Planting Churches Among the City's Poor - Volume 2

P ART I: C OACHING U RBAN C HURCH P LANTERS • 51

2. Evangelist, herald (messengers) as representation

a. Evanggelistes (evangelist): “someone who brings good news, Acts 21.8; Eph. 4.11; 2 Tim. 4.5

b. Keryx (herald): “Denotes the person who is commissioned by his ruler or the state to call out with a clear voice some item of news and so to make it known” (David Bennett, Metaphors of Ministry , p. 135); cf. 1 Tim. 2.7; 2 Tim. 1.11 c. Both evangellos and keryx presuppose the delivery of a message on behalf of someone else (neither were allowed to make up their own announcements; faithful proclamation lies at the heart of their duties)

3. Ambassadorship as representation

a. Presbeuo (to be an authorized representative, to be an ambassador or do the work of an ambassador), 2 Cor. 5.20

b. Speaks as though God was making his own appeal through them , 2 Cor. 5.20

c. Paul considered himself an “ambassador in chains,” Eph. 6.20

d. “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” (David Bennett, Metaphors of Ministry , p. 136). Luke 10.1 (ESV) – After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him , two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. Luke 10.16 (ESV) – The one who hears you hears me , and the one who rejects you rejects me , and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me . B. Jesus as the perfect representative of God