Changing the conversation
Commentary
Object:
You probably have, as I do, certain email applications that allow you to view your emails as "conversations" or "threads." For example, the emails that my staff and I have exchanged on a certain subject are all grouped together in my inbox, even if they are separated by months in terms of when they were written. And if I happen to write a reply to any one of the emails other than the very latest in a given thread, my email application will tell me that I am not responding to the most recent part of the conversation.
This Sunday, you and I are presented with the creation story in Genesis. As we are, we may naturally think in terms of the larger thread of our cultural conversation about creation. And we may feel an implicit pressure to respond to the latest part of the conversation.
But perhaps we should change the conversation instead.
You and I, along with our people, live in the midst of a long-standing and deeply-entrenched debate on the subject of creation. I am not going to end that debate by what I say from the pulpit this Sunday, and so I do not want to weaken my pulpit by becoming just one more predictable voice in that debate. Let me resist being among those who use the pulpit to condemn science for being anti-faith, or who condemn faith for being anti-science. I suspect that that entire dichotomy is rooted in a misunderstanding to begin with. So rather than feeling the need to respond to the latest email in this long conversation, I would prefer to change the conversation for my people.
The apostle Paul said to Timothy, "The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion" (1Timothy 1:5-6 NASB). Only the enemy is pleased and served when I let my pulpit become an instrument of fruitless discussion. So I will endeavor to change the conversation for my people this week -- setting them and God's word free from controversy and debate -- by preaching the gospel that is found in the story of creation.
Genesis 1:1--2:4a
The book of Genesis presents two accounts of creation. Scholars have offered a variety of insights into the reason behind the two accounts, and I'm sure that only a small minority of the people in our pews care about those theories and debates. For myself, I don't think in terms of two accounts so much as two perspectives.
Sports fans are familiar with the significance of different camera angles. When watching a sporting event on television, we routinely see the same play from several different angles because every play is recorded by several different cameras. Then we discover that those different cameras offer different perspectives on the same play.
So it is in Genesis. The material that comes after our assigned passage offers a close-up view of the man and woman in the Garden. This earlier, longer account, however, is much more global in its scope. This is the football play as seen from the Goodyear (or MetLife, or whoever's) blimp. It lacks the personal detail of the subsequent account, but it helps us to see the big picture.
Accordingly, since it is the big picture perspective that the author offers us at this point, it is the big picture that we should endeavor to see. To that end, I would try to cull this familiar passage in order to identify the recurring themes and patterns. Those are, after all, the most salient elements in the big picture.
The passage is, of course, most rich, and it has been mined by better minds than mine. But let me offer a few of my own big picture observations about the text that is before us. I will run out of space before the text runs out of insight. As we see the big picture, I believe we'll discover more good news to preach than a single Sunday will afford.
First, we observe the before-and-after quality of the account. From weight loss programs to personal makeovers to home remodeling, we are familiar with before-and-after pictures. It is its own kind of beautiful testimony, then, to use the creation story as a before-and-after picture that bears witness to the activity of God. What was it like before he began his work? What was it like once he was finished? That is the nature of his influence and that is what we may still expect when we allow him to work in our lives, in our homes, and in our churches.
Second, we note the profound meaning of the word "good" in scripture. In our day, "good" has become a kind of halfway compliment. Good as opposed to great. Good as one step short of better and two steps short of best. Good has become a lukewarm, easily achieved measure of a life, as in "I've always tried to be a basically good person." Ah, but in the creation story we see what good really looks like. Good means exactly the way God meant it to be. No wonder Jesus said, "No one is good but God alone" (Luke 18:19).
Third, we are challenged by the biblical definition of a day. Evening and morning is the pattern revealed here, though that is not how our calendars, our clocks, or our psyches reckon it. Perhaps we figure that a day begins at midnight or, more practically, it begins when we wake up. But the Old Testament urges us to recognize that tomorrow begins tonight. Perhaps that truth was in Paul's mind when he urged the Christians in Ephesus, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger" (Ephesians 4:26). We must not let today's anger spill over into tomorrow.
Fourth, we notice the doubling pattern of the account. The first day introduces light, while the fourth day brings the physical sources of light. The second day sees the separation of waters below from waters above, and the fifth day fills the waters and the sky with fish and birds. The third day focuses on the dry land and its vegetation, while the sixth day sees the formation of the creatures that dwell on that land and live off that vegetation.
