Where words and numbers fail

For more commentary on this week's readings, see the Reflections on the Lectionary page, which includes Copeland's current Living by the Word column as well as past magazine and blog content. For full-text access to all articles, subscribe to the Century.

It seems a little backward on the Sunday after Pentecost to receive instructions that have already been successfully carried out. Peter and the disciples blew them away last week, preaching up a storm of fire and spirit like a host of Rosetta Stone experts. But today we go back to the place where Jesus told them what to do: Go and make disciples.

Of course, the reason we’re reading the end of Matthew this week is because it’s Trinity Sunday. This text is one of the few places we can manufacture a scriptural representation of a Council decision that awaits these nascent Christians roughly three hundred years in the future. We’ve become so used to the concept of De Trinitate—thank you Augustine, et al.—that we assume scripture is rife with it. Not so much. Biblically, the Trinity is more inference than reference.