I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 27-28.

    There are several things I want to note from this passage. The first is that when Judas returned the money he had been given to betray Jesus, the leading priests and elders had no care whatsoever for him. They refused to take any responsibility for Judas’ sin, despite the fact that they acknowledged that they had given him money in order to have someone (Jesus) killed. They implicitly admitted their role in the death of an innocent man, but showed no remorse. The next thing is the crowd at Jesus’ trial before Pilate. This reminds us that going along with the crowd often means calling for evil to triumph. When we hear the crowd calling for “justice”, we need to look a little closer at what they are really calling for. Is the cry really “Justice!”, or is it “Crucify Him!”?

    There are other things as well, but I want to finish up with the Great Commission. The Great Commission is “go and make disciples.” Jesus said more here than just that and the more is important. But first let’s look at the Commission, what did Jesus tell us to do. He told us to “Go”. Our mandate is active. We are not to sit around and wait for people to come to us. We are to GO to where they are. Then He told us to “Make disciples.” The key thing about making disciples is that the word “disciple” is related to the word “discipline”. In order to be a disciple you have to have discipline. In fact Jesus makes sure to remind us of that in the very next sentence. He tells the Apostles (and through them us) to teach these new disciples to obey everything Jesus taught them. We will not be able to teach others to obey what Jesus taught unless we obey Him ourselves. I truly believe that an important element of being a Christian is following the discipline of obeying Christ. That discipline is accomplished by being accountable to others and, in turn, holding them accountable.

    Now to cover the two parts of what Jesus said here which are not part of the Great Commission itself. Now I will circle back to the first thing Jesus said here. The reason we are to go and make disciples is because Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and earth. There are no other authorities. Jesus is not just the final authority. He is the only authority. There is no other path to God except through Him. Which means that we should have two motivations to preach the Gospel. The first one is that we have been told to do so by the highest authority there is and we will suffer if we rebel against that authority. The second is that, out of love, we should desire that others learn to obey that authority and not suffer for rebelling against it. Then we have Jesus’ promise to be with us always until the very end. This reminds us that the commands which Jesus is using His authority to give us are given out of His love for us. The suffering which we will receive for not obeying His commands is not just a result of His punishment for our disobedience, it is also a consequence of not doing the things He commanded. Those consequences would result from those actions, even if Jesus had not commanded us to behave differently. That is why He gave us those commands. Whether we obey or disobey, Jesus will be with us until the very end. If we suffer for disobedience, Jesus will be there suffering along with us. If we suffer for obedience, Jesus will be there suffering along with us. In either case, He will also be offering us comfort, a comfort we will experience if we are obedient and that we can ONLY experience if we are obedient.