Finally, we detect a sense of escalation in the story. The account suggests a climax, a finishing touch. Interestingly, God's finishing touch takes two forms: humankind and then rest.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
What's your favorite movie? Imagine a person walking in and seeing just the final two minutes of that movie. How much would they understand? How much would they know?
Between 1 and 2 Corinthians, we have 29 chapters of correspondence from the apostle Paul to the Christians in Corinth. We enjoy greater insight into that church and Paul's relationship with it than any other of the New Testament era. Yet our New Testament lection for this week features just the final three verses of that considerable correspondence. If this is all that our people hear from Paul's letters to the Corinthians, how much will they understand? How much will they know?
You and I have seen the whole movie, of course, and so it is our happy task to try to help our people understand some of what has happened prior to these final two minutes. Then they can appreciate the passage within its larger, original context.
When we read Paul say to the Corinthians, "Put things in order," we recall his earlier appeal that "all things should be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:40). Perhaps enthusiasm and self-importance had conspired to create a certain disorder in the worship there at Corinth.
Meanwhile, when we hear the apostle encouraging them to "agree with one another" and to "live in peace," we are reminded of the friction and strife that evidently marked that congregation. They were dividing into sects (1 Corinthians 1:10-15; 3:1-4). Members were dragging each other to court (1 Corinthians 6:1-11). They were elbowing ahead of one another at the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-22). And clearly Paul himself struggled in his own relationship with them (2 Corinthians 2:1-4; 11:1-11; 12:11-21). One senses that the apostle is like the parent with a backseat full of bickering children. How he longs for them just to get along! How he yearns for them to be at peace!
When Paul references "the God of love," we think of the exquisite definition of love that Paul had given this congregation (1 Corinthians 13). He held it up before them as the most excellent gift and most desirable way. For all that they had going for them, it seems that the Corinthians were not characterized by the very trait that is God's essential attribute (1 John 4:8) and the hallmark of Christ's followers (John 13:35).
Yet these closing instructions from Paul to the Christians in Corinth should not be misunderstood as a thematic rehashing of the earlier grievances. No, the apostle attains something far higher here. He looks above and beyond the people's present patterns and behaviors and points them to the way things ought to be.
Surely this is a key ability of an effective leader. If all that we can see is how things are -- the way that they aren't right -- our tone and content will be all frustration and scolding. There will be nothing uplifting in our words or voices, for we will be focused entirely on the negative. The leader must be able to keep in view the perfect picture, even when it doesn't at all resemble the present.
In the end, Paul sketches out that perfect picture for his silly, bickering children. It is a picture of peace and order. It is a scene of welcome and embrace. It is a church infused with the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The previous 28-plus chapters may not paint a pretty picture of the church at Corinth, but the final verses are a beautiful picture of the way that church -- every church -- ought to be.
Matthew 28:16-20
We are dealing with three endings this week. Our Old Testament lection takes us through to show us the end of creation when it is finished. Our epistle passage is the end of Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. And our gospel reading is Matthew's conclusion to his book. It is interesting to see how he chooses to bring his story to an end.
While Matthew's conclusion is climactic, it is not artificially so. He does not need to find this moment's importance in large numbers, for example. While so much of Jesus' ministry is characterized by crowds and multitudes, there are only eleven witnesses and companions for this moment. And the narrator does not even bother to airbrush his portrait of them, for even at this occasion Matthew reports that "some doubted."
In dramatic contrast to that small and blemished scene, then, are Jesus' words: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." We would expect such a grand claim to be surrounded by greater fanfare. Yet this is typical, is it not? For his birth was not fabulous and his resurrection was not witnessed. The God who could so easily overwhelm us continuously chooses not to.
Jesus' statement about himself is followed immediately by an assignment to his disciples. His use of "therefore" insists on a connection between the two. That is to say, it is because of what is true about him that his followers should go and do what they do. This is an important principle for his followers -- and perhaps particularly his preaching followers -- to keep always in mind.
The assignment that Jesus gave becomes the church's mission statement. "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 that I have commanded you." It is the "standing order" under which we operate, and it is captured in four verbs: go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. It would be a worthwhile exercise for a church to contemplate each of these four verbs, and then to evaluate their own work in light of this "great commission."
Finally, Matthew's closing word for his gospel is Jesus' beautiful and characteristic promise: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." Throughout so many Old Testament stories, the guarantee that God would be "with" was the source of boldness and peace (e.g., Genesis 26:3; Exodus 3:12; Joshua 1:5; Judges 6:16; Psalm 23:4; Isaiah 43:2). Within the scope of just this gospel, this crowning promise brings to full circle the identity given to Jesus before his birth: Emmanuel (Matthew 1:23).
