There can be no doubt that the motivating force for Campus Crusade for Christ is the Great Commission.  Campus Crusade was birthed in it, Dr. Bright lived it, and tens of thousands of other staff have headed the call:

Great Commission -  “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 28:18-20

Add to that the Great Commandment and you have the ingredients of a dynamic spiritual movement.

Great Commandment- “A new command I give you ‘Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34

But beyond the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, God gave us one other responsibility and challenge that most believers do not know about or think deeply about – The Cultural Mandate.

God gave the Cultural Mandate back in Genesis.  This mandate has never been revoked in the Old or New Testament and most believers are not familiar with it.  It is before sin entered the world and God had finished making creation and had just completed man and he gave them this responsibility:

The Cultural Mandate – “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” – Genesis 1:28

How are we to derive the Cultural Mandate from this passage?  Well the phrase “subdue it” actually means to “bring forth its full beauty”.   To bring forth “full beauty” does not just mean the environment, but in all things that man is responsible for.  God is clear here that man’s responsibility is the whole earth.

Therefore we are not only to bring forth full beauty from the earth environmentally through care and stewardship (which people normally think about), but also through things that man makes and creates and what future generations will make and create: , art, music, sculpture, bridges, buildings, roads, products, books, magazines, TV, relationships, social structure, culture itself.

So the Cultural Mandate, “bring forth its full beauty” we imagine to be pretty simple as just taking care of the environment, is actually quiet comprehensive and includes all the earth – everything, our selves, our families, our churches, our businesses, our cities, our culture.  This means we are responsible to be stewards over all things.

The interesting thing about the Cultural Mandate is that it actually connected back to the Great Commission.  Jesus said in Matthew 28, that “All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me…”  He then goes on to Commission the disciples to go unto all the nations to the whole earth.

The Great Commission and the Cultural Mandate go together.  Every time the gospel has penetrated a society or institution, it not only converts individuals, but changes society or the institution

On every mission field from the days of William Carey in India, missionaries have seen the power of the gospel and the Cultural Mandate. Societies began to be transformed. “They established standards of purity and hygiene, promoted industry, elevated womanhood, restrained antisocial customs, abolished cannibalism, human sacrifice and cruelty, organized famine relief, checked tribal wars and changed the structure of society.”

To get a further vision for the Cultural Mandate, consider that God is holding us responsible as stewards over every sphere of life in which we have influence or responsibility.  Look at the graph below and see what this covers: