What is the best word for orienting and acclimating people to a new job? A quick google search suggested the hip and up-to-date term, “onboarding.” Since ambassadorship is sometimes like taking lifeboats out to save drowning people, “onboarding” seems to be a good fit.
Podcast episodes so far (1-33) have concentrated on our identity as ambassadors and worldviews that would make clear the kingdom to which we belong and what that means for our embassy (the Christian church) and our work among the citizens of this world (including our own, corrupt human nature). Now it’s time to transition into the steady life and work of an ambassador of the kingdom of heaven, which is a life of steady growth in God’s Word. Thus, podcast episodes to come will work through the entire New Testament in small increments while website posts will seek to apply God’s Word to current events, issues, needs, and/or challenges.
For example, have you heard people say, “The only thing constant is change”? So many quips are passed around and assumed to be true without much consideration. Is this quip true? Actually, lots of things—the most substantive and meaningful things—never change. Nature has remained the same, as has human physiology. The movement of heavenly bodies must be the same because our clocks and calendars still seem to work. What is best for us to eat is still what nature grows and we still do well to eat it really rather than virtually. We still need sleep and sunshine and homes and clothing, just as people always have. Is it possible that all things needful for our lives remain the same, most of all the living and enduring grace of God and truth, available in the Scriptures and nature? The surface of things is what keeps changing, not the substance.
Popular colors for decorating, styles of clothing, shapes of cars, and cartoon characters change, but not the essence or substance beneath those things. God’s witness to the unchanging substance of life in nature and His Word provide the immovable and secure foundation of His kingdom, our embassy, and our service to the world as ambassadors.
Check out podcast #34 which begins our steady course through the New Testament with a look at Matthew 1.