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Writer's pictureThe Other Paul

Disciple the Nations, or Just Individuals? A Response to a Comment on the Great Commission

I recently responded to a Tweet by Owen Strachan wherein he claimed "Nor can we make nations Christian; nor are we called to by the New Testament." I called this out as a lie, since the Great Commission explicitly says the opposite:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

~ Matthew 28:16–21

In the Greek text, 'μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη' translates literally to "disciple the nations." Most translations render it as "make disciples of all nations" for the sake of what I presume to be more readable English, but it essentially means the same thing, just as "I will make a man of you" is the same as saying "I will make you into a man," which will be important later. Multiple people responded to my claim with nothing of substance except for one, to whom I will be responding here in order to detail my argument further and show why individualist readings of the passage are untenable.

First, to my interlocutor, Quinn, I thank him for providing a more substantive response to my exegetical argument than basically everyone else who replied to my comment. That said, I still believe his interpretation is fatally flawed, which I will now demonstrate. I have divided his 6-tweet thread into 3 logically-divided units to which I will respond accordingly:

1: "As you know, τὰ ἔθνη is the direct object of the aorist imperative μαθητεύσατε. As such, it signifies that the disciples are to be made FROM people amongst the nations, not the nations themselves as political entities. Moreover, μαθητεύσατε is an action directed toward individuals within τὰ ἔθνη. This grammatical structure does not imply converting an entire political entity."

Response: This simply does not follow at all, it is a raw assertion. Nothing of the grammar in μαθητεύσατε τὰ ἔθνη even implies that "τὰ ἔθνη" merely means "[individuals] FROM people amongst the nations." I emphasise "merely" here, because it's important to note that my exegesis here is not a denial of the passage entailing the conversion of individuals; indeed, the conversion of whole nations happens proximately and firstly through the conversion of individuals. Nations are not hive minds, after all. The actual problem here is the modernist evangelical hermeneutic, which denies the meaningfulness of ethnic/national units as singular entities that can be considered "Christian," and as such attempts to force the completely unsupported idea that "τὰ ἔθνη" *merely* means individuals within nations and not "τὰ ἔθνη" themselves; that's the key problem. I grant the Great Commission entails the conversion of individuals and nations as such, because Christ's words and deeds clearly say so; but modernists have to deny the clear connotation of the command despite the ancient world ubiquitously understanding people groups as entities that can be construed as having a united will and composition in some sense. Given an ancient worldview, "τὰ ἔθνη" encapsulates, well, nations; their people, their leaders, and so on, thus including their political structures. Without any actual qualifications in the text, to deny such connotations is purely arbitrary.

2: "Furthermore, the participial clauses which include βαπτίζοντες and διδάσκοντες in 28:19b/20a are related to the main verb μαθητεύσατε. These participles of baptizing and teaching are individual in focus and not as a national identity. This is further enhanced by the present participle διδάσκοντες which ongoing process of discipleship. Plus the overall literary context of Matthew 28:16-20 and Acts would work against this, as the point of τὰ ἔθνη is to say that now Gentiles will be included in the global commission."

Response: Again, this is asserted without argument. That these verbs are *merely* individual in focus is the very thing in contention. Obviously, individuals are baptised, taught, discipled, etc., and this is true even in the process of converting a nation as a whole. But by the simple fact that "the nations" is the object here, and not 'mere individuals,' we are thus compelled by the structure and precedent of the text to read "disciple" and "baptise" and "teach" as applying to whole nations. In other words, we let the text define its own terms, rather than forcing a modernist metaphysic upon it. Your other point about the literary context of Matthew and Acts is not really an argument, as pointing to other existing themes (which I don't deny here) does not entail that other concepts are not at play. Indeed, this is just basic language; we operate upon nested layers of concepts, contained in words, phrases, clauses, paragraphs, and so on. In this case, it's true that the primary theme of the end of Matthew and the book of Acts is the inclusion of the non-Judean nations into the covenant; it's simultaneously true that the language of Christ's Great Commission entails the conversion of whole nations as such. There is nothing contradictory between these ideas.

3: "As we see the progression out from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Plus every modern translation would understand it as “make disciples OF all nations”. If Matthew wanted to say “making nations into disciples” he could have used the nominative and said “τὰ ἔθνη ποιήσατε μαθητάς” or said “ποιεῖτε τὰ ἔθνη μαθητάς” or “μεταμορφοῦτε τὰ ἔθνη εἰς μαθητάς.” But he didn’t. With respect, grammatically, linguistically, and contextually this text does NOT say “make nations into disciples.”"

Response: This shows a very common mistake in English grammar that people often make, one that very often comes out in reading translations of this verse. Interpreting "make disciples OF all nations" as stated in most English translations as "make [individual] disciples OF [i.e. FROM] all nations" such that there is a distinction between individual disciples and nations from which they come out from is erroneous, since, in English, "make X of Y" is a common way of saying "make Y into X," not simply a part or parts of Y into X. Per the same example I used in reply to another comment here, consider the common phrase "I will make a man of you." This isn't saying I will take a piece of you and make a man out of that, but that I will make you into a man. In other words, the "of" in "make a disciple of" is part of the verb, not a genitival phrase, properly speaking. This isn't necessary anyway though, as we have the Greek text, and it explicitly sets "the nations" in the accusative as the direct object, as you noted at the start. What I'm saying is even confirmed in Koine Greek dictionaries, such as BDAG and the Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, which both list "make a disciple OF" under μαθητεύω, showing that it's just another way of saying "to disciple" or "make into a disciple," since the "of" here is just how a causative verb may be expressed in English. This is likewise confirmed, albeit with a slightly different nuance, by Jerome's Latin Vulgate, wherein he translate the phrase as docete omnes gentes, or, "teach all the nations," not "teach [individual disciples of/from] all the nations."

Thus, Matthew doesn't have to say “τὰ ἔθνη ποιήσατε μαθητάς” or “ποιεῖτε τὰ ἔθνη μαθητάς” or “μεταμορφοῦτε τὰ ἔθνη εἰς μαθητάς” or any other phrase to get the same meaning; the nations are the direct objects which are being taught.

In conclusion, the Great Commission reflects a basic element of pre-modern (and even multiple modern) metaphysical frameworks, that nations are entities that may act and be acted on as a collective, and not merely collections of individuals. And given that the state is an essential part of a nation (whether it's a Byzantine bureaucracy or a simple eldership), Christ's Great Commission likewise calls for the Christianising of political entities.

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