Are We Commanded To Go In The Great Commission?
It is not clear where the teaching comes from but I have often heard that the word 'go' in the Great Commission is not the command. The supporting evidence given is this, the word 'go' is not in the imperative. Certainly grammatically the word 'go' is a participle so the imperative is not a choice. That may sound like an open and shut case, the word is not in the imperative mood so therefore it is not a command. While this is true that the word 'go' is not in the imperative, it is a participle, so what does that mean? In New Testament Greek (Koine Greek) the participle often has an enriching function in the sentence. One of the main uses of the participle is to combine two or more actions as a combined action. While we can't do this in English to the same extent as New Testament Greek can, if we say "he ran the ball to the end zone and won the game" we usually would think that the act of running the ball was how he won the game. Thi...