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Transcript 009C — Some Comments on Evangelists
CALLER: I was wondering if you could give me your idea of evangelists. I was raised a Catholic, until about two years ago, when I became a Christian and started going to a Baptist church. They're really straight on the Bible, but we've had several evangelists come to the church, and it seemed like, as we were going through the week, that it was just making a mockery of Christ. It was like he was selling Him to the audience, you know, putting Him up for whoever will, and I was just wondering what your idea of this type of evangelism is.
HC: First of all, the office of an evangelist is biblical. Ephesians 4:11 reads: "And His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers." An evangelist is commonly thought of as a person who is concerned with the Gospel message. He is not teaching. He does not stay in one place teaching the congregation into the deeper truths. He is not a pastor in that he is working in a congregation, attending to all the pastoral needs of the congregation. He comes into a situation to present the Gospel and then goes on to somewhere else to present the Gospel.
Now everyone who calls himself an evangelist is not necessarily doing a good job as an evangelist. An evangelist is faced with some real temptations, just as pastors ant teachers are. An evangelist, for example, may without realizing it come to a point where he really believes that he is a failure unless he can see so many people saved. Like notches on the gun of a killer, he will want to have so many scalps of those who have been saved. And so he will use very many devices, and whatever, to get people to make some kind of a commitment for Christ. This can become very hollow and very superficial.
We must realize that salvation is by God, not by an evangelist. An evangelist is a witness of the Gospel, but by no means is he the one who is getting people saved. God does the saving. Or, sometimes an evangelist in his desire to get the crowds to come, or to get real interest in his work, may have to resort to a certain amount of showmanship, a certain amount of joke-telling and story-telling, and what have you, to keep his whole line interesting. And this again can very frequently empty the Gospel of its power. The presentation of the Gospel is serious business. It's a matter of heaven and hell, of life and death, of time and eternity. There is a tremendous amount at stake when the Gospel is being presented.
Some evangelists do a very competent job, and of course some do not. The best that you can do is try to learn what you can from any evangelist who comes in your church and forgive him for what is done very poorly. Every evangelist, like every pastor, like every prophet, has feet of clay. No one is going to do a perfect job.
But I have to agree with our caller that sometimes when someone comes, somewhat as an expert, you know, you bring someone in from the outside to have a series of meetings, and subconsciously we regard him as somewhat of an expert. Because he has been brought in, we expect something special, something extra great. And then when we get what does come we can get very disappointed, and particularly if it's in the area where the Bible is approached very superficially, or where it really becomes somewhat of a show-biz kind of a thing. We can really feel that we have not received what we have expected. And it takes very much patience and self-control in that kind of a situation.