Application
Ask your people what is the first commandment. Some will turn instinctively to Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments. Others will hear the question through the filter of the New Testament and say with Jesus that the first and greatest commandment is to love God. But there is arguably a third answer, and it is found in our Old Testament lection.
Chronologically, the first commandment that God gave to human beings was this: "Be fruitful and multiply." Now we live in a culture that recoils a bit from such an instruction. Abundant propagation and reproduction seems irresponsible to the modern, Western mind. But whatever we make of the literal application of that commandment to our world today, we cannot deny that fruitfulness and multiplication were built into God's design.
When Genesis records God's purposeful design for plant life, for example, he says, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it" (Genesis 1:11). See how prominent and deliberate the reproductive -- indeed, the multiplicative -- quality is. See the emphasis on yielding seed.
We know, of course, the tremendous potential for multiplication that those seeds represent. How many seeds are generated by a single apple tree in a single year? How many seeds are contained in a single stalk of grain? The proliferation implied by the design is staggering.
And what is true of plant life is indicated in the animal world as well. Before human beings came on the scene, God had commanded the fish and birds to "be fruitful and multiply." Just as humanity was later instructed to "fill the earth and subdue it," so the fish were called to fill the waters. We know that so many species -- including human beings -- have within their bodies the capacity to reproduce at a remarkable rate. Multiply, indeed!
Yet as we read on in scripture, we see that fruitfulness is God's desire across the board. That is to say, it is not merely biological reproduction. His will in all of life is embodied by the idea of fruitfulness. Thus the righteous are "like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season" (Psalm 1:3). Jesus told his disciples that abiding in him would make them fruitful and that their fruitfulness glorified God (John 14:1-8). Paul spoke of the Christian virtues as the natural produce of the Spirit's influence (Galatians 5:22-23). So it is that God looks for fruitfulness in people, but judgment awaits those who do not bear the good fruit (Luke 3:8-9).
It turns out that God's command in the beginning is Christ's standing order in the end. That is to say, God had made the plants, the fish, the birds, the animals, and the human beings, and he intended for them to reproduce as more of what he had made them to be in the first place. In the end, Jesus commanded his followers to do the same. He had made them disciples and now they were to reproduce what he had made them to be.
The will and design of God remain constant. "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth." "Go and make disciples of all nations." His desire is that we should reproduce in abundance, throughout the whole earth, what he himself began.
An Alternative Application
Matthew 28:16-20. "A Doubting Thomas by Any Other Name." They say that hope springs eternal. I am unwilling to give doubt equal credit, but it surely is durable. Doubt may not be eternal, but it does stay alive too long.
By the time we arrive at this juncture, the disciples have personally witnessed the multitudes fed, lepers cleansed, and storms calmed. They have watched the crippled walk and the dead raised. They have seen Jesus crucified and resurrected. And now, in this climactic moment from his gospel, Matthew reports, "But some doubted."
Who are these guys? Because of one episode in John's gospel, we have forever labeled Thomas as "doubting," but this reference from Matthew suggests that Thomas was not alone. After all that they had seen and heard, still some doubted.
Thomas, you recall, was away from the rest of the group when Jesus made his first resurrection appearance to the disciples. That gave rise to his infamous statement about not believing. Once he saw firsthand the risen Lord, however, Thomas was full of confidence about Jesus.
The folks gathered around here at the end of Matthew 28, on the other hand, are all privy to the risen Lord. They can all see him, touch him, hear him "but some doubted." I admit that they are an uninspiring lot at this moment. Yet I am grateful for Matthew's reference to them, for they remind us of several important truths.
First, they remind us that the first disciples of Jesus were as human as we are. We needn't imprison them in stained-glass windows or marble sculptures, for they are as flesh and blood and blemished as any of us. And given what God accomplished through them, we may be encouraged by that truth.
Second, they remind us of the reliability of the scriptures. If the New Testament were some early church concoction designed as pro-Jesus propaganda, it would not include this detail. Portraying some of his own followers still in doubt mode at the conclusion of the gospel story, after all, is not great salesmanship. And that brings us very naturally to the third point.
