When ‘Go’ Becomes ‘Stay’, One Is Left to Ask, ‘Where Do We ‘Go’ from Here?’ Viewing the ‘Go’ of the Great Commission as a Command to Contextualize the Gospel to the Nations!

Abstract

Worldwide, 272 million people live outside of their home country and another 800 million have been forced to migrate within their own county. This massive displacement of people provides a great opportunity in the Church’s own backyard, where many believers should be—and can be—involved in fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission. The ‘going’ in the Great Commission does not geographically move the disciples very far in the first months/years of the early Church; however, with the first outpouring of the Spirit, the Church was stretched contextually into places it never expected to go. This research will examine the aorist participle, ‘go’, in the Great Commission and postulate a contextual understanding of the command to ‘go’. This contextual understanding provides an opportunity to be part of the Great Commission in a world whose borders are closed, due to the world-wide Coved-19 pandemic.