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 it means a student, learner, or follower. This Great Commission by the Lord Jesus is to teach people worldwide to observe what the Lord commanded the early disciples. How do we teach them? At groupbiblestudy.com, we attempt to fulfill this commandment by writing hundreds of Bible studies in English and finding dedicated, capable people to translate, so far, into twenty 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. We aim for small group leaders and house churches to use them in their languages to reach cultures where we can't get a missionary.
But how do people find them? In my younger years as a commercial fisherman, I learned to use different methods and nets according to the fish and the terrain on the seabed. We must adapt and innovate our methods to meet the people's needs and find the best net to reach the unreached in countries that are closed to Christian workers.
Every day, people search on their mobile phones for answers to life's big questions. Who is God? What happens when I die? Is there an afterlife? Who is Jesus Christ? Why Did Jesus Die? Does God love me? What is the proof of the resurrection? With the technology we use, we respond to the questions people pose to their search engines with a Bible study that answers every question—thousands of them worldwide, every day. 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 language and print them off to use in small groups. We now have an average of 260,000 visitors a month to our written Bible studies, and our seventy-six teaching videos on YouTube averaged three-quarters of a million in the last 365 days, many of them with subtitles in 70 languages. This is the impact of your support and prayers, reaching individuals in the farthest corners of the world and bringing them closer to the knowledge of God. The way we've described above is a net the Lord has put in front of us to reach the multitudes perishing without ever hearing of our Savior.
There are 8 billion people on Earth, and it is estimated that 3.4 billion of them[1] have never heard of Christ. This staggering number should compel us to think of ways to multiply the harvest, not just win a few—we must think about winning a multitude and multiplying the harvest. We have to go smaller to win more. Our goal is to equip people in their countries to start small discipleship groups. Jesus said that the workers are few, so we must pray and ask the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers into the fields. The urgency of this mission cannot be overstated.
Please pray that God will make our nets even larger so that Christ Jesus will be known worldwide. Keith Thomas
If any of you would like to invest your resources into partnering with us to make disciples, we have a non-profit ministry, Keith Thomas Ministries, so that we can give you a contribution record for tax purposes at the end of the year. Your support, whether through prayers or financial contributions, is crucial to our mission. There’s a yellow donate button at the bottom of the website of groupbiblestudy.com