Get Your Pretense On!

Chapter 5: Represent Strong! • 111

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

~ 2 Corinthians 5.20

. . . and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, [20] for which I am an ambassador in chains , that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak [italics mine]. ~ Ephesians 6.19-20 Presbeuo means to serve as an authorized representative, to be an ambassador or do the work of an ambassador) (2 Cor. 5.20). An ambassador for Christ speaks in the stead of, the place of Christ, as though God himself was making his own appeal through the ambassador . Paul considered himself an “ambassador in chains” (Eph. 6.20). David Bennett’s fascinating study of various biblical metaphors in ministry makes this point clear: As a prisoner in Rome, to which foreign delegates came from far and wide, Paul thinks of himself as an ambassador from the King of kings. The status of the ambassador is generally related to the status of the rule that he represents. This high honor is therefore a privilege available to the humblest of willing believers [italics mine]. 19 These three illustrations (apostle, evangelist, and ambassador) show the primacy of representation as a concept in the way the Bible depicts what it means to represent the Father’s interests in the world. David Bennett suggests that these three are replicated in virtually every mention of leadership in the New Testament: Over half of the metaphors chosen by Jesus describe someone who is under the authority of another. Often the word selected is one member of a familiar role pair, such as child (of a father,