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Summary
In this week's required reading of the article Globalization of Missions: An
Exegesis on the Great Commission. We learn about how the story of Jesus and more
specially the Great Commission in Matthew 28: 18-20 can be lived out beyond the
common cultural context. Learning to live our the words that command Christ followers
to go to the nations, which is likely beyond the demographics we are born into and or live
in is challenging but through reading this article readers are challenged not only with the
clear text in Matthew but through the realities of creating a sacrificial lifestyle that
requires believers to surround themselves in diverse audience strategically for the
advancement of the Gospel. The article does a great job of not only teaching but
providing practical ways that new and mature believers can partner with the text to share
the word.
Critical Review
As believers of Jesus our main goal should be to create disciples. Kgatle in his
article spends a majority of his piece writing to emphasize just how important creating
disciples, baptizing and teaching people of all nations to observe all that Jesus has taught.
The issue that Kgatle brings us is that for this call to be lived our requires for our
worldview to be expanded. “Christian mission is not about the promotion of one culture,
but the extension of the global kingdom of God.”1The tension arises here as most times
we aim to share the Gospel from the perspective of the world that we grew up in for
example a white male will likely share Jesus from his American, western world. Now in
theory this isn’t wrong but in terms of biblical, it couldn’t be further from it. Our story of
Jesus is unchanging and the God we serve is a for all nations. To share Jesus from a view
1 Kgatle, Mookgo. "Globalization of missions: An exegesis on the Great Commission (Mt 28:18–20)" In die
Skriflig/In Luce Verbi [Online], Volume 52 Number 1 (11 July 2018) Page 3
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point or bias that is any other than what the scripture shares, does not serve properly the
word of God. To create disciples we first remove our bias and cultural view of what the
word says and second we must learn other cultures and how to best communicate the
good news in words and ways that is respective to any culture we are talking to.
Reminding us all that this message is not just for the Jew, but for all.
For many Christians I believe they think the Gospel is powerful but not important
enough for them to share everyday and all the time. Kgatles does a great job in his article
talking about how we are to not only obey what the scripture says in Matthew 28 but
teach other to obey the ways of Jesus. In every believers walk there will come a point
where you are no longer just a student but rather a teacher and a student. As a teacher our
goal is to pour out everything we know about Jesus to those we are raising up. Whether
they grew up in your town or around you our job is simple go, teach and baptize. Kgatles
says it well in his closing words “The Great Commission is a command to teach the
believers the whole truth without compromise.”2
Overall I loved Kgatles article, I thought he did a great job of blending, reminding
and using God's words to convict believers to a higher calling. His word studies on break
downs on the “authority” and “I am with you always” alone should provide readers peace
that God is for us to quote Kgatle “Jesus promised the disciples that he will always be
with them, he assured them of a global victory.”3If we do our job to read, understand and
Go, the Holy Spirit will do his job to save those who are lost. We are parters with Christ
in creating disciples. After reading I believe the challenge is two parts. The first would be
getting ourselves and fear of failing God and others, the second would be learning to trust
God for his word and that he will in fact never leave us. The LORD himself goes before
2 Kgatle, Mookgo. "Globalization of missions: An exegesis on the Great Commission (Mt 28:18–20)" In die
Skriflig/In Luce Verbi [Online], Volume 52 Number 1 (11 July 2018) Page 6
Ibid., 6 3