Third, this snapshot of the disciples reminds us that truth is not determined by public opinion polls. What the people around Jesus did or did not believe affected them, not him. He was risen whether they believed or not. He was the Son of God whether they doubted it or affirmed it. So it is that our proclamation of the gospel is to help people come to know the truth, not to garner support for it.
This Sunday, you and I are presented with the creation story in Genesis. As we are, we may naturally think in terms of the larger thread of our cultural conversation about creation. And we may feel an implicit pressure to respond to the latest part of the conversation.
But perhaps we should change the conversation instead.
You and I, along with our people, live in the midst of a long-standing and deeply-entrenched debate on the subject of creation. I am not going to end that debate by what I say from the pulpit this Sunday, and so I do not want to weaken my pulpit by becoming just one more predictable voice in that debate. Let me resist being among those who use the pulpit to condemn science for being anti-faith, or who condemn faith for being anti-science. I suspect that that entire dichotomy is rooted in a misunderstanding to begin with. So rather than feeling the need to respond to the latest email in this long conversation, I would prefer to change the conversation for my people.
The apostle Paul said to Timothy, "The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion" (1Timothy 1:5-6 NASB). Only the enemy is pleased and served when I let my pulpit become an instrument of fruitless discussion. So I will endeavor to change the conversation for my people this week -- setting them and God's word free from controversy and debate -- by preaching the gospel that is found in the story of creation.
Genesis 1:1--2:4a
The book of Genesis presents two accounts of creation. Scholars have offered a variety of insights into the reason behind the two accounts, and I'm sure that only a small minority of the people in our pews care about those theories and debates. For myself, I don't think in terms of two accounts so much as two perspectives.
Sports fans are familiar with the significance of different camera angles. When watching a sporting event on television, we routinely see the same play from several different angles because every play is recorded by several different cameras. Then we discover that those different cameras offer different perspectives on the same play.
So it is in Genesis. The material that comes after our assigned passage offers a close-up view of the man and woman in the Garden. This earlier, longer account, however, is much more global in its scope. This is the football play as seen from the Goodyear (or MetLife, or whoever's) blimp. It lacks the personal detail of the subsequent account, but it helps us to see the big picture.
Accordingly, since it is the big picture perspective that the author offers us at this point, it is the big picture that we should endeavor to see. To that end, I would try to cull this familiar passage in order to identify the recurring themes and patterns. Those are, after all, the most salient elements in the big picture.
The passage is, of course, most rich, and it has been mined by better minds than mine. But let me offer a few of my own big picture observations about the text that is before us. I will run out of space before the text runs out of insight. As we see the big picture, I believe we'll discover more good news to preach than a single Sunday will afford.
First, we observe the before-and-after quality of the account. From weight loss programs to personal makeovers to home remodeling, we are familiar with before-and-after pictures. It is its own kind of beautiful testimony, then, to use the creation story as a before-and-after picture that bears witness to the activity of God. What was it like before he began his work? What was it like once he was finished? That is the nature of his influence and that is what we may still expect when we allow him to work in our lives, in our homes, and in our churches.
Second, we note the profound meaning of the word "good" in scripture. In our day, "good" has become a kind of halfway compliment. Good as opposed to great. Good as one step short of better and two steps short of best. Good has become a lukewarm, easily achieved measure of a life, as in "I've always tried to be a basically good person." Ah, but in the creation story we see what good really looks like. Good means exactly the way God meant it to be. No wonder Jesus said, "No one is good but God alone" (Luke 18:19).
Third, we are challenged by the biblical definition of a day. Evening and morning is the pattern revealed here, though that is not how our calendars, our clocks, or our psyches reckon it. Perhaps we figure that a day begins at midnight or, more practically, it begins when we wake up. But the Old Testament urges us to recognize that tomorrow begins tonight. Perhaps that truth was in Paul's mind when he urged the Christians in Ephesus, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger" (Ephesians 4:26). We must not let today's anger spill over into tomorrow.
Fourth, we notice the doubling pattern of the account. The first day introduces light, while the fourth day brings the physical sources of light. The second day sees the separation of waters below from waters above, and the fifth day fills the waters and the sky with fish and birds. The third day focuses on the dry land and its vegetation, while the sixth day sees the formation of the creatures that dwell on that land and live off that vegetation.
Finally, we detect a sense of escalation in the story. The account suggests a climax, a finishing touch. Interestingly, God's finishing touch takes two forms: humankind and then rest.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
What's your favorite movie? Imagine a person walking in and seeing just the final two minutes of that movie. How much would they understand? How much would they know?
