The Greater Commission

By Rolley Haggard 

There is no higher calling of God upon the church and the individual believer than to proclaim the gospel and fulfill the Great Commission. Right?

Wrong.

There is a Greater Commission.

It is generally referred to as the Great Commandment, and it has two parts: To love God supremely, and our neighbor as ourself. When Jesus laid down these two “love commandments” He emphatically declared “there is none other commandment greater than these”.

None.

Not even the Great Commission.

So why is it so many Christians, including first-rate scholars, bristle at the mere suggestion that there is something more important for the church than the Great Commission?

Why is it that, despite vivid, in-your-face, impossible-to-misunderstand, unforgettably-plain statements like the one of Christ just quoted, church leaders and pew-sitters alike take exception to the idea that there might be a “commission” greater than evangelizing the lost?

article continues here


Rolley Haggard is manager of Information Technology at a software firm in the South-eastern US. Self-described as a "closet theologian", he freelances in his spare time on religious and social themes. His comments and articles most often appear at Chuck Colson's BreakPoint website.

Rolley is a passionate pro-lifer as may be evinced from the titles of some of his works, including We Could End Abortion 'Overnight' if We Really Wanted To, Louder than the Silent Scream: the Deafening Silence of our Pulpits, and Silence is Blasphemy. Other published works include A Man After God's Own Spleen, Phariseevangelicalism, and Only When We Are Truly Human Are We Truly Holy.