The NXR Podcast - December 10, 2022


QUESTIONS - Is Starting A Christian School Included In The Great Commission？

Topics
all of life theonomy
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Paul Charles Spurgeon Nathan Anderson Joe Biden Gentiles Peter David
DAILY TRUTH - Servant Leadership SUNDAY SERMON - Surrounded By Bloodthirsty Men ｜ Psalm 59

Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

179.94

Word count

3,663

Sentence count

214

Harmful content

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we discuss the Great Commission and how to fulfill it in the modern world. What does it mean to be part of the church and what does it entail to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? What is the role of a disciple and how does it relate to the great commission?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
00:00:03 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,
00:00:06 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?
00:00:09 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do
00:00:12 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible.
00:00:17 Thanks.
00:00:20 Here we go. Super chat from the McGlone Code.
00:00:25 The McGlone Code. I think that's how you say it.
00:00:26 Here we go. Hi, pastor who's carrying out the mission of the church,
00:00:28 part of the mission of the church.
00:00:30 Is carrying out the mission of the church
00:00:31 part of the mission of church?
00:00:33 This is like, this is like inception, right?
00:00:35 This is a dream within a dream.
00:00:38 Okay, here we go.
00:00:39 To clarify, ah, ah, read on, just read on.
00:00:41 Just Joe Biden, stick to the teleprompter.
00:00:43 Here we go.
00:00:44 To clarify, is the mission just or merely the orders?
00:00:49 Oh, no, he means just righteous, right?
00:00:51 Is that what he's saying?
00:00:52 Is the mission just the, okay, simply, merely,
00:00:55 is the mission merely the orders slash goals of the mission or does it include that which we do
00:01:02 to carry out the mission here we go example if i open a school that's not what jesus specifically
00:01:08 said to do yes he did yes he did now this is a great question all right i see what you're gonna
00:01:13 if i open a school that's not what jesus specifically said to do but in so much as it
00:01:19 is in service to the mission and the mission i the great commission is it fair to call it a part
00:01:25 of the mission. Can something other than disciple and teach the faith be part of the mission? Yes.
00:01:32 And the example that you gave is not something other than disciple and teach the faith.
00:01:36 So that's the only pushback I would give. So to answer your question, absolutely. Absolutely.
00:01:41 Are there other things outside of making disciples and baptizing the nations that still
00:01:47 can be put, placed accurately and faithfully under the large banner of the Great Commission?
00:01:52 yes and i'd be hard-pressed though to find an example why um because the example you listen
00:01:59 i could think of several others actually are directly fulfilling the great commission because
00:02:03 the great commission is not just make converts which of course we all know is good good reformers
00:02:08 that only the holy spirit actually can do right but you know what i mean um preaching the gospel
00:02:15 right go so all right so let me just break down the the great commission let's start with that
00:02:20 First, Jesus prefaces the prelude to the Great Commission.
00:02:23 Jesus says, I have all authority, but only in heaven, because radical two kingdom theology
00:02:29 is true. 0.75
00:02:30 No, I have all authority in heaven, but also on earth.
00:02:33 Jesus is reigning.
00:02:35 Physically, he is seated at the right hand of his father, reigning from heaven.
00:02:38 He has rule and reign in heaven, but also rule and reign authority on earth.
00:02:42 And he's carrying that out, his rule and authority.
00:02:44 his sovereignty is being carried out by chiefly, by all things, but chiefly the church. Okay. So
00:02:51 that's the prelude. Jesus has all authority. So, and not just in heaven, not just spiritually,
00:02:55 but tangibly here on earth. So listen up. And here's what he says. Go and make disciples of
00:03:01 all nations, disciple nations, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the
00:03:07 father, the son, and the Holy spirit. So into the name of the triune God, and the part we always
00:03:10 leave out, teaching them to obey all my commands. There's your theonomy as a part of the Great 0.53
00:03:15 Commission. Teach them my law and teach them obedience to my law. Now, the way that I usually, 0.99
00:03:21 the way that it helps me, the framework that I use to think of the Great Commission is the Great
