19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).
But how do we do that? The instructions of the Lord are for those who believe in Him to make disciples, so our first question is—what is a disciple? If you search for the term at vocabulary.com, you’ll find that it means, a student, learner, or follower. This Great Commission by the Lord Jesus is to teach people all over the world to observe what the Lord commanded the early disciples. How do we teach them? What we at groupbiblestudy.com are doing to fulfill this commandment is to write hundreds of Bible studies in English and then find dedicated capable people to translate, so far into sixteen languages. All studies are mobile-friendly on the Internet and available free of charge to download and print in PDF format or to read online on their phones. Our goal is for small group leaders and house churches to use them in their own languages to reach cultures where we can’t get a missionary.
But how do people find them? Every day, people are searching on their mobile phones for answers to the big questions of life. Who is God? What happens when I die? Is there an afterlife? Who is Jesus? Why Did Jesus Die? What is the proof of the resurrection? We are able to respond to the big questions that people pose to their search engines with a Bible study that answers every question—thousands of them, all over the world. Their questions are in many languages and we respond with a Bible study in their language that gets past many of the censors in countries unfriendly to the Gospel. They can privately study the Word of God in their own language. Every month, we have more than 250,000 visitors to our Bible studies.
In my younger years as a commercial fisherman, I learned how to use different methods and different nets according to the fish and the terrain on the seabed. We must adapt and innovate our methods to the needs of the people and find the best net. The way we’ve described above is a net the Lord has put in front of us to reach the multitudes that are perishing without ever hearing of a Savior.
There are 7.9 Billion people on earth, and it is estimated that half of them have never heard of Christ. We must think of ways to multiply the harvest, not just win a few—we have to think in terms of winning a multitude and the multiplication of the harvest. We must go smaller to win more. Our goal is to equip people in their own countries to start small discipleship groups. Jesus said that the workers are few. We need people who will pray and ask the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into the fields.
Please pray for us that we continue to find dedicated people in different languages.
Keith Thomas