Theology is missing from being a disciple
Jen Wilkin When we hear Jesus’s command in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples, we tend to think of it in terms of evangelism. We picture Jesus’s disciples fanning out across the known world, armed with gospel tracts. We picture joyful conversions followed by joyful baptisms. And then we picture those evangelists moving on to the next town, carrying the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea to the ends of the earth. But if our understanding of the Great Commission is primarily a call to evangelism, we’ve forgotten a key piece: theology. Jesus’s final command isn’t a call to make converts but a call to make disciples. And as the Great Commission states, that call will require us to teach converts to “observe all that [Jesus has] commanded” (Matt. 28:20). When we think about discipleship, we must see the importance of passing along the good deposit of doctrine that was passed along to us. What Are We Doing with Our Doctrine? Conversion happens in an instant. Discipleship in the way of living ou