00:03:25 Commission is really just one command, but I would say that it has four components, right? Four steps
00:03:31 if we're going to faithfully fulfill the one command. The one command is disciple. Disciple,
00:03:37 more particularly, the nations. Disciple the nations. Disciple the nations. That's the Great
00:03:43 Commission. Now, how do you do it? Step one, go. So it's going to involve going. Many people stay
00:03:51 because they're discipling the nation that God has providentially placed them in to begin with,
00:03:54 the nation they're born in. But some will have to go. And especially early on in church history,
00:04:00 where there was an epicenter for the Christian faith, and eventually it started to move, right?
00:04:05 And we see that just in the book of Acts, just in one generation, the epicenter for
00:04:09 the Christian faith, it moves from Jerusalem in the life of Jesus, where he appointed the
00:04:14 apostles and commissioned them and all these things, to Antioch. 0.98
00:04:17 And it begins to have a Gentile epicenter as the Jews harden their hearts and reject 0.94
00:04:22 Christ as the Messiah, okay? 0.88
00:04:24 So, you know, it's, you know, the book of Acts, first 15 chapters, give or take, really
00:04:28 follow Peter.
00:04:29 And then it begins to follow Paul, who is apostle to the Gentiles.
00:04:33 So there's a going, and especially early on, if we're thinking of Christendom as a long
00:04:37 work in church history, there's a lot of going.
00:04:39 And I'm not saying that we shouldn't have still international missions today, but I
00:04:43 don't think it should be the emphasis that it once was.
00:04:45 I think that there's so much work for the average Christian to do in their home native
00:04:50 land, the nation that they're born into, that there's a lot right there, but go, okay?
00:04:55 So big command, disciple the nations.
00:04:57 How do you do it?
00:04:58 Four subcommands, go.
00:04:59 baptize and teach. Go, baptize, and teach. And I said four because I think implicitly in baptism
00:05:08 is preaching the gospel because we're baptizing converts, baptizing people into the name,
00:05:16 nations, into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, right? And so that involves
00:05:21 also preaching the gospel, right? That there's conversion. So there's going, there's preaching
00:05:28 the gospel and the Holy Spirit in his sovereignty, regenerating hearts with the preaching of the
00:05:33 gospel, Romans 10, 14, the Spirit's working in conjunction with hearing, faith comes by hearing,
00:05:38 that's actually Hebrews, faith cometh by hearing, hearing the word of Christ, Romans 10, 14, how
00:05:43 will they believe unless they hear, how will they hear unless someone preaches? So the big headline,
00:05:48 one commandment in the Great Commission, disciple nations. You do it by going, you do it by preaching,
00:05:52 you do it by baptizing, you do it by teaching. And I'm contrasting preaching, you know, the
00:05:57 distinction between preaching and teaching, preaching, gospel preaching, evangelistic
00:06:01 preaching, conversion, and then teaching law.
00:06:06 And primarily, I think law, because it's at the end, this is a reference primarily not
00:06:11 to the first use of the law, which would be involved in gospel preaching. 0.60
00:06:14 You've got to preach the law of God so that people know that they're a sinner, so that
00:06:19 they know that they actually have a need for Christ.
00:06:20 Charles Spurgeon said, a man cannot appreciate the beauty of Christ unless he first come
00:06:24 to see his need for Christ, the necessity for Christ, and what makes us realize the necessity
00:06:31 of Christ, obviously the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, but in terms of preaching,
00:06:35 our faithful preaching that the Spirit works in conjunction with, that's preaching the law.
00:06:40 In preaching the law, we see God's holy standard. By virtue of seeing his holy standard, we see
00:06:44 the holiness of God himself, and we also see, by contrast, by way of consequence and seeing
00:06:49 the holiness of God, we see our sinfulness, the gap, this infinite chasm between sinful man and
00:06:55 a thrice holy God, and therefore the need for a substitute, atonement, forgiveness, the Lamb of
00:07:01 God who takes away the sins of the world, Christ. You cannot preach Christ in a way that is
00:07:06 compelling apart from preaching the law in its first use. And the first use of the law is that
00:07:12 it's used to reveal the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and the need for the gospel.
00:07:16 All right, so disciple of the nations, that's one command of the Great Commission, but you
