Preached to All Creation?

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

Just before Jesus’ resurrection into Heaven he gave the Apostles the so called “Great Commission”. He commissioned them to go to the whole world and preach the Gospel. Of course he equipped them to do so by giving them the Gospel message to be preached, the Holy Spirit and the ability to speak that message in foreign languages.

Naturally some questions come up like “how could they accomplish this in their natural life spans?” And how were they to travel to lands and peoples who had not even been discovered yet like Eskimos and Peruvians and Japanese and Amazon Jungles?

Notice this passage…

“…if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a minister” Colossians 1:23.

Colossians was thought to have been written by Paul in about 62 AD and according to Paul, the Apostles had already “preached the Gospel to the whole creation”

Which seems to be impossible that in thirty years or so and without recorded miraculous means the Gospel message had gone to the whole world including the,,, Eskimos, Peruvians, Japanese and Amazonians.

Now maybe an Apostle paddled up the Amazon river and we just have no record of it (biblical or historical) or maybe words like “all” and “whole” shouldn’t be interpreted in a strict literal sense.

Perhaps “all” doesn’t mean all and “whole of creation” does not mean the entirety of creation. Perhaps it means the whole known world or perhaps the entirety of the ruling Roman world.

So as Bible students when we run across words like “all” or “whole” we should at least consider that those words might not be literal and in so doing not paint our selves in a position that does not seem to be probable.