The Great Commission Includes Building Christ’s Church

I cannot think of anything more important for a Christian to do than share the gospel with unbelievers who are headed for hell. Christ has commanded us to make disciples of all nations, and the eternal destiny of men and women hangs in the balance. Every Christian should be burdened for the lost and eager to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

I do not know many believers who would disagree with that.

Yet there are some who hear this emphasis and respond, “Amen! Let’s focus on the main thing and not get distracted by secondary issues such as church polity, leadership, and ecclesiology.”

At first glance, that may sound reasonable. But is the structure and leadership of Christ’s church really a secondary issue?

The same Jesus who shed His blood for the church declared, “I will build My church” (Matthew 16:18). The church is not a human invention or a man-made organization. It belongs to Christ. He purchased it with His own blood and is actively building it today.

Furthermore, the same Holy Spirit who descended upon Jesus at His baptism inspired Paul to write 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. These pastoral epistles are not optional appendices to the Christian faith. They contain God’s instructions concerning how Christ’s church is to be organized, led, protected, and strengthened.

Therefore, I do not see church leadership and polity as merely secondary matters. I do not believe Jesus, who died for the church and continues to build the church, sees them that way either.

Consider what happens when the gospel is faithfully preached. By God’s grace, sinners are converted. What then? Christ did not intend for those converts to remain isolated Christians disconnected from the body of Christ. They are to be baptized, taught, and incorporated into local churches.

And who is to lead those churches?

The Scriptures answer clearly: qualified men who meet the standards laid down by the Holy Spirit in passages such as 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. Christ has not left the leadership of His church to human preference or cultural trends. He has spoken.

This matters greatly for Southern Baptists as well. Local churches sacrificially give money through cooperative missions efforts because we want the gospel to spread throughout North America and around the world. We want churches planted among the nations.

But what kind of churches are we planting?

Surely we want churches that are organized according to the pattern Christ has given in His Word. Surely we want churches led by biblically qualified elders and served by biblically qualified deacons. Surely we want healthy churches because healthy churches are God’s ordinary means of making disciples and advancing the gospel.

Jesus knows what is best for His church. He knows what is healthy. He knows what produces long-term faithfulness and spiritual maturity.

In reality, this is not separate from the Great Commission—it is part of the Great Commission.

Jesus commanded His disciples to make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to observe all that He commanded. “Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” includes the entirety of inspired Scripture. It includes Romans and Galatians. It includes Ephesians and Colossians. And it certainly includes 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus.

The Great Commission is not merely about getting decisions. It is about making disciples. And disciples are ordinarily made, taught, shepherded, and matured within healthy local churches.

Gospel proclamation and biblical church order are not competing priorities. They belong together. We preach the gospel so that sinners will be saved. We gather those believers into churches. We teach them the whole counsel of God. We appoint qualified leaders. We plant more churches. And then we send those churches to preach the gospel to the nations.

That is not a distraction from the mission.

That is the mission.