Go Into All the World

A simple passage every Christian has heard over and over.  Mostly in the context of foreign missions, coupled with giving money to support those missions.  But there is so much more here.

And he said to them,  “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. Mark 16:15

This is the great call of the missionary and their organizations.  They teach that you must either be a missionary or provide funds for their activity. Lets be perfectly clear we are not opposed to missionary activity. Over the centuries they have brought much good to the world. They have also caused great harm, and there have been many tragedies.

However this is not what the verse says. It is not in the command form in Greek, but rather it is in the aorist which is an unqualified past tense of a verb without reference to duration or completion of the action.