Command Audience

Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus said unto him,

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with

all thy soul, and with

all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it,

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

To whom is a command given? When God speaks in Scripture to whom does He speak? I believe it pays us to think about these classifications, in order to help us more accurately regulate our obedience. Let’s look, first of all, at the various possibilities:

1. A command can be given to an individual, or individuals. Sam… or Sam, Fred, and Sue.

2. A command can be given to a group within a group: the Israelite priests, the house of Aaron.

3. A command can be given to a group within the general population: men, women, the Israelites.

4. A command can be given to mankind as a whole

And each command to a group can be given to the group as a whole or as individuals. Thus a battalion tasked to take a hill might have soldiers, drummers, flag bearers, and even men driving and guarding the wagons. They do not each individually ‘take the hill’, they take it as a group.

The Ten Commandments

Matthew 19:18-19

He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said,

Thou shalt do no murder,

Thou shalt not commit adultery,

Thou shalt not steal,

Thou shalt not bear false witness,

Honour thy father and thy mother: and,

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The Ten Commandments, at least in the KJV, give us a clue as to their audience: they begin with ‘Thou’. That is a word that speaks to an individual.¹ So either they were given just to Moses or… they were given to either Moses alone, each individual Israelite, or each individual man. But the group was not supposed to accomplish ‘not committing adultery’ as a group task. (Not even sure what that would look like. Although it could be said that the commands to stone adulterers was an action of the group to help accomplish the task.)

Build the Temple

I Kings 5:5

And, behold, I purpose to build an house unto the name of the LORD my God,

as the LORD spake unto David my father, saying,

Thy son, whom I will set upon thy throne in thy room,

he shall build an house unto my name.

But the command to build the temples was given to the group. Everyone had their own role in the building. Some hew stone, some brought water. Some designed the curtains, some sewed the curtains, and some hung the curtains.

And, as a result, the temple was built and furnished and worship began in it. The group accomplished the task, while the individuals accomplished their tasks.

The Great Commission: Denied?

Matthew 28:18-20

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,

All power is given unto me in heaven and

in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo,

I am with you alway,

even unto the end of the world.

Amen.

Act 1:8

But ye shall receive power,

after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and

ye shall be witnesses unto me both

in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and

in Samaria, and

unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Keeping that distinction in mind, my interlocutor in the ‘monks’ discussion, Incognito, made an argument (which I post below) comparing the great commission that Christ gave to his disciples, to the ‘be fruitful and multiply’ command. He starts by saying that be fruitful and multiply is a command given to all men, just as ‘go ye into all the world’ is a command given to all Christians.²

But then he states that they are both commands given to a group, and not to each individual individually, and thus uses that as a platform for dismissing monks from the command to be fruitful and multiply.

When a command is given to a group as a group, as opposed to being given to all the individuals in the group, it is tempting to confuse this with the concept of the command being give to a group within the group. One can easily be confused into thinking that the command was actually given only to that group within the group, or that group within the general population, who are most eager, or willing, or able, to carry it out.

This is, I believe, the fatal error that Incognito fell into in his argument. He blithely states that as he has never gone overseas to teach the nations, therefore the implication is that Christ’s command was not given to him as an individual. There are two fatal errors with this line of reasoning. The first that it is perfectly possible that he is merely disobeying the command. If God is giving him the opportunity to make disciples, and he is not taking it, then he is disobeying God’s command.

The second is more subtle. It is that he fails to understand the scope and breadth of the command. If Christians’ command is to the group that contains all Christians, then it is incumbent up on all Christians to ask themselves, “How am I carrying out this command?” This is the evidence of the Scriptures: Paul and Barnabas went out as missionaries, James stayed in Jerusalem and led the church. Various churches sent funds to support the mission work. Others hosted the missionaries as they traveled. Someone, I forget who, was asked to bring a jacket and some scrolls.³

And, ironically, that is exactly what he mentions in his own post. When speaking of the call of the great commission to go and make disciples, he leaves his (bizarre)⁴ reading of the command to explain that it is carried out by some being missionaries, some supplying funds, some building a community at home…

But then he forgets that there is more than that. That each of us, even at home, can carry out the work of a missionary to those we work with. We can, each day be an example to our neighbour, and even preach the gospel.

But when his focus shifts to monks this logic evaporates. He begins with ‘I have a hard time believing’ (leaving aside any attempt to say what Scripture says) and, under the rubric of ‘being fruitful and multiplying’ he lists: clearing land, running orphanages, and running schools.

