Tense: Present “I am going. ”

The present tense represents a simple statement of fact or reality viewed as occurring in actual time. In most cases this corresponds directly with the English present tense. It is a ongoing type action best translated “I am going” vs. “I go. ”

Some phrases which might be rendered as past tense in English will often occur in the present tense in Greek. This was the way Greeks wrote to give you the “feeling of being there. ” These are termed "historical presents, " and such occurrences dramatize the event described as if the reader was there watching the event occur. Some English translations render such historical presents in the English past tense, while others permit the tense to remain in the present as in the Modern Literal Version.