The Great Commission: The ABC’s of Gospel Evangelism

Outline and Study Guide With Practical Suggestions on Witnessing

Motivation to Evangelize the Spiritually Lost

What should be our motivation to evangelize the lost?

Hand reaching for the sky

  • The Word of Elohim commands us to do so. The imperative command of Yeshua in Mark 16:11, “Go ye…!” is not “the great suggestion,” but “the great commission!” To many, it has become “the great omission.”
  • Human need demands that we reach out to the lost and hurting around us. Like Yeshua, we must seek to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Like Yeshua, we must meet people at their point of need by finding the need and meeting it with the gospel message, the Word of YHVH and the love of Yeshua.
  • Compassion and love for the lost should compel us to share the good news with others.
  • We must have love for the lost. Pray to the Father that he give us a supernatural love for the lost as Yeshua did. Love sensitizes us to the needs of others. Love makes you want to give to and bless others. Love makes you forget about yourself and perfect love casts out fear of witnessing or fear of what others think (1 John 4–18).
  • We will have an easy time of sharing the gospel of Yeshua with others if we still have the joy of our salvation. If we have lost that joy, pray for it to come back as David prayed in Psalm 51:12–13. Perhaps sin, the cares of this life, fear or other things are blocking that joy.

The New Testament Model for Evangelizm

A study of the Testimony of Yeshua reveals that the dominant model that Yeshua and the apostles followed when witnessing to unbelievers roughly followed the outline below: Continue reading

 

New Video: Are You a Light on a Hill?

Yeshua  commanded  his disciples (that’s you and me) to take the gospel message to the world and to make disciples. This is called the Great Commission. Sadly, many view it as the Great Suggestion, and as such, for most believers, spreading the gospel has become the Great Omission. In this video, Natan will challenge you to help spread the good news of Yeshua (Jesus) by being like a light on a hill to those around you.

 

“Go Ye Therefore” and Teach What???

Matthew 28:19–20, Go you therefore. What were Yeshua’s final instructions to his disciples before his return to heaven? This portion of Scripture is commonly called, the Great Commission and is found in Matthew 28:19-20. Do we find here any clues to Yeshua’s view toward the Torah as to what his expectations were of his disciples? Here Yeshua instructs his disciples (that includes you and me) to:

Go you therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Set-Apart Spirit: teaching them to observe [keep, preserve, hold fast] all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amein.

It is clear from this text that Yeshua, a Jewish rabbi (Matt 26:25, 49; Mark. 9:5; 10:51; 11:21; 14:45; John 1:38, 49; 3:2, 26, 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8), expected his disciples to follow, teach accurately and spread his teachings (the good news of the kingdom of Elohim) to the world. In the religious culture of first century, Judaism disciples (talmudim) were expected to teach exactly what their rabbi or Torah teachers had taught them. This is no different in our day when students enroll in a denominational Bible college or seminary, receive ordination and are then sent out into the mission field in the name of that denomination. The students are expected to carry forth the unique teachings and doctrines of that denomination. If they do not, they will either be reprimanded and expected to realign their teachings with the denomination’s official position. If they refuse to do so, that denomination will discharge them from their duties and defrock them.

Likewise, Yeshua expected his disciples to teach the nations to “observe all things whatsoever I have com- manded you.” In fact, in Acts 1:8 Yeshua said to his disciples that, “You shall be witnesses unto me” to the whole world. This was their mission and assignment.

Yeshua, as did all Jews of his era, spoke Hebrew, and maybe even Aramaic. The word for “commanded” (Matt 28:20) as in “whatsoever I have commanded you …” in either the Hebrew or Aramaic is the word mitzvah, which would have been the same word used in Matthew 5:19 where Yeshua says, “whosoever breaks one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven …” (emphasis added). The word mitzvah in Hebraic religious thought is a clear reference to the Torah commandments of YHVH in the books of the Law of Moses.David uses the term mitzvah (in its plural form mitzvot) numerous times in Psalm 119 equating it with the Torah-law of Elohim as given to Moses and the children of Israel.

It was these same commandments (mitzvot) that Yeshua stated in the Sermon on the Mount that he told his disciples to “think not” that he had come to destroy, that he taught would never pass away as long as heaven and earth stood, that he said whoever would break one of the least of them and teach men so would be called least in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever would keep them and teach men so would be called the greatest in the kingdom. It was these same commandments that Yeshua commissioned his disciples to teach and observe, to keep, hold fast and preserve.

Even in his final word to his disciples before his death, Yeshua commanded his disciples to adhere to the Torah and to convey to those who would follow them the same message.

Can there be any doubt as to what Yeshua’s view of the Torah was, and what his expectations were for his disciples in this regard? How is it that the church has diverged so greatly from the fundamental teachings of Yeshua and his disciples when so many teach that he and his disciples came to “do away with the law?” It has been admitted, by even some in the church, that Christianity is not the religion of Jesus/Yeshua, but rather the religion about the Person of Jesus/Yeshua. For it to be fully the religion of Yeshua and his early disciples, it would have to uphold that obedience to the Torah’s standards of righteous living is a requirement of Christians today.