<p>16:15- see on Mk. 14:9.</p><p><i>And he said to them: You are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation</i>- The essential spirit of the great commission was &ldquo;Go&rdquo;, following on as it does from the repeated commands to &ldquo;go&rdquo; and share the glorious news that Christ had risen. And yet so many congregations of believers seem to stress instead &ldquo;Come in to us&rdquo;. And every manner of carrot is dangled before the public to entice them to &lsquo;come in&rsquo; to some church event. But the emphasis was clearly, and should still be, upon &lsquo;going&rsquo; to people. Our turning of &lsquo;Go&rsquo; into &lsquo;Come to us&rsquo; is all part of a wider picture, whereby the group of hard core, desperate men who first followed Jesus, the whores, the gamblers, the mentally ill, the marginalized women&hellip; have all been diluted into a religion of conformists, a spiritual bubble in which we risk nothing, sacrifice nothing, and comfortably continue in the way of our fathers who were also members of the same church as we are.</p><p>The Lord twice told the disciples: &quot;Go ye... go ye&quot; (Mk. 16:15 cp. Mt. 28:19 and contexts). He was encouraging them to do the natural corollary of what they had experienced. We are to preach to &ldquo;all the world&rdquo; (16:15)- the <i>kosmos</i>. In the last days, the Gospel will go to &ldquo;all nations&rdquo;- every <i>ethnos</i> (Mk. 13:10). The parallel record in Mt. 24:14 has Jesus saying that it must go to the whole world- <i>oikoumene</i>. What did He actually say? I suggest He used both words, in an emphasis of just how universal the witness would be: &lsquo;The Gospel will be preached in the whole <i>oikoumene</i>, yes, to every <i>ethnos</i>&hellip;&rsquo;. This is all some emphasis- every creature (individual), in the whole world system, every part of society (<i>kosmos</i>), of every nation (<i>ethnos</i>), on the whole planet (<i>oikoumene</i>) was to have the message. And this is our unmistakable mandate. The number of different words used by the Lord was surely intentional.</p><p>As so often with reading the Gospels, it is profitable to imagine the tone of voice in which the Lord spoke the words which are recorded. &quot;Go ye <i>into all the world</i>&nbsp;and preach the gospel to <i>every creature</i>&quot;. If only we could sense the intensity of desire, the deepness of spiritual meaning, which His voice would have conveyed. We <i>must</i> have the spiritual ambition to take the Gospel to the whole world- no matter how small our world may be. The world of our street, of our town, nation- and as far as we are able, the whole planet. Paul had this ambition, quite apart from any personal commission he received.<br />The great commission is framed in language which picks up on the descriptions of the Lord&rsquo;s own preaching earlier in His ministry. His idea clearly enough is that He will no longer be on earth; therefore His people must be &lsquo;Him&rsquo; to the whole earth:</p><div align=center><table border=0 cellspacing=6 cellpadding=0 width=80%>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p><b>The great commission to us </b></p>            </td>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p><b>The personal preaching of Jesus </b></p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Make disciples (Mt. 28:19)</p>            </td>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Made disciples (Mt. 4:18-22; Mk. 1:16-20; Lk.   5:1-11)</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Preach the Gospel, teach people (Mk. 16:15)</p>            </td>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Proclaimed the Gospel (Lk. 4:18), taught people   (Mk. 6:30)</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Proclaim repentance (Lk. 24:47)</p>            </td>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Proclaimed repentance (Mk. 1:15)</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Forgive and retain sins (Jn. 20:23)</p>            </td>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Forgave sins (Mt. 9:1-9; Mk. 2:1-12)</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Retained sins (Jn. 8:21-24; 9:41)</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Witnessed to others in obedience to the great   commission (Acts 1:8)</p>            </td>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Witnessed what he had seen and heard (Jn. 3:11)</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Cast out demons, heal (Mk. 16:16)</p>            </td>            <td width=289 valign=top>            <p>Cast out demons (Mk. 3:15; 6:7,13), healed (Mk.   6:13)</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table></div>