Abstract:
Abstract
The Christian church exists to fulfill the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations
(Matt. 28:19-20 and its parallels). The inauguration of the church on the day of Pentecost and the
empowerment of the disciples through the infilling of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-6) equipped the church for
a worldwide mission. The book of the Acts of the Apostles recounts incidents of persecution that drove
the disciples out of Jerusalem to live in other places as refugees and missionaries. In the contemporary
Ghanaian context where migration is a common phenomenon, the church can learn from the missional
consequences of the migration of the early Christians. Yet, not much scholarly attention has been given to
this subject, especially from an African perspective. This research, therefore, examined the correlation
between migration and Spirit-empowered mission based on Philip’s ministry in Samaria recorded in Acts
8. The paper is a non-empirical study that gathered data from journal articles, books, Bible commentaries
and dissertations/thesis. The methodology comprised an examination of historical and literary contexts of
the text; literary analysis, lexicology (the meaning of words), morphology (the form of words),
grammatical function of words (parts of speech), syntax (the relationships of words) and figures of
speech. The main argument is that Christianity is a migratory religion and therefore, believing migrants
should consider their situation as an opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission. The paper contributes to
New Testament scholarship and mission studies.
Keywords: African; Judea; Migration; Mission; Philip; Samaria
