Evangelism Ministry
One of the peculiar difficulties encountered when you
intensely study the scriptures and seek to get at the core and intent of the
original writings we have in our bibles is that – in the New Testament at least
– Ancient Greek and Modern English are not particularly tidy bed-fellows. My wife, though hearing, is very proficient
in Auslan, the sign language of the Australian Deaf community. Like sign languages the world over, it is a
language in its own right, with its own structure and grammar and nuances. Working as I do with New Testament Greek and
having my wife nearby working in Auslan, I have found that it is often easier
and more effective to translate New Testament Greek into Auslan because the
basic language rules are more similar than between the Greek and today’s
English.
One of the areas where this is evident is those places
in New Testament Greek where a noun is simply put into a verb form. In English, we do it with some words, but not
all. And in some cases, if we do, the
result is clumsy and confusing. Let me
illustrate this using the five ecclesia leadership functions we are talking
about here. Apostle is a noun, but try
using it as a verb. Is ‘to apostle’ a
legitimate verb? Is apostling a
legitimate participle? Prophet is a
noun; prophecy is a noun; but prophesy is a verb. Teacher is a noun; teach is a verb; teaching
is a participle.
Pastor is a noun; in relatively recent times, pastor
has become a verb too; and pastoring is now a legitimate participle. In earlier times, the verb would have been
shepherd and the participle shepherding.
In Uganda where sheep are rare and cattle are a measure of wealth, the
word for pastor is not shepherd (herder of sheep) but cowherd (herder of
cattle).
But what about the evangelist? It gets quite murky here. And one of the reasons it does gets
murky is that this word is not a
translation from Greek but a trans-literation:
English has simply Anglicised the Greek word and given it an English
meaning. For this reason, I am going to
spend a little time boring down into this word and some of its associated
words.
Let me begin by saying that ‘evangelist’ is the
Anglicised form of the Greek word euangelistas,
which is itself a composite word having a central root plus a suffix and a
prefix. The root word is angelos meaning messenger – one who is
sent to announce, like the ‘angel’ who came to Mary the mother of Jesus. The Greek angelia
is the message the messenger delivers; so the suffix is changed to form the
different parts of speech. On the other
hand, the prefix eu is Greek for
‘good’ or ‘glad’; so a euangelia is a
good message, good news, glad tidings.
Then when you take the emphasis off the message and put it back on the
messenger, what do you get? A
‘good-news-er’. There’s no such English
word, so we simply transliterate it
to ‘evangelist’.
In English, the words we have to communicate the idea
of the one who shares the good news as well as the act of sharing it are
transliterations to which we have given our choice of meaning and that choice
tends to be dictated by our particular choice of religious and theological
heritage.
For instance, one of the ways the Roman Catholic Church
in Australia uses the term ‘evangelist’ is to describe the writers of what we
call the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are the Evangelists. Whereas to some in the Protestant traditions,
an evangelist is an itinerant preacher with a message of heaven and hell – as
he or she defines them. To still others,
an evangelist is a teacher of the theology of salvation for those predestined
for it. And there are other definitions
besides.
And this is further complicated by the introduction of
yet another word into our English bibles: gospel. Many people simply translate the Greek euangelia with the English ‘gospel’, not
realising that ‘gospel’ is a seventeenth century Anglo-Saxon word inserted into
our English bibles specifically to imply a pre-determined meaning: what the
church traditionally understands as its ‘message’. Unfortunately, it became the word of choice
to describe and name the four accounts of the life of Jesus in our English New
Testaments: the Gospel of John for instance.
The original form of this word ‘gospel’ was godspell, which literally means “the story of God”.
We now have two separate things: the good news of
Jesus, and the church’s story of God.
And they have proven to be very different indeed. The church gets to define gospel, since that
word has no connection with or root to the New Testament documents. On the other hand, Jesus insists that the
real good news is “the good news of the kingdom of God” and apostle Paul is
adamant that ‘the good news’ is fixed and established as: 1) the revelation of
Jesus as the saviour of the world and
sole mediator between God and man; 2) that revelation uniquely given to him by
God: “For I would have you know brothers that the good news which was preached
by me is not according to man, for I neither received it from man, nor was I
taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”
This revelation given to Paul is the same thing Jesus
talked about as recorded in Matthew 24:14 – “And this good news of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in the whole
habitable world as a witness to all the nations, then shall come the end.” And again in Matthew in Matthew 28:19-20 –
“Make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all that I commanded you.”
This revelation is the one true ‘evangel’ – the one
true good news or glad tidings. All
others, according to Paul, are ‘different gospels’, distortions of the real
thing, having their source in the institutions and philosophies and religions
of man. And I have spent much time on
this subject in my work This Good News.
