Now that our believer is well-established inwardly, it is time to develop them outwardly and train them how to go into the World and do "the good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
The 3rd stage, Ambassadorship, will teach the believer our biblical relationship to the world. It will focus on what our calling is and how to prepare for it.
While the first 2 stages worked to develop the new believer inwardly, it is now time to turn that focus outward. Instead of taking us right Home, the Father leaves His children here in this world to be His representatives and intermediaries to a lost and dying world. Knowing how to do that successfully, winsomely, and appropriately is not something we are just born with.
Successful ambassadors need to understand how their target audience thinks, how they respond, and what they value. They will need to know what message they are to bring to this foreign people and how to package it so that it will be received well and cast a favorable light on our home country. They will need to understand how to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ”
(2 Cor 10:5) – and do so properly and in a gracious manner.
The student who completes this stage should have an understanding as to what a maturing believer’s external focus should be and how to begin to move to fulfill that call. They should have a reproducible set of tasks and goals as they prepare themselves to be the best Royal Representatives of the Kingdom of God they can be.
Investigations is just that – when we investigate the legitimacy of what we believe in the face of other facts. The term “Apologetics” comes from the latin Apologia which means a formal defense of a position or action.
In this stage, we will as objectively as possible measure what we believe against other facts we know to be true in mathematics, morality and ethics, anthropology, and astro-physics, as well as few others. We will also investigate the legitimacy of the Scriptures using arguments of textual criticism while we review the claims of other religions and religious sources.
If the study of Ambassadorship in the previous stage can be likened to studying gun safety, then here is where we will be handing out the ammunition.
Accomplished disciple-makers need to be able to handle questions and debates that will come from countless sources. It is the mature believers responsibility to be as up-to-date, well-versed, and educated in current issues and thought trends of the day so that we will “have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in [our] hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”
(1 Peter 3:14‑15)
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