Thabiti Anyabwile, Pastor of Anacostia River Church in Southeast Washington, D.C., visits Southeastern Seminary as a part of the Adams Lecture Series. In this Ph.D. Colloquium, he presents a lecture on “The Role of Preaching Justice in Fulfilling the Great Commission.”
Watch the video above, or read key excerpts below (edited for clarity):
There are no Christian people who are not missionary people.
Preaching justice is a vital part in fulfilling the Great Commission.
“Today, with God’s help, I want to encourage us to preach justice as a vital part of fulfilling the Great Commission. So we want to think not only about that life into which we have been brought, but we want to think about that calling upon us to spread the good news of the gospel and the life that accompanies it to all the nations of the earth. And I want to contend that unless we have a healthy understanding and eye toward biblical justice, we won’t be making the kinds of disciples the Lord has in mind. We won’t be bringing the nations into the kind of good life that the Lord has in mind for his people.”
On the Great Commission and obedience.
“[The Great Commission] makes us a missionary people. There are no Christian people who are not missionary people. If we think so, then we have a defective understanding of what it means to be Christian people. We are a sent people.
“But this text also puts obedience, not just conversion, on the missionary agenda. We are not only to obey all that the Lord has commanded ourselves, but more fundamentally to the missionary calling, we are to then to teach others to do likewise — to obey all that the Lord has commanded. And so this text calls us to spread a way of thinking and a way of living in which Jesus is acknowledged as Lord of all in all the nations. He calls us into the good life.”
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