In Genesis God gave his newly created couple three main priorities or life purposes: multiplication, dominion, and tending. These priorities are important for the church, too, which is his new creation in Christ. My belief is that making  the Great Commission (multiplication) our top church priority through the Gospel proclamation of Christ’s Lordship (dominion) will work to bring the church to spiritual maturity (tending).  Conversely, if we make tending (helping people achieve spiritual maturity) our top priority, we may fail to pursue the Great Commission (dominion and multiplication) with the vigor it deserves.

Both the missional (dominion and multiplication) and maturity (tending) perspectives can point to important scriptures to bolster their positions. The missional view typically uses Matthew 28:18-20 for its foundation; while, the maturity perspective uses Ephesians 4:11-16. Both are vital aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work in the church. Romans 8:29 states that all things are working towards conforming us to Christ’s glorious image (growing us to maturity). God wants to make us into “little Christs” or Christians who represent and glorify him as wonderfully as possible. In addition, Christ commissioned his followers to go into all the world to make disciples who will make disciples.

The Holy Spirit is working in us believers to conform us to Christ’s image. Christ assigned the church, however, to pursue fulfilling the Great Commission.

If we make mission (the multiplication of disciples) our top priority, the Holy Spirit will concurrently do his internal transformational work. If we focus on character transformation and biblical literacy to the neglect of the mission, we may miss God’s main priority and inadvertently promote a self-centered and consumerist version of Christianity.

Genesis and God’s Purpose

The first few chapters of Genesis answer the five most important life or worldview questions.

1. Origin: From where did I come?
2. Identity: Who am I?
3. Purpose: What is my purpose in life?
4. Morality: How do I know what is right and wrong?
5. Destiny: What will happen to me after I die?

The purpose question, which is the focus of this article, is answered in the following verses.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28 (ESV) 

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. Genesis 2:15 (NASB)

The basic purpose of humankind can be summarized in three points: multiply, take dominion, and tend the garden.

These commands were specific to Adam’s and Eve’s situation, but a case can be made that they are still in effect, since there is no record anywhere that God rescinded them. The “garden” should now be understood as the entire earth in which we live, tainted as it is by sin.

While these purposes apply to every human being in a practical and natural way, I also believe that they apply directly to the mission of the church.

Fruitfulness and Multiplication

It is important to note that the top priority, based on the order in which these commands were given, is to be fruitful and multiply. This command was restated after the flood. The earth then and now needs to be populated. The Great Commission was another restatement of this foundational command after the resurrection.

“Go and make disciples” is another way of saying, “Be fruitful and multiply.” The earth now desperately needs to be populated with born again believers who seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness.

The rebellious world system argues incessantly against obeying God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. The reasons given are many.

• There are already too many people. If we don’t cut back on births, the earth will be over populated, which will usher in many calamities, such as famine starvation. This is part of what motivates the world’s love affair with killing babies through abortion.
• Children are too expensive. We cannot afford to have kids. This excuse is also used to justify abortion.
• Children are too much trouble. They keep us from pursuing our own priorities in life. This is another often used justification for abortion, which works against God’s priority.
• The world is too evil to bring children into it. Misplaced compassion for the not yet born motivates people to avoid having children. Obviously this is very short sighted and shows disregard for God’s ability to redeem and bless his creatures.

Western nations have embraced abortion, birth control, fear, unbelief, and a self-centered lifestyle in direct defiance of God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, causing the West to teeter on the brink of cultural non-viability because of low birth rates. World dominion will go to those groups which continue to have large numbers of children.

In the natural realm, multiplication leads to dominion. The same is true in the spiritual realm.

Our nation and culture have embraced an anti-God mentality. Unwittingly, many churches have adopted variations of these arguments. Below are some examples.

• We disobey the Great Commission when we choose to no longer reach out because we feel we have already maxed out our facilities and capacities.
• We disobey the Great Commission when we invest most of our finances in maintaining the building, programs, and operational costs of maintaining the church plant, instead of spending time, energy, and money on pursuing the Great Commission.
• We disobey the Great Commission when we think that having a missional lifestyle is too much trouble. It is far easier to contribute money or volunteer to serve in crisis intervention programs than to get involved in the lives of people who have untold needs and will make unanticipated demands on our time and finances.
• We disobey the Great Commission when, rather than put our people at risk by asking them to immerse themselves in lifestyle evangelism and connecting with broken, unsaved people, we opt for the safety of the Christian fortress called the church.
• We disobey the Great Commission when we devise so many programs and activities for our members that they are worn out and have little or no time or energy for pursuing the Great Commission.

These arguments are used by some churches as a form of “birth control” to circumvent their obligation to pursue the Great Commission.

We sometimes place building and strengthening the local church, the command to tend the garden, ahead of the Great Commission. Having great meetings (the internal work of the church) may become more important than spending time with the unsaved and unchurched (the missional work of the church).

Only by re-prioritizing the Great Commission will the church become the missional force God intends it to be and grow to spiritual maturity. Self-centered people and churches never fully mature.

Taking Dominion

When Jesus rose from the dead, he took dominion back from Satan. Although God’s ultimate rule has never been in question, man’s place in the kingdom of God had been jeopardized when Adam relinquished authority to Satan. When Jesus arrived on planet earth, he became the Second Adam, the progenitor of a brand new edition of humanity through the genesis of the new birth. He powerfully rose again from the dead as the Lord of Lords, to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given. As representatives of Christ, we administrate his authority. The Gospel message is a proclamation of Christ’s authority to forgive sins and set the captives free. In the limited scope of this article, I use “taking dominion” to refer to our proclamation of the Gospel of Christ’s dominion or lordship in order to harvest people out of this fallen world who can be developed into disciples.

