Introduction

  
All I Have Commanded
(What Jesus expects of His followers)

by Dan Bentley and E. Jay O'Keefe
  

The day before Jesus was crucified, He gathered his disciples together in a room and delivered to them what has become known as the Upper Room Discourse. It covers John, chapters 13 through 17 in the Bible. During this discourse, he used the word “commandment” nine times, making statements like, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love.” Then a few days later, following his resurrection and just before he ascended into heaven, he commissioned his soon-to-be church with its mission in the world. He instructed us to do two things. Go into all the world and preach the gospel (evangelism), and teach the converts to obey all that he commanded (discipleship). Wouldn’t you conclude that keeping all his commandments and teaching others to keep them was a high priority for the church in Jesus’ mind?

We began meditating on this a few months ago. We asked ourselves some questions. How can we be obedient disciples of Jesus if we don’t know all his commandments? How many are there? And how can we teach others to obey all his commandments if we don’t know them all ourselves? How well is the church doing today at fulfilling the second half of the great commission? Frankly, we would answer, “Miserably,” based on our observations. In fact, we would guess that the number one problem in the church today is a lack of respect for and a lack of obedience to the commandments. How are we supposed to figure out what to do now? It does us little good to keep giving us the gospel over again from all angles. It doesn’t seem to work very well to just emulate the most successful around us, since God has made us all so different on purpose. 

In the American church today, emulating others is not really an issue. On the contrary, it appears that “every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25) is the current mentality. Social behavior in and out of the church, as expected is about the same. A believer can and should look to the Scriptures to find answers to “how to be a Christian.” He can, but it doesn’t appear that he is. This project is an attempt to put the tools of godliness in front of us. It is a highlight of the commands of Christ from the doctrine and stories of the gospels and letters.

Have you ever seen a complete list of what Jesus referred to as “My commandments?” Probably it exists, but we’ve never seen nor heard of it. We decided to find out, and that was our first objective, to come up with a complete list of his commandments so that every believer would have an easy source for learning all that Jesus expects us to obey. We think the church needs this……badly. We searched through the four gospels and compiled a list of all the commandments that came from Jesus’ mouth. We found over 70 of them. They are listed in Appendix A. 

But it isn’t that simple. Let us explain. Early in his ministry, especially in the sermon on the mount, Jesus discussed parts of the law of Moses. But soon he was referring to “My commandments,” and continued to do so during the remainder of his ministry on earth.

But what happened to the law of Moses? We believe Matthew 5:18 implies that Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses, so that when he died, it was replaced with what might be referred to as “the new law of Jesus,” and what Jesus referred to simply as “My commandments,” or “all that I have commanded.” Otherwise, the next verse, Matthew 5:19 would imply that Paul was one of the least in the kingdom, for he clearly annulled certain parts of the Mosaic law (see Colossians 2). Having said that, we would point out that nine of the ten commandments are repeated in the New Testament, the law of the Sabbath being the only exception, and thus become a part of the new law of Jesus, but Jesus revised and reinterpreted some of them. He “raised the bar” required to keep them. Jesus decided to explain further, since everyone seemed to be asking Him about keeping the commands. He never showed them any little tricks to avoid obeying them. For example, the commandment against murder was expanded to include anger. The commandment against adultery was expanded to include lust. All sin begins in the heart, and Jesus included the motives and attitudes of the heart in his commandments.

One other question had to be answered before we could move on to our second objective, which was to organize and analyze the list to make it a practical study guide to motivate the believer to obedience. That question is, what about all the commandments the apostles gave us in the remainder of the New Testament? Are they part of, equal to or subordinate to the commandments of Jesus?

Jesus left His followers after having accomplished everything His Father had for Him to do. And He continued to keep His promises. He sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to infuse into the lives of the apostles further instructions concerning Himself and our new life in Him. The apostles words are His words through the Holy Spirit for our good. Have you ever looked at these as personal instructions from Jesus? We want you to do that. We’d like for you to examine them, then examine yourself. To fulfill the whole message of Jesus, these sayings must be tackled. Believe first, then obey.

Look carefully at the first two verses of the book of Acts, “The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day He was taken up, after he had by the Holy Spirit given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen.” The word “commandments” there in Acts 1:2 is exactly the same word Jesus used in the great commission when he referred to “all I have commanded.” Just before He left this earth, He commissioned the Holy Spirit to give commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen, so that as the Church Age began, these commandments wound up in the remainder of the New Testament. We concluded that all the commandments of the apostles must be added to the commandments Jesus spoke to form a composite “all I have commanded” as referred to in the great commission.

The apostles seem to agree with this interpretation as is clear from passages like 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2, “Excel in your walk according to the commandments given you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.” And, 2 Peter 3:1-2, “Remember the words spoken before by the prophets, and the commandments of Jesus spoken by your apostles.”

We searched through the remainder of the New Testament and compiled a second list in the order of their appearance, and by book. This list is found in Appendix B.  We believe Appendix A and Appendix B added together equal “all I have commanded,” or as close to it as we have been able to get. These two Appendices are our data base for the remainder of the book. 

But how practical is a list of commandments? We asked ourselves, how can we turn such a list into a practical study guide? As we went through this list we discovered several things which helped us answer this question. First, we noticed that there was a lot of repetition, while at the same time different ways of stating the same command, different shades of meaning, etc. This suggested that grouping the commands into a limited number of categories, and devoting a chapter to each category would make sense. We chose eleven categories, as follows. 

COMMANDMENTS RELATING TO:

1. Our relationship to God

2. Interpersonal relationships

3. Personal holiness

4. Evangelism

5. Discipleship

6. Perseverance - Suffering

7. Leadership

8. Human authority

9. Family

10. Servanthood

11. Financial stewardship

These numbers, 1 through 11 are used in the Appendices and follow each Scripture reference to indicate which category or categories each commandment has been included in. Each chapter will list all of the commandments in that category, in the form of “one-liners” designed to help the reader get a quick grasp of the entire category. The list is then followed by notes and comments on the category and some of the specific commandments.

One of the more interesting things we discovered in our study was that many of the apostles’ commandments are commentaries or applications of Jesus’ words. This should be no surprise in light of Acts 1:2. For example, 2 Timothy 2:22, “Flee youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart,” seems to be a commentary on Jesus’ words, “whoever looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.’’ And notice how Paul adds counsel on how to obey the command. By the time several apostles have commented on or stated a command of Jesus in their own words, the believer should be better equipped to obey it.

Dan Bentley and Jay O’Keefe
Amarillo, Texas