00:07:21 got to go, you got to preach law and gospel, first use of the law and gospel, and as the
00:07:27 Holy Spirit gives faith, baptize, you're going to baptize, and then lastly, you're going
00:07:33 to teach, and teach them what?
00:07:34 Obedience to Christ's commandments, which is again law, but here I don't believe that
00:07:38 it's a reference because this is teaching them the ones who have already been baptized.
00:07:42 So this is teaching those converts the law of God, which means the law of God in its first use has already been preached, preaching God is holy, you are sinful, and then the gospel, first use of the law and the gospel, producing converts as the Spirit gives grace, and then baptizing them, and then teaching them the law again.
00:08:03 But now I think the implication is by necessary inference, the third use of the law, which
00:08:08 is for a distinctly Christian use that for the Christian, the law of God serves not just
00:08:14 not just as an indicator for my need for salvation, but the law of God also serves as a guide.
00:08:20 Once I've already received salvation by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone
00:08:24 now as a response, not works based meritorious based salvation, but receiving salvation by
00:08:30 grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone now as a response of gratitude for that salvation
00:08:36 my response is God if you've loved me in the beloved in Christ like this freely I can't help
00:08:42 but love you back and God how can I show you that I love you well Jesus answers that question obey
00:08:47 my commands so then we're teaching Christians what Jesus commands are so that they may walk in them
00:08:53 that's the third use of the law that the law is not just our reveals our need for the gospel but
00:08:58 then for Christians, it is a lamp unto their feet, a light unto their path. The law is a mirror.
00:09:03 It shows the holiness of God and reveals our own sinfulness and our need for Christ,
00:09:07 but it's also a compass. It directs the Christian, not in the path to salvation,
00:09:13 but the path from salvation to obedience to Christ and further sanctification and making
00:09:19 a difference, a real difference in the world. If you're thinking, how do I love my neighbor?
00:09:24 Obey God's law. God's law lends towards blessing. Obedience to God's law, it's not just morally
00:09:30 right, it's good and beneficial. David delights in the law of God. Paul says in Romans 7, he says,
00:09:36 the law's not the problem, it's sin that's the problem. Paul says explicitly, he says,
00:09:41 the law is not only right and perfect, but the law is good and holy and right. It is profitable.
00:09:48 It is beneficial.
00:09:50 So when you have more people, not less, but more people obeying God's morally righteous,
00:09:56 but also beneficial and profitable good law that lends towards human flourishing on the
00:10:04 earth, if more people obey God's law, things are better.
00:10:09 And they're not just better for Christians.
00:10:10 They're better for everyone.
00:10:12 Everyone benefits. 0.96
00:10:13 It's unbelievers benefit by there being more Christians living in obedience to God's law. 0.97
00:10:20 So the Great Commission is one commandment, disciple the nations. 0.96
00:10:25 But there are four implicit steps or subcommandments all baked into the pie.
00:10:30 Going, preaching the gospel and the first use of God's law that the spirit would use
00:10:35 to make converts, baptizing, and then teaching the third use of the law, a lamp to our feet,
00:10:41 how Christians should live in the world.
00:10:43 So all that being said, go back to the question now. 0.98
00:10:46 Uh-oh, same problem?
00:10:48 All right, he learned.
00:10:50 He learned from the last time I did this.
00:10:52 So all that being said, what do you do at school?
00:10:55 If I open a school,
00:10:57 that's not what Jesus specifically said to do.
00:10:59 But in so much as it is in service to the mission,
00:11:02 and I'm assuming here you mean capital T, capital M,
00:11:05 the Great Commission,
00:11:07 is it fair to call it part of the mission?
00:11:10 And the reason why I'm saying yes, absolutely,
00:11:11 is because that is part of the mission.
00:11:13 part of the mission is teaching, teaching them to obey all of Christ's commands. And here's the
00:11:18 deal. Christ commands the law of God has implications. This goes back to our view of
00:11:23 the sufficiency of scripture. There's a lot of people who believe in the inannancy of scripture,
00:11:26 but not the sufficiency of scripture. And here's the follow-up question you have to ask. Even among
00:11:31 those who believe in the sufficiency of scripture, you have to ask the clarifying question, sufficient
