Carl,
I am not sure I caught the finer nuances in what you said here.
>Although an
> aorist ptc. doesn't ALWAYS refer to time prior to that of the main verb, it
> generally does. You may note also that the participles in the following
> section are in the present tense. Consequently I'd understand this as
> "After getting on the road, get disciples made, all the time baptizing and
> instructing them." Sorry I can't reduce this to intelligible rules.
You indicated that there is a time element involved here, meaning that the action of the verb is preceeded by that of the participle. However, in an earlier post you also mentioned that the participle has imperatival force, "Go..." which almost seems to make the action contemporaneous to the finite verb. This has always been a little difficult for me to visualize (unfortunately I am one of the people handicapped by having to think in pictures!). The two posts seem to take different approaches, so that you later post doesn't seem to incorporate the imperatival force mentioned ealier.
My question, I guess, is whether, as Jonathan seems to point out, the imperatival force comes from the participle's association with the finite verb and somehow carries over to it? If so the idea of conveying imperatival force and time in English is a little difficult. Maybe it means something like, "Go, and having gone make...."
This is much ado about nothing I am sure, but as I said I am sort of trying to get the notion of what is means more firmly fixed in my imagination.
Later Thomas Bond wrote:
>The manner of this "getting disciples made" would be "at all times baptizing and >instructing them."
In first coming to this passage after my early days fresh from beginning Greek, I had interpreted the present tense participles as instrumental, that is, the means by which disciples are made. Is there any warrant for that? I have no idea where that notion came from, but it it seemed logical at the time. I simply wonder if there is any grammatical foundation for it. If there is not, is this simply contemporaneous action in the sense that they are to make disicples, while baptising and teaching?
Paul F. Evans
Pastor
Thunder Swamp Pentecostal Holiness Church
MT. Olive
E-mail: evans@esn.net
Web-page: http://ww2.esn.net/~evans