"Tribes is the preferred meaning" Says who? You?
Inspired, I went to Bauer Arndt Gingrich. Their entry on ethnos does not include the word "tribe" but sticks with "nation" and "people".
I don't know how to say this gently: There is NO scholarly support that I can find for the contention that the preferred meaning of ethnos is "tribe", and my Young's Analytical concordance (based on the KJV) says of the uses of the word in the (KJV) NT
93 mean GENTILE
5 mean HEATHEN
64 mean NATION
2 mean PEOPLE.
164 Uses, and "tribe" is not one of them.
The Great Commission is looking more and more like it was to go to folks who weren't Jews.
And besides, I was wondering. My impression is that in Acts, Paul more than once goes first to the synagogue, and when that doesn't pan out, THEN he goes to the ethnoi.
Diego, did you and Uncle Chip come up with this understanding of early Church history on your own? Are there sites where one can learn more about this line of thought?
My interpretation agrees with scripture....yours does not! It's really as simple as that.