What Is the Great Commandment and the Great Commission?
The verses commonly referred to as the Great Commandment are in Matthew 22:37-40. He said, “’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” What is the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, and how do they apply to us today?
In the Great Commandment passage, Jesus was talking to some experts in the Law of Moses. They attempted to trap Jesus by asking him where His authority came from and about His stance on paying taxes to Rome. Then someone asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36). In other words, which law was most weighty? Little did these men know that they were asking questions of the Creator of the Universe! He was there when God gave the law.
Jesus’ answer comes directly from Deuteronomy 6:5, which says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
“God wants His people first and above all to love Him with every part of their being. The heart and soul and mind may describe the centers of emotion, action, and thought. The point of the command is not to separate them, though, but to join them together with every aspect of a person fully committed to loving God. A pure, uninterrupted commitment to God and His will is the very basis of a proper relationship with Him,” explains Bible commentary BibleRef.[1]
The Great Commission, on the other hand, is a working out of the Great Commandment. In the Great Commission, found in Matthew 28, Jesus is tasking His followers with the outworking of that love. Our love for God compels us to share about Him to the ends of the earth. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
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What is the Great Commission? Find out how GFA World is fulfilling it today.[1] “What Does Matthew 23:37 Mean?” BibleRef. Accessed July 27, 2023. https://www.bibleref.com/Matthew/22/Matthew-22-37.html.