At the end of this commentary is a short video of a Pastor named, Ken Graves. It's just a portion of a much longer message, but it fits this commentary on the "Great Commission". It fits because all the men I mention in this commentary lived a hard life that was filled with pain, disappointment, and death. Yet with death they had the ultimate victory. All this for a chance to spread the Gospel. Ken offers something all men need to hear about life being hard. He points out how most of us have yet to truly feel the pain of suffering for Christ.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."Matthew 28:19-20
by Chuck Ness
These were the last words Jesus spoke to His disciples before He ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father. Yet it would take the stoning of Stephen to force His followers to obey His last commandment. Soon, the early Christians would leave friends, family, and home to answer the clarion call of the "Great Commission" to spread the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. For the next couple hundred years Christianity would spread throughout the Roman Empire like chickenpox in a child's day care center.
It's no coincidence that the standard bearer which missionaries used as their example throughout the years has been Paul of Tarsus, who was present when Stephen was stoned. By being the example of what it means to follow the "Great Commission", Paul would take the gospel to the Gentiles of the Roman Empire, and eventually share the gospel with Nero himself. For the next couple of centuries men like Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian would continue where Paul and the other disciples left off until 314 BC when Constantine would embrace Christianity and make it the favored religion of the empire.
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