Make Disciples In All Nations - Follow Him

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

AS DISCIPLES OF JESUS, we share, show, and teach God’s Word. This is what it means to make disciples, and Jesus told us to do this in all nations. The phrase that Jesus uses for “all nations” in Matthew 28:19 is panta ta ethne, which literally means all the ethnicities, or peoples, of the world.

Many people misunderstand this verse, thinking that Jesus is talking about nations like we think of nations today. Approximately two hundred geopolitical nations exist today, but these are not the nations that Jesus is referring to. He was talking about families, tribes, and clans that are now commonly called people groups. Biblical, anthropological, and missiological scholars have looked at the ethnicities represented around the world and have identified more than eleven thousand different people groups composed of people who share similar cultural and linguistic characteristics.

Interestingly, the Bible ends with a portrait of men and women from every single one of these people groups represented around the throne of Christ, singing the praises of God. The book of Revelation envisions a scene with “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”^a

Clearly, God’s eternal purpose is to save people, through Christ, from every people group in the world. So naturally Jesus commands his disciples to go and make disciples worldwide. This is a specific command for you and me as disciples of Jesus to make disciples of Jesus among every people group on the planet.

More than six thousand people groups comprising nearly two billion people in the world are classified as unreached, meaning they will likely be born, live, and die without ever hearing about how they can be saved from their sins through Christ.

This is not acceptable for disciples of Jesus. Our Savior has given us a command to make disciples of every people group, and we have no option but to obey. Nor would we want to take any other option. We who have the life of Christ yearn to spread the love of Christ.

Ask God to use your church to reach unreached people groups through sending workers, through long-term partnerships with missionaries, and through sacrificial giving.