Planting Churches Among the City's Poor - Volume 2

P ART I: C OACHING U RBAN C HURCH P LANTERS • 55

nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me.

C. The Entrustment : a representative is endowed with the authority and power to act on behalf of the sender.

1. The sender delegates to the representative the authority to speak and act on his/her behalf.

2. The scope and limits of the authority must be carefully delineated.

3. Usually in a public and/or official ceremony, the emissary is sworn and/or deputized with the authority to represent.

4. With this confirmation, the representative now officially is given the right to represent and released to do the task.

5. The Pauline example : the display of signs, wonders, and miracles of the Holy Spirit in the act of proclaiming Christ as Messiah, Rom. 15.15-21 (ESV) – But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience – by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God – so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ ; and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.”