00:11:34 for what? Is the scripture only sufficient for spiritual matters and salvation? Or do we believe
00:11:41 the scripture is sufficient for all of life and godliness. And remember, if we do that first word
00:11:47 life, all of life, that life is a very broad category. Life involves finances. It involves
00:11:57 economics. It involves markets. It involves beauty, the good, the true, and the beautiful.
00:12:02 It involves culture and arts.
00:12:06 It involves medicine and welfare and healthcare and civil ethics and politics and governments
00:12:13 and states and nations.
00:12:15 It involves all these things, marriages and families and education, schools.
00:12:21 You betcha.
00:12:21 You betcha.
00:12:22 So if we're called to teach people, if part of the Great Commission is to teach people
00:12:27 to obey all of Christ's commandments, that's what school is.
00:12:30 if you think of school from a distinctly classical christian category and all of life for all of
00:12:38 christ category of what is christian education it is not um math science literature and then a 45
00:12:46 minute bible class at the end no it's math science and literature but all of it is christian it's
00:12:51 christian math and you might say there's no such thing as christian math yes there is and you know
00:12:56 how i know there's such a thing as christian math because there's such a thing as god hating math
00:12:59 And in God-hating math, non-Christian math, two plus two can equal five.
00:13:03 And we've just seen that in the last couple of years. 0.86
00:13:06 So don't you dare tell me there's not such a thing as Christian math.
00:13:09 Of course there is. 0.98
00:13:10 There is only Christian math. 1.00
00:13:12 It's either Christ or chaos. 0.98
00:13:15 Not whether, but which.
00:13:17 And so when we're teaching people to obey Christ's commands, all we're doing is we're
00:13:20 teaching the law of God and then teaching the law of God in reference to its application
00:13:24 in each sphere of life.
00:13:26 all of Christ, we might say all of Christ's commands, but applied then to all of life,
00:13:32 all of Christ to every arena of life, every realm of life, the math realm of life, the literature
00:13:38 realm of life, the science realm of life, the art realm of life. So a Christian school starting a 0.82
00:13:45 distinctly Christian school is part of the Christian, the great commission, because part
00:13:50 of the Great Commission, you can't make disciples without going to people. And you can't make
00:13:57 disciples without preaching the gospel and the first use of the law that makes the gospel relevant,
00:14:01 shows them they need the gospel. And you can't make disciples without then baptizing these
00:14:06 Christians who have been born again by grace and the hearing of the gospel and the work of the
00:14:10 spirit. And you also can't make disciples without then taking these baptized converts and teaching
00:14:16 them obedience to all Christ's commands. And teaching them obedience to all Christ's commands
00:14:20 means the implications and applications of all of Christ's commands in every single realm of life.
00:14:27 All of Christ's commands applied to every realm of life. That's what Christian math is. Christian
00:14:34 math is theonomy. Christian science is theonomy. Christian literature is theonomy. And theonomy
00:14:41 me is the teaching of the third use of God's law, Christ's commandments, which is baked into the
00:14:47 Great Commission and explicitly stated in the Great Commission. So I would say that starting
00:14:52 a Christian school is, not only does it work towards the end of the Great Commission,
00:14:59 it's explicitly listed by Christ in the Great Commission, teaching people to obey all my
00:15:03 commandments. That means teaching people to obey all my commandments. And we know he's referring
00:15:08 to the third use of the law here.
00:15:10 We know that because he's talking about
00:15:12 what to do with the people
00:15:13 who have now been baptized.
00:15:15 It's progressive, the steps that he's giving.
00:15:18 Go, implicitly then preach the gospel
00:15:21 and then explicitly baptize
00:15:23 and then explicitly again,
00:15:26 teach them to obey my commandments
00:15:28 as a response to the salvation
00:15:32 they've already freely received
00:15:33 by virtue of the fact that they've been baptized.
00:15:35 So teach them to obey my commandments,
00:15:37 third use of the law,
00:15:38 not as a mirror revealing the need, our sin and the need for a savior, but as a compass,
00:15:43 a guide, a lamp unto our feet, light unto our path. And we're not just teaching them to obey
00:15:47 Christ's commandments in the third use of the law, the way in which we should walk,
