Migration and Mission: A Study of Philip’s ministry in Samaria (Acts 8)

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