Great Commission

Matthew’s gospel ends with eleven disciples on a mountain being told to make disciples of all nations, a scene addressed to a small, specific group of first-century followers that later Christianity stretched into a mandate binding on every believer. Dan McClellan points out that “to make a disciple” originally meant to teach, not necessarily to convert, and that the command’s fulfillment has looked wildly different across history: kings coerced into converting their kingdoms in the medieval period, revivalist preaching during the Great Awakenings of the 1700s and 1800s, and today’s viral clips of strangers preaching at strangers on airplanes and in airport terminals.

The hosts treat the modern version less as evangelism succeeding on its own terms and more as identity performance. Celebrity endorsements from figures like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson convert far more people than street preaching does, McClellan argues, which makes the public performance less about persuasion and more a costly signal of in-group commitment. That reframing carries into other conversations, from immigration debates, where the Great Commission’s “every nation” language is invoked against nationalist border rhetoric, to arguments about Christian hypocrisy and the New Testament’s own warnings against public piety.