Make disciples

I was thinking....

We are commanded in Matthew 28:19-20, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

It seems when diagramming the sentence that there are more verbs that are actually in the original greek: "Go, make disciples, baptizing, and teaching". After getting a prompt from a book, I looked at the parts of the sentences in this command. The only verb in the entire command is MAKE DISCIPLES (mathēteuō), the other three words are participles. In other words they actually say; "to go on one's way", "to baptize", and "to teach". So the Great Commission, using the original greek, says "Make disciples; and in so doing you will have to go, teach, and baptize." What a powerful way to see the original intent of our Lord.

Not only that but the word "mathēteuō" is in the Aorist tense, which signifies a continual action "without regard to past, present, or future time." . It is also in the Imperitive mood which signifies a "command to the hearer to perform a certain action by the order and authority of the one commanding." So, the Great commission is a continual discipling that was commanded (not recommended) by the Lord. Our focus is on the discipling (mathēteuō) of the nations (people) and not necessarily on the "going, baptizing, and teaching". These latter three will be the natural result of our obedience to disciple (mathēteuō).

Let us return our focus to the proper discipleship that the Lord commands....