The proclamation of the Gospel, therefore, is a necessary prerequisite to making disciples, which is God’s end game for the church.

Churches which fail to adequately emphasize, train, and launch their members into Gospel proclamation will probably never become disciple making churches in the fullest sense.

Tending the Garden

People need responsibility. Taking on responsibility creates an environment in which we more rapidly can grow up or mature.

Just as having children forces young couples to grow in all sorts of ways, having spiritual children through proclaiming the Gospel will provide us with wonderful opportunities for spiritual growth. Putting mission (preaching the Gospel and making disciples) first, will end up requiring us to spend large amounts of time tending the garden, or helping them to grow to maturity. Part of the Great Commission is “teaching them to obey all that I have commanded.” This makes tending the garden a very important part of the Great Commission and disciple making.

Tending the garden means caring for the sheep, but always with an end game in mind – that they also become disciple makers in their own right.

Tending sheep is never supposed to be the end all. Just as young children are prepared for life as adults and sent off into the world to start their own families, disciples of Christ should be taught, prepared, and sent to multiply themselves.

The Great Commission, the Church’s Top Priority

We cannot simply tell young men to “grow up” and expect that to happen unless we put them into situations that require them to mature. Boot camps place men and women under extreme pressures to produce qualified soldiers.

Whenever people take on greater responsibility, it will foster growth to maturity.

In the church, we should not expect our people to grow to maturity without their embracing the Great Commission responsibilities of preaching the Gospel and making disciples who make disciples. Instead of making the Great Commission priority one, we have substituted other things: Bible study, moral development, leadership training, and serving church programs. When we do this, we produce caricatures of true disciples.

• Prioritizing Bible education and theological training ahead of the Great Commission may end up creating a modern version of the Pharisees, who considered themselves to be guardians of the truth, but at the same despised and excluded the very people Jesus loved and pursued.
• Putting character and moral development at the top of our priority list runs the risk of producing self-righteous and self-absorbed legalists, whose focus is on their own spiritual development and who demand that others adhere to their standards of behavior, while looking down on those who do not measure up.
• Teaching people that their main priority is serving church programs can make the church inwardly focused and sap the energy and time that could otherwise be given to pursuing the Great Commission’s first point: “Go.”

In the West, we long ago adopted the Greek system of education, which demands vast investments of time in lectures, studying books, and testing in order to prepare and equip people to enter into responsible positions in society and the church. Jesus used a much different approach, which was more “hands on” and action-oriented, what might be called apprenticeship. He taught and then immediately required his students to use what they had been taught. Putting what we learn into practice is the best way to increase understanding and retention. Often we think we know something until we have to use it or teach it. Then we find out what we do and don’t know or understand.

Disciple making the Jesus way is action and ministry oriented.

Discipleship is best done in a “hands on” manner, in which the mentor teaches, demonstrates, oversees, and, finally, launches. Our disciples will learn far more after they have been launched than they did in the secure environment of having the mentor readily at hand.

Young parents learn how to parent by doing. They become much more open to advice when they see the need for it. What may have seemed boring and academic suddenly has a real life application! Likewise, when we help people to get out of the safe confines of the local church and into their communities in obedience to the Great Commission, we place them into an environment in which they must sink or swim. Immediately they will find out what they do and do not know. Hopefully they will thirst to grow in the knowledge of the scriptures and in their ability to minister to others through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pursuing the Great Commission will excite our desire to grow to maturity in the Lord. Forting up in the local church context may allow people to stagnate while feeling good about themselves.

Have you ever noticed that young couples without children are often experts on how to raise and discipline other people’s children? They are sometimes critical of how parents are doing their job. But once they have kids of their own, they find out how difficult and challenging parenting is.

We must beware of creating theological monsters whose only understanding comes from a theoretical classroom context, instead of a “boots on the ground” experience.

Pursuing the Great Commission as our top priority will help ground our people in real life applications of God’s Word and preserve us from spiritual pride. It’s difficult to be proud when we are helping people wrestle with real life problems which often confound even the wisest in our midst.

Conclusion

Prioritizing the wrong things can torpedo our best efforts and cause us to miss the mark. Making tending the garden our top priority can end up frustrating God’s purposes.

Far too many capable and promising followers of Christ have been deceived into thinking that God’s highest purpose for their lives is growing in biblical knowledge and serving in the local church. However, when we make the Great Commission our top priority, everything else falls into place.

Embracing the Great Commission draws us to grow in our knowledge of the Word and the ways of the Spirit that will help us to connect with people, share the Gospel effectively, minister in the power of the Spirit, and teach others to do likewise. This is the essence of what it means to make disciples.

When young married couples have children, they learn to give their lives away for others. Having children, natural or spiritual (disciples), changes our lives in a most fundamental and rewarding way. In old age, there is no greater joy than being with our offspring, especially if they are in unity and serving the Lord, and seeing what they are doing in life and ministry. We do not rejoice if our children never leave the home: rather, we prepare them to leave the “nest” to start their own families. This is how we fulfill the command to be fruitful and multiply. The church likewise must think in terms of launching people to start their own church families, which will also reproduce. This can be done at a small group level or larger church level.

Let’s make the Great Commission our top priority so that we, like Paul, can rejoice in our spiritual children and grandchildren (disciples of disciples)! Let’s make God’s first priority from creation onward our first priority and watch how everything else falls into place.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33 (ESV)