And he completely skips over the entire objection that I make… the entire focus of the problem: the vow of unmarriage. People who have not taken a vow of unmarriage can clear land, run orphanages, and run schools. They have done so. They are still doing so. I have met some of them. There is nothing in a vow of unmarriage that helps with any of those things. And even if there was that would not be an excuse to disobey God’s command, let alone take a vow where you pledge to disobey it.

Just as it would be inconsistent with your duty to ‘go make disciples’ to take a vow swearing that you would ‘never make a disciple, neither in Jerusalem, Judea, or the uttermost parts of the Earth’… just so is it inconsistent, and blasphemously disobedient to take a vow to… never be fruitful and multiply.

The insane summary seems to be: Because it is impossible for any one man to make disciples in Syria, Botswana, and Chile all at the same time… all the while baptising and teaching those disciples… it is therefore legitimate to take a vow swearing you will never be fruitful and multiply. That you will never take a wife, have sex with her, have lots of children with her, and raise those children in Godliness.

In the Alternative

Almost he makes an argument that might work. Almost he says that the monks are being fruitful and multiplying. The argument fails, especially because of the vow, but he almost makes it:

1. Every man is required to do his best to obey God’s command to be fruitful and multiply

2. Monks do this best by working in orphanages, schools, and plowing land.

But not only doesn’t he just make that argument directly… point 2 fails. It might be possible to say that an unmarried man is best for a given job at a given time, and that that job falls under obedience to ‘be fruitful and multiply’. But it can’t be true that it is necessary for that man to have taken a vow of unmarriage.

The man without wife and children may indeed be the best choice for rescuing children from war-torn Lower Mudsvania… but his vow of perpetual unmarriage will not be a weapon in his arsenal. Why should it not be, when the war is over, that he should not marry and bring forth children and grandchildren… raising generations in Godliness?

And I don’t believe the monks we are discussing, for the most part, are working in Lower Mudsvania. I await statistics, it is not my field, but how many monks are working in areas where their wife and children would face rape, torture, and murder?

Conclusion

The command to be fruitful and multiply is a command given to all mankind. Monks are involved in actively and intentionally disobeying it. And they have vowed to do so.

Appendix

I think there clearly are. For brevity’s sake, let’s look at just one: the Great Commission.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16–20)

In this passage, Jesus gives a command to his disciples, telling them to make disciples of all nations. Just as in Genesis, we have a group (think Noah and his sons) receiving a command that extends to their descendants (we are their ‘spiritual children,’ 1 Cor. 4:15). Indeed, that it is directed to the whole church is evident by Jesus promise to be “with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Given that both these passages offer an instance of God giving a command to people which is meant to extend beyond them to their “children” we should read that command as applying to those communities in the same way (or at least we should have a very good reason for reading them as applying differently). Now, is the great commission given individually or collectively?

We Christians should pray that it is meant collectively, Jesus says to “make disciples of all nations.” I don’t know about you, but I haven’t yet discipled any nations. A mission trip won’t cut it either. Jesus says “all nations” (and as we have seen, once the Bible says something like ‘every’ or ‘all’ then it applies universally). The command is clear, you — individually — need to disciple every single nation on earth. Miss one? you haven’t fulfilled the great commision. Worse! You need to baptize them. You — again, personally and individually — need to baptize at least one person from every nation, or you are disobeying God!

The collectivist reading is much more coherent. Jesus tells the church collectively to disciple and baptize all nations. Each individual can contribute to that in different ways. Some will be missionaries, some will contribute to missions financially, some might focus on building a strong community at home from which Godly people may go out. Each person contributes to the overall project in their own way.

If we are to read the Great commission as applying collectively, we ought to read the Genesis passages as collectively, too, assuming we want to be consistent.⁹ This gives strong evidence that God is not commanding every individual to marry and have kids, but the human race collectively to multiply over the earth.

…

I have a hard time countenancing the idea that the group that was responsible for draining and clearing most of the European wilderness so that people could live and farm there aren’t contributing to God’s command to “fill the earth and subdue it.” Nor that those who have run countless orphanages and schools are not helping the human race “be fruitfull and multiply.” Monks assist communities in countless ways, not least of which was preserving and copying the Bible in the West.

From:

Celibacy and Divine Commands: A Riposte

1. The plural would be ‘ye’. Ye shall…

2. I would point out that as all men should be Christians, it is a command given to all men.

3. 2Ti 4:13 The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, butespecially the parchments.

4. I have rarely read a similar argument. When in life is a command like this given to someone and they are expected to carry out every form of every aspect of it? His reading here flies in the face of simple logic and linguistics.