What Are the Commands of Christ?

The commands of Christ are the things Jesus told his followers to do. When he sent his first disciples into the world, he did not tell them to teach people facts about him. He told them to teach new disciples "to obey everything I have commanded you." Obeying what Jesus said is not an advanced level of the Christian life. It is the center of it.

That last line from Jesus is worth reading slowly, because it sets the whole target for following him:

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.

Matthew 28:19-20

Notice what the goal is. Not teaching people to know everything Jesus commanded. Teaching them to obey it. That distinction runs through everything he said. He never treated his words as ideas to admire. He expected them to be done. It is the whole reason obedience-based discipleship exists: disciples are formed by doing what Jesus said, not by accumulating more to know.

Why do you call me, “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I say?

Luke 6:46

So if you have ever wondered what Jesus actually asks of you, you are asking the right question. Here is a plain answer, where to find the commands, and how to start obeying one this week.

The Command Underneath the Others

Before you count individual commands, it helps to see the one command everything else grows out of. A religious expert once tried to trap Jesus by asking which commandment was the greatest. Jesus did not dodge:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

Matthew 22:37-40

Love God. Love your neighbor. Jesus said the entire Old Testament hangs on those two. Then, on the night before he died, he gave his followers one more, aimed at each other:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

John 13:34

Every other command Jesus gave is one of these three worked out in a specific situation. Forgiving someone is loving your neighbor. Being generous is loving your neighbor. Meeting to pray and eat together is loving one another. Keep those three in view and the rest stops feeling like a random rulebook. It is one life of love, spelled out in detail.

Is There an Official List of the Commands of Christ?

Here people often expect a numbered list, the way there are ten in the Ten Commandments. There isn’t one. Jesus gave commands all through the four Gospels, in sermons, in answers to questions, and in instructions to the people he sent out. The New Testament never stops to number them.

That means the people who have tried to count them come out with different totals, usually somewhere between about twenty and fifty, depending on how they group Jesus’ teaching. So a “commands of Christ list” is always someone’s arrangement, not a chapter you can turn to.

The First Commands a New Disciple Can Obey

You do not have to master a scholar’s full list before you start. From the beginning, disciple-makers have gathered a handful of Jesus’ first commands, the ones a brand-new follower can grasp and obey right away, and pass on to someone else within weeks.

Here is that set, the same twelve you will find on Obey.Tools, each with the passage it comes from:

Some of these are Jesus’ direct words. A couple are practices the first church obeyed as they followed his commands. Grouped together, they give an ordinary believer enough to obey and enough to hand on. The full guide, with the story and teaching for each command, lives on the Commands of Christ tool at Obey.Tools.

Notice the very first one. “Repent and believe” is not a rule to keep so much as a door to walk through, which is why it helps to be clear on what the gospel actually is before anything else on the list makes sense. And obeying the fourth, the Word of God, gets a lot simpler when you have a plain way to read a passage and ask what to do about it, like the Three Thirds process.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP

You can learn what Jesus commanded and still never get around to doing any of it.

The Commands of Christ tool walks through the first commands one at a time, each with a short Bible story, so you can take one and actually obey it this week.

See the Commands of Christ

Knowing the Commands Is Not Obeying Them

Here is the trap the whole subject can fall into. You can read this article, look up every verse, and be able to recite the commands of Christ, and be no closer to obeying a single one. Jesus saw that coming. He ended the Sermon on the Mount with two builders, and the only difference between them was doing:

Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (Matthew 7:24)

His half-brother James said the same thing plainly: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22). For most of us the gap is not information. We already know we should forgive, give, pray, and tell a friend about Jesus. The gap is between knowing that and doing it, and that gap never closes by reading one more explanation. It closes by obeying one command, once, and then again.

A command of Christ you have memorized but never obeyed has not shaped your life any more than a recipe you have read but never cooked.

Obeying what Jesus said is exactly what marks someone out as a disciple rather than an admirer. He said it himself: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples” (John 8:31).

Start With One This Week

You do not obey twelve commands at once. You obey one. Pick the next honest step and take it, then come back for the next.

There is one more command on the list that changes how you read all the others. Jesus told his followers to go and make disciples, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.” That means obeying his commands is never only about you. As you learn to obey one, you are meant to help someone else obey it too. That is the whole move from following Jesus to helping others follow him, and when a few people start obeying these commands together, they are already becoming a simple church.

Frequently asked questions

What are the commands of Christ?

The commands of Christ are the instructions Jesus gave his followers in the Gospels, everything from “love your neighbor” to “go and make disciples.” He summed them up in two: love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40), plus a new command to love one another as he loved us (John 13:34). When Jesus sent his disciples out, he told them to teach new believers “to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20), so obeying his commands is at the center of following him.

Is there an official list of the commands of Christ?

No. The Bible never numbers Jesus’ commands the way it numbers the Ten Commandments, and people who compile them arrive at different totals, often somewhere between about twenty and fifty. Any “commands of Christ list” is a helpful arrangement of his teaching, not a fixed chapter of Scripture. Disciple-makers often gather about a dozen first commands and practices a new believer can begin with, each tied to a Bible story.

How many commands did Jesus give?

There is no single agreed number, because Scripture does not count them for us and much of Jesus’ teaching can be grouped in more than one way. What matters more than the total is that he expects his commands to be obeyed, not just known (Luke 6:46), and that he tied all of them back to loving God and loving people (Matthew 22:37-40).

How do I start obeying the commands of Christ?

Start with one. Pick a single command you know you have been leaving undone, read the Bible story behind it, and ask what obeying it looks like for you this week with a real person. Do that one thing, then tell another believer so they can check in with you. You grow into obedience the way you grow any skill, by practicing it, not by reading more about it (James 1:22).