“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

Everyone knows this verse—the great commission—and everyone loves to talk about the call to evangelize. But while we write it as inspiration and acknowledge it as our mission, we often only fulfill half to the best of our ability. 

The half we love best is the bit about spreading the gospel, the bit about telling the world about Jesus. And that’s all well and good—necessary, as we know. But in our excitement about the shorter, more instantly rewarding piece, we often forget about the second step—the one that says we are to not just baptize, but to make disciples. 

Now, this might strike you as odd, because of course we don’t forget that—we say it all the time! But how much do we put it into practice? 

Disciples are students, learners. Looking around, it might seem like being a student is forced on you as a child, and is simply a means to an end. Getting a diploma, a degree, a high-paying job. But is that what Jesus meant when He told us to be students? Or did He mean something more? 

The best kind of student, as we know, is the kind of student who truly loves to learn. The kind of student who looks around at the world and wants to expand their horizons, to soak in as much as they can. And those students are often the ones who do the best in life. The students who study something they love, not to make money, but to learn more about the subject and enjoy it to the fullest are the happiest in the long run, at least, if their priorities are in the right order. 

So then, when Jesus told us to make disciples, I doubt He meant it as a burden to us. He doesn’t want us to think of it as a chore. 

Let’s take another look at that passage. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

It seems pretty clear. We are to make disciples, and we are to teach them to obey Jesus. 

But, as with anything in the Bible, far more is said here than is stated outright.  

Remember that the best students are the ones who love to learn, for the sake of the subject. This goes for friends as well. When you have a friend you love, do you ignore them when they speak or zone out and only half listen? Of course not—we all know that’s rude. But how does Jesus speak to us? 

Yes, He does speak to us through the Holy Spirit. But He also speaks to us through the Bible—the Word of God. 

How many people do you know who have written a book for you? I would wager very few, if any. But that’s what God did. More than that, He wrote 66 books for you. How incredible is that? 

But what usually happens when we Christians pick up the Bible? We might read Genesis and Exodus, but Leviticus? Numbers? Deuteronomy?? No, those are the “boring books”. The ones that make us cringe when we think about having to read them. Moving forward, we might read Judges, but once we arrive at Chronicles, we’ve usually had enough. The lists of names seem pointless, and we’ve already read Kings, which is basically the same thing, right? The prophets are much the same. They’re so obscure, you might say, and really, we already know what’s going to happen, so why bother with all the prophecy? They tell us all the important prophecies in the New Testament anyway, right? Now there’s the popular part: The New Testament, the important bit that’s actually relevant to your life. But even there, we tend to skip around, because who needs to read the same story four times? And then there’s Revelation—either the “let your imagination run wild” bit, or the “let’s just leave that confusing mess alone” bit. 

Is this how a disciple ought to view things? Which student makes the teacher happier: The one who not only does the reading, but dives into the history of the book, the author’s life, the literary themes, the books that that book inspired—-or the student who skims half the book before giving up and turning to Spark Notes for a quick overview of the rest? We all know the answer. Sure, both of these students may pass their exams, but one will make the teacher far happier and be better off for the effort put in and the knowledge gained—not to mention for practicing being diligent and hardworking, skills that will benefit them all their life. 

When someone loves math, or choir, or science, or sports, they’re usually encouraged to pursue those things by the people who love them. But for some odd reason, the Bible isn’t viewed in the same light—not unless you want to be a pastor, or maybe a missionary, anyway. 

No, the ordinary Chrisitian is encouraged to read a few chapters a day before setting aside the Bible until the next morning. 

Why? Is the Bible just less important for normal people than for ministers? Of course not. Sure, they have a greater obligation practically speaking, but it would be silly to assume that God only wants His ministers to study the Word, and doesn’t care what the rest of us do. 

If we want to please God as much as we can, as we should, we ought to at least try to be good students of His Word. 

Now, perhaps you’re thinking “It’s all well and good for the studious type to study hard and do a bunch of extra work, but I’m not that kind of person. I don’t have that kind of focus, and I can’t sit for long periods of time, so I really can’t do this.” But is this, or any other excuse, good enough for us to refuse the job God has set before us? 

“Well,” you might say, “but maybe He didn’t really mean for me, specifically to put in all that effort. Maybe that’s just for the teachers, like where it talks about teaching.”

And yet you assume that it’s every person’s job to evangelize. Besides, the passage says that those who are converted ought to become disciples, and isn’t that you? You’re a Christian, so you are to be a disciple of God and a student of His Word. Perhaps you won’t learn as much as someone else, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it your all.

This leads us to theology. Now, I’m not here to tell you which branch of the church you ought to be a part of or which eschatological view you should hold—that’s for you to find out. 

But I will say, to be a good student, you have to be open to the idea that you have been wrong in the past. You can’t learn effectively if you insist that you’re always right. Take piano, for instance—when you first start out, there’s a decent chance you’ve messed around on a keyboard before, but chances are, when you’ve messed around, you haven’t had the right hand positioning or fingering techniques. There are things you have to unlearn in order to really learn. 

So when you pick up the Bible and start trying to be a good student, read it with an open mind, using the words in its pages to figure out what it means. God designed the Bible to interpret itself, and, while outside information can be helpful, the Bible should be your primary source, against which everything else is measured. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Bible made sense to those in Jesus’s time, or at least, to those who knew it well. For instance, Jesus coming as a sacrifice was in fact a view the Jewish scholars were well aware of before He came—-it simply wasn’t the one they wanted. From this, it makes sense that what we read in the Bible would likely be possible to understand for those living around the time it was written. 

And, of course, God has placed people with wisdom above us to teach us, so seek to learn what you can from the people God has placed in your life, while remembering that no one has it all figured out. 

That, of course, may make it all feel a bit pointless, because why put so much energy into something you’ll never have all the answers to? Well, why do we study science? Or make art? We’ll never know everything about the universe, nor is it possible to learn everything about it in your lifetime even if we humans had all the information. We’ll never make a perfect piece of art because we can always improve. But we bother because we love it. Because these things reflect the God Who invented the Universe and endowed it with beauty. 

There is always more to learn, more to understand, and that is a blessing. It adds color to our world and stokes our curiosity. 

When God tells us to make disciples and to be His students, I hope we step up, start studying, and start learning to enjoy the good work He has set before us.