Between 1 and 2 Corinthians, we have 29 chapters of correspondence from the apostle Paul to the Christians in Corinth. We enjoy greater insight into that church and Paul's relationship with it than any other of the New Testament era. Yet our New Testament lection for this week features just the final three verses of that considerable correspondence. If this is all that our people hear from Paul's letters to the Corinthians, how much will they understand? How much will they know?
You and I have seen the whole movie, of course, and so it is our happy task to try to help our people understand some of what has happened prior to these final two minutes. Then they can appreciate the passage within its larger, original context.
When we read Paul say to the Corinthians, "Put things in order," we recall his earlier appeal that "all things should be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:40). Perhaps enthusiasm and self-importance had conspired to create a certain disorder in the worship there at Corinth.
Meanwhile, when we hear the apostle encouraging them to "agree with one another" and to "live in peace," we are reminded of the friction and strife that evidently marked that congregation. They were dividing into sects (1 Corinthians 1:10-15; 3:1-4). Members were dragging each other to court (1 Corinthians 6:1-11). They were elbowing ahead of one another at the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-22). And clearly Paul himself struggled in his own relationship with them (2 Corinthians 2:1-4; 11:1-11; 12:11-21). One senses that the apostle is like the parent with a backseat full of bickering children. How he longs for them just to get along! How he yearns for them to be at peace!
When Paul references "the God of love," we think of the exquisite definition of love that Paul had given this congregation (1 Corinthians 13). He held it up before them as the most excellent gift and most desirable way. For all that they had going for them, it seems that the Corinthians were not characterized by the very trait that is God's essential attribute (1 John 4:8) and the hallmark of Christ's followers (John 13:35).
Yet these closing instructions from Paul to the Christians in Corinth should not be misunderstood as a thematic rehashing of the earlier grievances. No, the apostle attains something far higher here. He looks above and beyond the people's present patterns and behaviors and points them to the way things ought to be.
Surely this is a key ability of an effective leader. If all that we can see is how things are -- the way that they aren't right -- our tone and content will be all frustration and scolding. There will be nothing uplifting in our words or voices, for we will be focused entirely on the negative. The leader must be able to keep in view the perfect picture, even when it doesn't at all resemble the present.
In the end, Paul sketches out that perfect picture for his silly, bickering children. It is a picture of peace and order. It is a scene of welcome and embrace. It is a church infused with the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The previous 28-plus chapters may not paint a pretty picture of the church at Corinth, but the final verses are a beautiful picture of the way that church -- every church -- ought to be.
Matthew 28:16-20
We are dealing with three endings this week. Our Old Testament lection takes us through to show us the end of creation when it is finished. Our epistle passage is the end of Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. And our gospel reading is Matthew's conclusion to his book. It is interesting to see how he chooses to bring his story to an end.
While Matthew's conclusion is climactic, it is not artificially so. He does not need to find this moment's importance in large numbers, for example. While so much of Jesus' ministry is characterized by crowds and multitudes, there are only eleven witnesses and companions for this moment. And the narrator does not even bother to airbrush his portrait of them, for even at this occasion Matthew reports that "some doubted."
In dramatic contrast to that small and blemished scene, then, are Jesus' words: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." We would expect such a grand claim to be surrounded by greater fanfare. Yet this is typical, is it not? For his birth was not fabulous and his resurrection was not witnessed. The God who could so easily overwhelm us continuously chooses not to.
Jesus' statement about himself is followed immediately by an assignment to his disciples. His use of "therefore" insists on a connection between the two. That is to say, it is because of what is true about him that his followers should go and do what they do. This is an important principle for his followers -- and perhaps particularly his preaching followers -- to keep always in mind.
The assignment that Jesus gave becomes the church's mission statement. "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 that I have commanded you." It is the "standing order" under which we operate, and it is captured in four verbs: go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. It would be a worthwhile exercise for a church to contemplate each of these four verbs, and then to evaluate their own work in light of this "great commission."
Finally, Matthew's closing word for his gospel is Jesus' beautiful and characteristic promise: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." Throughout so many Old Testament stories, the guarantee that God would be "with" was the source of boldness and peace (e.g., Genesis 26:3; Exodus 3:12; Joshua 1:5; Judges 6:16; Psalm 23:4; Isaiah 43:2). Within the scope of just this gospel, this crowning promise brings to full circle the identity given to Jesus before his birth: Emmanuel (Matthew 1:23).
