Context

According to Matthew's gospel, this is the very last thing that Jesus says to his disciples. Literally. It's a pretty fitting end to Jesus' story. We've followed him from life to death and back again, and now Jesus is getting ready to take a much-deserved break and retire from Earth for a while. Enjoy the fluffy clouds up in Heaven, JC. You've earned it.

But before he goes, Jesus has one little favor to ask of his disciples. Could they possibly, pretty please, travel around and spread his message to the entire world? And also baptize people with water as a sign of their faith in the Big Guy. That's not too much to ask eleven ex-fishermen and some other cool guys, right? We're guessing it's a weekend project.

It's an ambitious goal, and we've gotta hand it to them—this group of guys really came through. Today there are about 2.18 billion Christians on the planet. Not too shabby.

Where you've heard it

This line is basically the foundation for all Christian evangelism. If you've ever heard someone mention how Jesus is awesome, then they're obeying this command. It's also called The Great Commission in Christian circles. This verse also makes appearances at Christian baptisms pretty often.

You'll also hear it in pop culture for baptism scenes in joyful, nefarious, and even goofy ways.

• In The Godfather, Michael Corleone's godson is baptized "in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti" (the translation of the verse in Latin)…while his enemies are murdered.
• In the wild and wacky biopic Ed Wood, the entire cast is baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Ghost" in order to get movie funding from a Baptist church.
• Lots of Christians don't think a baptism is valid unless it uses the "Trinitarian formula" (i.e., the names for the 3 persons of the Trinity) as per Matthew 28:19.
• Great Commission Ministries is all about spreading the word and is named for this verse (obviously).
• Christians take this command pretty seriously. But the folks you've most often seen going door to door to tell you about Jesus are Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Jesus is being pretty chill here for a guy who's just risen from the dead, which dials down the pretentious factor a bit.