Luke 4:18-19 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; (19) to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
As with all the ministry gifts there are also various classes of the ministry gift of the evangelist. As we will see in this section, there are two classes within the ministry gift of the evangelist. We have already seen that the Lord Jesus Christ heads up each ministry gift category, and in each category He is in a class of His own. We know that the main message of the gospel is the message of salvation (Romans 1:16), and as we will see in this section, the primary message that the evangelist preaches is the message of salvation. In the scripture quoted above our Lord Jesus said of Himself, that He was anointed to preach the gospel, and as such He is therefore the pre-eminent evangelist in the church. And so we see that the first class of evangelist in the church is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 21:8 “On the next day we who were Paul's companions departed and came to Caesarea, and entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.”
This brings us to the second class of evangelist, which is the class of evangelist that exists in the church today. There are no foundational evangelists in the church, for that class of ministry only pertained to the ministries of the apostle and the prophet. We saw earlier in this teaching that the Lord Jesus listed the ministry gifts in order of their importance to the church, which would mean that the evangelist is classified as the third most important ministry gift in the church. So why is that? As I have already mentioned, one who is called as an evangelist is called to preach the gospel of salvation. This is the main and almost exclusive message that they are anointed to preach. It is only through the preaching of the gospel that people are brought into the kingdom of God, and it is for this reason that the evangelist’s ministry is ranked above the pastor and teacher in order of importance. For it is more important for people to be saved than to be shepherded and taught. Don’t misunderstand me on this point. I am not saying that shepherding and teaching are unimportant, for they most definitely are. What I am saying is that being saved is more important than shepherding and teaching, and it is for that reason that the Lord lists the evangelist above the pastor and teacher in order of importance. As revealed in the above quoted passage of scripture, Philip is the only biblical example of the ministry of an evangelist. Someone said, but didn’t Paul refer to Timothy as an evangelist? Paul instructed Timothy to do the work of an evangelist, i.e. to preach the gospel to the unsaved (2 Timothy 4:5). That same instruction is applicable to all ministry gifts, for all are meant to preach the gospel to the unsaved. Nevertheless if you study scripture you will see that Timothy stood in the office of prophet, for his ministry was to travel around to the churches to strengthen them in the faith. And so the fact that there is only one example of an evangelist, gives us an indication that there are not many that are called to stand in this office.
Michael E.B. Maher
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