Evangelism vs. Disciple Making
Who will evangelize and make disciples among the Rajput in India?
Evangelize - Mark 16:15
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation"
Make Disciples - Matt 28:19
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations [ethne]"
Evangelism
- Often broad in focus, communicating to many individuals
- Generally precedes the making of disciples
- Focuses on the essence of the Gospel message
- Anticipates little prior knowledge of the Gospel
- Anticipates both a receptive, open audience and a skeptical, questioning audience
- Can be large-scale and somewhat impersonal or very direct and personal
- May be short-term
- Utilizes communication tools developed specifically for the task
- May be difficult to measure the effectiveness
Disciple Making
- Narrow in focus, dealing with a relatively few individuals
- Generally is a result of evangelism
- Often personal, mentor to disciple
- Emphasizes depth of understanding, and application of understanding
- Requires commitment from the disciple, and from the mentor
- Requires substantial amounts of time
- Utilizes communication tools developed specifically for the task
- Results are somewhat measurable
Evangelism and the making of disciples are two complementary tasks.
Implications to the fulfillment of the Great Commission
- The "Great Commission" may be understood to include both evangelization and the making of disciples.
- The world may conceivably be completely evangelized before disciples are made from all ethne.
- Conversely, disciples may be made from among all ethne before the world is completely evangelized.
- Only the Lord knows when the Great Commission will be fulfilled, but Matthew 24:14 suggests the critical factor may be world evangelization. However, the implication in Matthew 28: 19-20 is that disciples will in fact be made among all ethne. They are complementary tasks.