Application
Ask your people what is the first commandment. Some will turn instinctively to Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments. Others will hear the question through the filter of the New Testament and say with Jesus that the first and greatest commandment is to love God. But there is arguably a third answer, and it is found in our Old Testament lection.
Chronologically, the first commandment that God gave to human beings was this: "Be fruitful and multiply." Now we live in a culture that recoils a bit from such an instruction. Abundant propagation and reproduction seems irresponsible to the modern, Western mind. But whatever we make of the literal application of that commandment to our world today, we cannot deny that fruitfulness and multiplication were built into God's design.
When Genesis records God's purposeful design for plant life, for example, he says, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it" (Genesis 1:11). See how prominent and deliberate the reproductive -- indeed, the multiplicative -- quality is. See the emphasis on yielding seed.
We know, of course, the tremendous potential for multiplication that those seeds represent. How many seeds are generated by a single apple tree in a single year? How many seeds are contained in a single stalk of grain? The proliferation implied by the design is staggering.
And what is true of plant life is indicated in the animal world as well. Before human beings came on the scene, God had commanded the fish and birds to "be fruitful and multiply." Just as humanity was later instructed to "fill the earth and subdue it," so the fish were called to fill the waters. We know that so many species -- including human beings -- have within their bodies the capacity to reproduce at a remarkable rate. Multiply, indeed!
Yet as we read on in scripture, we see that fruitfulness is God's desire across the board. That is to say, it is not merely biological reproduction. His will in all of life is embodied by the idea of fruitfulness. Thus the righteous are "like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season" (Psalm 1:3). Jesus told his disciples that abiding in him would make them fruitful and that their fruitfulness glorified God (John 14:1-8). Paul spoke of the Christian virtues as the natural produce of the Spirit's influence (Galatians 5:22-23). So it is that God looks for fruitfulness in people, but judgment awaits those who do not bear the good fruit (Luke 3:8-9).
It turns out that God's command in the beginning is Christ's standing order in the end. That is to say, God had made the plants, the fish, the birds, the animals, and the human beings, and he intended for them to reproduce as more of what he had made them to be in the first place. In the end, Jesus commanded his followers to do the same. He had made them disciples and now they were to reproduce what he had made them to be.
The will and design of God remain constant. "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth." "Go and make disciples of all nations." His desire is that we should reproduce in abundance, throughout the whole earth, what he himself began.
An Alternative Application
Matthew 28:16-20. "A Doubting Thomas by Any Other Name." They say that hope springs eternal. I am unwilling to give doubt equal credit, but it surely is durable. Doubt may not be eternal, but it does stay alive too long.
By the time we arrive at this juncture, the disciples have personally witnessed the multitudes fed, lepers cleansed, and storms calmed. They have watched the crippled walk and the dead raised. They have seen Jesus crucified and resurrected. And now, in this climactic moment from his gospel, Matthew reports, "But some doubted."
Who are these guys? Because of one episode in John's gospel, we have forever labeled Thomas as "doubting," but this reference from Matthew suggests that Thomas was not alone. After all that they had seen and heard, still some doubted.
Thomas, you recall, was away from the rest of the group when Jesus made his first resurrection appearance to the disciples. That gave rise to his infamous statement about not believing. Once he saw firsthand the risen Lord, however, Thomas was full of confidence about Jesus.
The folks gathered around here at the end of Matthew 28, on the other hand, are all privy to the risen Lord. They can all see him, touch him, hear him "but some doubted." I admit that they are an uninspiring lot at this moment. Yet I am grateful for Matthew's reference to them, for they remind us of several important truths.
First, they remind us that the first disciples of Jesus were as human as we are. We needn't imprison them in stained-glass windows or marble sculptures, for they are as flesh and blood and blemished as any of us. And given what God accomplished through them, we may be encouraged by that truth.
Second, they remind us of the reliability of the scriptures. If the New Testament were some early church concoction designed as pro-Jesus propaganda, it would not include this detail. Portraying some of his own followers still in doubt mode at the conclusion of the gospel story, after all, is not great salesmanship. And that brings us very naturally to the third point.
Third, this snapshot of the disciples reminds us that truth is not determined by public opinion polls. What the people around Jesus did or did not believe affected them, not him. He was risen whether they believed or not. He was the Son of God whether they doubted it or affirmed it. So it is that our proclamation of the gospel is to help people come to know the truth, not to garner support for it.
