How in the world am I to become a better follow of Jesus if I’m not applying Scripture to me as an individual?

Well, for starters, let me clue you in on something – Scripture was not written to us. It was written that we might benefit from it. But not written to us. And that’s a paradigm-breaker if we’ve ever seen one. The Scripture writers did not have us in mind at all. However, we’ve made Scripture so abstract, able to speak to every person in every situation, that we don’t even see it in it’s own narrative framework. Yet it was written to a whole different community.

And that is another point to bring up. It was written to a community first and foremost, not individuals. Sure, communities are made up of individuals. But Scripture started as a communal text. Even when Scripture gives us a story of an individual – Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, etc – it was written with the community of God’s people in mind. Remember, every narrative in Scripture was written after the fact that things took place. The biblical writers and compilers were putting together a text to teach a community. They weren’t asking – How can I be just like Noah or Abraham? They were seeing the “bigger picture,” if you will, the call to the community of what it meant to stand in the promises of their fathers. But they weren’t all looking for a Noah-like or Abraham-like experience. Not to mention that most of the New Testament letters were written to local church settings, not individuals.

Even more, the great disciple-maker text of Matt 28:18-20 is interesting when considering who Jesus was speaking to. In the actual narrative, he is speaking to the initial apostles. Of course, I don’t confine the text to 12 men and 12 men alone. But just think about who Jesus is instructing – their calling, ministry and role. And think of who is carrying that instruction forward – a larger group, no doubt, with the massive increase of Christianity in 2000 years (and I am a champion of apostolic ministry today). But still a group that did not include everyone. Not to mention that we need to look at what is actually part of disciple-making – the text says baptizing others and teaching them all Jesus has commanded. We forget that so easily.

Of course, Matthew (writing about the Great Commission) was addressing a community of believers, not just the original apostles. But think about this community reading what the actual text said, considering who it was actually referencing. This “Matthean community” embraced the text, however I guarantee you they weren’t each asking how to individually appropriate the text as individual disciple makers. They were part of a discipleship community, but more on that in a moment.

Here is an interesting practice to undertake. From now on, when you read the word you in Scripture, read it as you all (or ya’ll if you’re from the south like I!). We usually see it as a singular you, but it’s normally a plural you. That’s how the ancients spoke – and how the majority of the world functions today still. Perhaps the Africans, Asians and Latin Americans have more to teach the west about true Christianity than we allow!

The ancients started first and foremost with the communal-collective and then moved to the personal. We, however, begin with the personal (or individual) and move to the communal. We approach things differently than the ancients – and we need to recognize this with our interpretations of Scripture.

Let me also emphasize that there is a difference between personal and individual. The former makes things applicable in our own lives as part of God’s people. The later can become too overly privatized – apart from the community. That’s problematic.

So back to Matt 28:18-20. The context – Jesus speaking to the apostles, Jesus defining discipleship with baptism and teaching all things he’s commanded. This isn’t the call of all. But that shouldn’t make us feel bad, even though it might call for us to change our website’s vision statement. Or it might call for someone’s empire of disciple-making to crumble, and yes there are such empires that may need crumbling. I’ve seen empires of disciple-making, church planting, worship production and more.

What we are called to is a community of discipleship. We can create local churches committed to discipleship, but that won’t mean all are discipling others. And it doesn’t even mean that Larry or Suzy are lacking spiritual maturity because they aren’t discipling others. It might be that Larry and Suzy are involved in hospitality within a homegroup, but they aren’t necessarily being the instigators of discipleship (baptism and teaching all Jesus commanded). It’s really ok.

As I said, that’s what I believe the original Matthean community would have focused on – interested in seeing a community of discipleship formed, but not that each individual was personally making a disciple of another person. They were working under a collective context that allowed the community to embrace the apostolic instruction, but not try and each be baptizers and teachers of all the commands of Jesus.

I’m not trying to create some massive clergy-laity divide here. I’m not saying we dispel the priesthood of all believers, nor that we keep a copy of Scripture out of all people’s hands. But I am asking us to consider a) the ancient communal setting of Scripture, as opposed to a more western, post-Enlightenment reading, b) understand the narrative of Scripture, which means we’ll have to re-engage with Matt 28 and c) allow people to be followers of Jesus while not making them think that, if they want to really move to the next step as disciples, they must be making discipleship themselves. However, what we can do is build local church communities of discipleship, with all involved at some level of serving, while simply realizing every believer is not going to be (or called to be) making disciples. And to thank God for those who have a calling to follow in the footsteps of the initial apostles.

I think this is being more faithful to the text of Scripture, all the while still maintaining healthy practices of discipleship.