being evangelized… even after our conversion. Let us all take the call to discipleship seriously because if we fail at discipleship we fail everywhere.