Please Do Evangelism (Matthew 28:18-20)

The question came up in my comments on "don't do" evangelism about how should we go about doing evangelism. I figured I should offer a few thoughts over the next couple days looking at what the Bible does say about evangelism.

I'd say, when asked about a great evangelism text, most Christians would point to the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 which reads: 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.”

Now, I do agree that this is an evangelism text, however, I disagree that it tells us to do random "on the street type" evangelism, a belief I hold because of the grammatical structure of Christ's words.

Most people I know who are pro-random evangelism are huge on the word, "go" and they assume Christ is commanding his disciples (and us) to do just that. However, the original language tells us this is not the case. There is a command word, but it's not "go". Rather, Christ's command is to "make disciples" by means of "baptizing and teaching".

"Go" is just a participle which means it carries the forces of, "while you go" or "in your going". To paint a clearer picture, Christ and his disciples are up on this mountain and Jesus is getting ready to ascend into heaven. Before he does, he gives them one final bit of instruction on what they are to do once he's gone. Maybe he hoping to avoid the Acts 1 deal where they all stand there staring up into space, but he tells them that they have to leave the mountain and return to their lives. However as they do this, as they go, they are to "make disciples".

I think it's also important to notice how they go about doing the disciple making ... baptizing and teaching. Moreover, it's teaching everything that Christ commanded, something that's not going to happen on a street corner and something you won't be able to see happen with somebody you only know for 15 minutes. In other words, evangelism and discipleship have a relational element to them.