“Someone suggested that only Paul and the other apostles were ambassadors, not all believers (II Cor. 5:20). True?”

In Verse 18, Paul says, “God… hath reconciled us to Himself… and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” Here we see that the people who have been given the ministry of reconciliation are the same people who have been reconciled to God. This cannot be limited to Paul and other leaders; it must include all believers, for we have all been reconciled.

Paul then defines the ministry of reconciliation as that which takes place when “ambassadors” say to the lost, “be ye reconciled to God” (v. 20). This means that the ambassadors proclaiming reconciliation in Verse 20 must consist of all the reconciled people who were given the ministry of reconciliation in Verse 18.

This also points out that, while “the world” has been reconciled to God (v. 19), the unsaved have not been reconciled in the same sense as believers, or else they would also be Christ’s ambassadors. The reconciling of the world is that which God gave Jews and Gentiles corporately, once the Jews had been cast away (Rom. 11:15), just as the Gentiles had been at the Tower of Babel.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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