The Great Commission is often discussed as a command to go somewhere. Going matters, but the central instruction concerns making disciples, and Jesus names baptizing and teaching within that work.
The Word
μαθητεύω (mathēteuō) means to make disciples or, in another construction, to become a disciple. It is related to Mathētēs, disciple or learner.
In Matthew 28:19, mathēteusate is the main imperative. The participles concerning going, baptizing, and teaching belong to the commission. Recognizing that grammar does not make going optional or turn the other actions into details that can be discarded.
Range of Meaning
Matthew 27:57 uses a passive form for Joseph of Arimathea as someone who had become a disciple of Jesus. Acts 14:21 describes Paul and Barnabas proclaiming the gospel and making many disciples in Derbe.
Matthew 13:52 also uses the verb for a scribe trained for the kingdom. These contexts connect discipleship with learning and belonging, while allowing different sentence structures to describe becoming a disciple or making disciples.
Where You’ll Meet It
The risen Jesus commissions his followers to:
“make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19, NET)
The next verse continues with teaching people to observe everything he commanded. The passage begins with Christ’s authority and ends with his abiding presence. Those promises surround the Church’s work rather than leaving it dependent on self-generated courage.
The name in which Baptism is administered is the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The nations are not asked to discover a nameless spiritual experience and then select whatever instruction suits it. Christ gives his Church definite means and definite teaching.
What Confessional Lutherans Hear
Baptism and teaching belong together. Augsburg Confession IX confesses the giving of grace through Baptism and includes children within its administration. The commission’s scope does not require us to exclude them by treating discipleship as an achievement possible only after adult intellectual development.
The infant-baptism question cannot be settled by the imperative alone. It belongs within the whole scriptural teaching about Baptism, grace, children, and faith. Still, nothing in the grammar requires replacing Christ’s baptizing and teaching with a uniform sequence of adult decision and later ceremony.
Teaching continues throughout the baptized life. A sacramental confession is no excuse for neglecting instruction, just as an emphasis on instruction is no excuse for treating Baptism as unnecessary. Christ has joined gifts that the Church should not set against one another.
Where People Get It Wrong
Counting professions of faith without caring for ongoing teaching narrows the commission. So does administering Baptism while treating the instruction and life of the baptized as someone else’s concern.
The opposite burden is to make a congregation responsible for producing faith by perfect technique. Christ sends, gives his means, and promises his presence. The Church must be faithful; the Spirit gives the growth of faith.
So What
Support both the reaching of new hearers and the patient teaching of those already baptized. Learn Christ’s words yourself and help others learn them.
The commission is large enough to send the Church to the nations and concrete enough to include the child learning to pray in your household.