Having established what the good news is and that it
is not necessarily the same thing as the church’s gospel, can we now say that
the person who spreads abroad this good news is a “good-news-er”? And can we say that this “sower” is
“good-news-ing”? We draw on an image
from Jesus and suggest the ‘evangelist’ is “a farmer who goes out to sow seed”,
paying attention to sowing the seed in good soil that will produce a harvest. This,
of course, takes us to…
The How of Evangelism Ministry
The New Testament uses three main ideas to talk about
how the good news of the kingdom of God is spread around: proclaim; witness or
testify; and sow. Each has its own
unique Greek word.
Let me start with the last word – sow. In the previous few paragraphs, I have shown
that this is the main idea behind the verb form of the word for ‘good news’. When I was a teenager, a phrase commonly used
around our local assembly was ‘gossip the gospel’. We were taught that this means to be so
saturated with the good news that, as you go about your daily life, you will
take every opportunity to share the good news with those you touch and
influence. We were further taught that
there is wisdom in paying attention to Jesus’s story of the sower and the
places where the seed lands: hard ground, rocks, thorny bushes, good soil. And we were taught also to take note of
Jesus’ idea of not throwing your ‘pearls’ carelessly before ‘pigs’.
Those who ‘good-news’ in this way know and understand
and experience what the good news is because it has taken root in their own
lives. They can then judiciously sow it
into the ‘good soil’ of those around them God is preparing to receive the seed
and grow His kingdom in. The Greek word
for this is euangelizo: to sow the
seed; to gossip the gospel; to evangelise.
The second idea in the New Testament is contained
within the word we use when a person is called before a court to give evidence
or testimony in a matter before the court.
The Greek word is martureo: to
testify or to depose. From this word, we
get the English word martyr. Not all
martyrs died. The fact that many did
greatly influenced the English language to the extent that martyr came to mean
someone who died for their faith. Its
original meaning in relation to our study here is someone who gives good and
faithful testimony (or deposition) to the good news of the kingdom of God – for
which many have died horrible deaths.
Apostle Peter wrote this:
“Who is there to harm you if
you prove zealous for what is good? But
even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. AND
DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, but sanctify Christ as
Lord in your hearts, ever ready to make a defence
to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience
so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good
behavior in Christ will be put to shame.” (1 Peter 3:13-16)
When the good news of the kingdom of God has taken root
in you, it changes you to the core of your being. Among other things, your hope in life is
radically altered and may often seem strange, and you appear deluded because,
as apostle Paul noted, you are now dancing to a different drum; living
according to a different vision, one that is unseen to many around you.
Whatever else you do, the New Testament teaches us, be
ever-ready to give a good and sound defence for the hope that drives and
motivates you. Look at the examples of
Jesus and Paul and the other apostles, how they didn’t lapse into fear and
anguish when confronted with hostility but steadily sought the face and the
wisdom of the Father and bore good witness.
Jesus teaches his disciples, “But when they deliver you
up, do not become anxious about how or what you will speak; for it shall be
given you in that hour what you are to speak.” (Matthew 10:19) And consider Jesus’ own experience: “He who rejects me, and does not receive my
sayings, has one who judges him at the last day. For I did not speak on my own initiative, but
the Father Himself who sent me has given me commandment, what to say and what
to speak.” (John 12:48-49) I believe the
Father does the same for all His sons, not just His once-born, first-born Son.
The third idea in the New Testament is the Greek word kerygma or kerusso, meaning herald and proclamation or to herald or to proclaim. There are two parts to the central idea within this word. First, it contains the idea of the ancient town-crier. Before we had the printing machine and radio and television waves, men would take a bell and toll it to get the people’s attention, then loudly proclaim the news according to the script they were given. Second, it contains the idea of the runner. A marathon is called a marathon because the original one was a man who ran from Marathon in Greece to Athens, in 490 BC, to deliver the message that the battle at Marathon had been won.
The ‘angel’ heralded Jesus’ birth and John heralded the
public ministry of Jesus and the beginning of the good news of the kingdom of
God; Jesus is the first and the preeminent runner – he not only carries the
message, he is the message. The true ‘evangelist’ today may do either or
both, but the message remains the same: the good news of the kingdom of God in
Jesus – here and now.
The message – the ‘evangel’, the good news of the kingdom
of God – is fixed and established and doesn’t change. How it is delivered may very well change to
suit the situation or the people involved, but its substance and content
remains the same. That is why Paul was
so incensed that the Galatians were to hear Paul say, “I am amazed that you are
so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different
‘gospel’ which is really not good news at all.”
The ‘evangelist’, I believe, is both gifted and skilled
in all three forms: sowing the seed; bearing witness to Jesus and the truth
that sets men free; and heralding the good news of the kingdom of God. Paul’s solemn charge to Timothy applies well:
“Proclaim the logos; be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, warn,
encourage; with all long-suffering and teaching.” (2 Timothy 4:2)
One final word from Paul: “Do you not know that
those who perform sacred services eat of that temple; those who attend
regularly to the altar have their share with the altar? So also the Lord ordained that those sowing
the good news get their living from the good news.” (1 Corinthians 9:14)Next: the Pastoral ministry
No comments:
Post a Comment