Southern Baptists must remain true to their God-given assignment to be ambassadors for Christ, Paige Patterson insisted June 13, during his presidential address to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting.
“Above all else, we are ambassadors for Christ,” Patterson proclaimed, citing the apostle Paul’s advice to Christians in the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians.
Patterson concluded his second one-year term as SBC president during the two-day meeting in Orlando, Fla.
Patterson, president of Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., said he has been influenced by the notion of Christian ambassadorship since he was 9 years old. The convention’s missions program for boys, Royal Ambassadors, “stamped my life forever,” he recalled, eventually leading to “my appointment as a heavenly ambassador to an alien world.”
Way of life
The Greek word translated in English Bibles as ambassador reflects virtues of nobility and honor, Patterson, a New Testament scholar, described. The word is in a verb form in the passage he cited, translating roughly as “we are ambassadorizing.”
“In other words, ambassador is not merely a title of honor but an activity,” Patterson said. “The title ‘ambassador’ identifies both who we are and what we do. Consequently, the behavior of the ambassador ought to be such that neither the credibility of his message nor the reputation of the Sovereign he represents should be diminished by his actions.”
Christian ambassadors should be challenged by “three distinct motivations,” he said. They are:
Inevitable accountability. Every Christian eventually will stand before the judgment seat of God to give an account for that person’s life and actions, he said.
“Ambassadorship makes us responsible for many things,” he added. “For example, we are concerned about worldwide religious liberty, which is appropriately defined as the open marketplace of religious discussion in which everyone is entitled to follow his conscience, even if that means a changing of the mind. In that kind of open marketplace of ideas, Christianity will inevitably triumph.”
Religious liberty supports the SBC’s right to evangelize non-Christians, even people who adhere to other world religions, he pointed out. Specifically, he cited criticism the convention’s International Mission Board has received for “targeting” members of other faith groups for evangelistic outreach.
Standing firm
Similarly, Southern Baptists must support the Christian school movement and its effort to educate children in home schools and faith-based schools, he said. And they must “be discriminating in our entertainment,” he added, referencing the convention’s 2-year-old boycott of the Walt Disney Co.
Incomparable affection. Christians are compelled to their task by the love of Christ, Patterson noted. “Love constrains us as nothing else.”
Through the sacrifice of Christ and the forgiveness of human sin, Christians have been compelled to love and serve God, he said. “Whereas human forgiveness has its limits and its inabilities, divine forgiveness is limited only by the man who refuses to accept it. We cannot help but say, ‘The love of Christ compels us in a way that can never, ever fail.’ ”
Incredible assignment. “It is as though God is pleading with the world through us, ‘Be reconciled to God,’ ” he reported.
“For that reason, I stand before you today … and admonish all of us together to devote ourselves as never before to getting the saving gospel of Jesus Christ to all 6 billion people on the face of this globe,” Patterson said.
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