The Great Commission is Jesus' final command to His followers, given in Matthew 28:18-20, to go and make disciples of all nations. Speaking after His resurrection, He claimed all authority in heaven and on earth and sent His disciples to baptize and teach the peoples of the earth everything He had commanded. In one sentence: the Great Commission is the risen Christ's charge to His church to bring the gospel to every people group until He returns.
The phrase itself does not appear in Scripture. It is the name Christians have long given to this closing scene of Matthew's Gospel, where the mission of the church is stated plainly and universally. Understanding what Jesus actually said, and to whom, keeps the command from becoming a slogan and returns it to what it is, a charge with a scope, a method, and a promise.
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 28:18-20
Where is the Great Commission in the Bible?
The primary text is Matthew 28:18-20, the final words of Matthew's Gospel, spoken by the risen Jesus to His eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee. It is not the only place the commission appears. Each Gospel closes with a version of the same sending. Mark records Jesus telling the disciples to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15). Luke frames it as repentance and forgiveness proclaimed to all nations. John has Jesus say that as the Father sent Him, so He sends His disciples.
The book of Acts opens with the same commission stated geographically. Before ascending, Jesus tells the disciples they will be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). That last phrase, the ends of the earth, names the outer edge of the mission and gives the Ends of the Earth Initiative its name. The commission is not one verse tucked into one Gospel. It is the settled charge the risen Christ left with His church.
What does 'make disciples of all nations' mean?
In the Greek of Matthew 28:19, only one word is a command: make disciples. The surrounding words translated go, baptizing, and teaching are participles that describe how that one command is carried out. The center of the Great Commission is therefore not activity for its own sake but the making of disciples, followers who belong to Jesus and are being taught to obey Him.
This shapes what the church is actually sent to do. Baptizing marks the beginning, the visible entry of a new believer into the fellowship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all that Jesus commanded marks the long work that follows. Disciple-making is not finished at conversion. It includes the patient formation of believers into churches that can teach the next generation. A commission to make disciples is, by its nature, a commission to plant and strengthen churches, not merely to record decisions.
What does 'all nations' (ethne) mean?
The phrase translated all nations is panta ta ethne. The Greek word ethne does not mean nation-states or countries in the modern political sense. It means peoples, ethnic and linguistic groups, the families of humanity distinguished by language and culture. The same root gives us the English word ethnic. Jesus did not send His church to a list of governments. He sent it to every people.
This is why missions has long counted the task in people groups rather than in countries. A single country can hold hundreds of distinct peoples, some with a thriving church and some with no church at all. A people group that has no indigenous community of believers able to reach its own is called an unreached people group. By commonly cited estimates in the Joshua Project tradition, roughly 3.4 billion people live in such groups, spread across more than 7,400 peoples. These figures vary by source and method, but the scale they point to is not in dispute. A large share of the human family still has no near neighbor who can tell them about Christ in their own language.
Is the Great Commission finished?
No. The command to disciple all peoples has not been completed while thousands of ethne remain without a church of their own. The gospel has reached every continent, and that is worth acknowledging with gratitude. Yet reaching a continent is not the same as reaching every people on it. As long as whole peoples have no access to the gospel in a form they can understand, the commission Jesus gave remains open.
What the commission is not is fragile. Jesus prefaced the command with a claim of total authority and closed it with a promise: behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. The church does not carry this task alone or on the strength of its own resolve. The One who commands the mission also holds all authority over its outcome and pledges His presence until it is done. The work is unfinished, but it is not uncertain.
How is the Great Commission being fulfilled today?
Increasingly, the gospel reaches unreached peoples through believers who already live near them. In many regions there are national pastors, men native to the language and culture, who are positioned to make disciples where an outsider would need years simply to be understood. They know the roads, the customs, and the cost. What they often lack is training and support.
This is the approach of Ends of the Earth. Rather than send outsiders to start from zero, the initiative trains and supports national pastors already serving near unreached peoples, at present through partners in Thailand and India. It is one way the ancient command meets a present opportunity, to equip the disciple-maker who is already there. Online giving is launching soon, and the organization's 501(c)(3) status is pending. If this vision of the Great Commission moves you, you can help support a national pastor as that work goes live.
The Great Commission is not a program the church invented. It is the order the risen Christ gave and the assignment He is still keeping His church to, with the peoples of the earth in view and His own presence promised to the end of the age.