00:15:52 but we're also teaching all of Christ's commandments, which I believe necessary
00:15:56 inference by way of implication, all of Christ's commandments also carries with it and all the
00:16:01 applications of all of Christ's commandments. So all of his commandments, not some of his
00:16:06 commandments, but all of his commandments, and I think that that implies, applied to all of life.
00:16:11 So not some of Christ's commandments for some arenas of life. It's not just some of Christ's
00:16:17 commandments in just some areas of life, like marriage and parenting. No, all of Christ's
00:16:23 commandments in all of its applications and implications, which would be every realm of life,
00:16:27 which means Christian math. These are Christ's commandments, the law of God, the truth of the
00:16:33 whole council of scripture and how it informs arithmetic, how it informs trigonometry and
00:16:40 quantum physics and everything else. This is how it works. This is how it works and science and
00:16:47 literature and art and the whole nine yards. So to answer your question, a resounding yes,
00:16:53 a resounding yes. This is included in the great commission and not just because it's a permissible
00:16:58 means of bringing about the great commission, but because it's explicitly stated by Jesus
00:17:03 as the Great Commission.
00:17:05 All right, all right, all right.
00:17:06 Stop twisting my arm.
00:17:07 I know you want to hear the inside scoop.
00:17:10 Here it is, the glorious vision
00:17:12 of Right Response Ministries
00:17:13 for the first half of next year, 2023.
00:17:16 We have not one, not two,
00:17:18 but three massive endeavors
00:17:20 that we will accomplish by the grace of God.
00:17:24 The first you already know about.
00:17:25 It's our Theonomy and Post-Millennialism Conference.
00:17:28 This is selling out incredibly fast.
00:17:30 By the time this commercial airs,
00:17:32 you may not even be able to get a ticket.
00:17:34 I really don't know.
00:17:36 So don't waste another moment.
00:17:37 Go to rightresponseconference.com,
00:17:39 rightresponseconference.com to join us
00:17:42 for the Theonomy and Post-Millennialism Conference next year.
00:17:46 Now, this is where you come in.
00:17:48 We need your help.
00:17:49 Our next two endeavors are number one,
00:17:52 a documentary-style film,
00:17:54 and number two, a brand new studio.
00:17:57 Both of these things are seeking to accomplish
00:18:00 one primary goal, which is excellent, high-quality, glorious Christian media.
00:18:08 We are tired of, as Christians, doing things poorly.
00:18:12 We've done our best with what we have, but by God's grace, we want to do even better.
00:18:17 This is not going to be just another video.
00:18:20 This is not going to be a sermon or an interview or a podcast, but we're going to make a documentary-style
00:18:26 film. And we're going to be hiring Nathan Anderson, the director of On Earth As It Is
00:18:31 in Heaven, a very, very successful post-millennialism documentary that's on Amazon and YouTube,
00:18:37 came out a couple years ago. He's going to be flying in from Chile to help us direct this film.
00:18:43 And our documentary is going to be on post-millennialism and theonomy, why it's biblically
00:18:49 valid, why it's absolutely necessary, and why, by the grace of God, theonomy and post-millennialism
00:18:55 are currently on the rise. So we're going to make this film and we need your support. And not just
00:19:02 this film, but we're going to make all of our videos and podcasting and everything we do here
00:19:08 at Right Response Ministries better. We want to achieve the highest level of quality and Christian
00:19:15 excellence that we possibly can. That's where the new studio comes in. This new film, our date that
00:19:21 we're shooting for is it would be complete and publicly available in May or June of 2023 next
00:19:28 year. The studio, our goal is that it would be completely done in its construction and the
00:19:33 equipment and the setup and the stage and everything by January, February of 2023 next
00:19:41 year. We need your prayers. We need your encouragement. And for those of you who are
00:19:46 willing to do so, we need your generous support. You can give towards these endeavors by going to
00:19:51 rightresponseministries.com forward slash donate. Again, that's rightresponseministries.com
00:19:59 forward slash donate. Thank you so much for all your help. God bless.
00:20:04 Thanks so much for listening, but real quick, before you go, do us a small favor,
00:20:09 take a moment, and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly
00:20:14 the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content
00:20:18 to as many people as possible. Thanks so much.