Here’s a follow up to
my recent post in the Evangelism Series on the office of evangelist:
In his exposition of
Ephesians 4:11, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones reaches a similar conclusion (from Christian Unity: An Exposition of Ephesians 4:1 to 16
[Baker Books, 1980]):
If any are surprised that I place the evangelist and his
office in the same extraordinary and temporary category as the apostles and
prophets, the probability is that they are thinking of an evangelist in terms
of the modern use of the term. This is
something essentially different from its use in the New Testament, where we are
not told much about the evangelists.
Philip, who is mentioned in the eighth chapter of the Book of Acts, was
an evangelist. He is mentioned again in
the twenty-first chapter. It is quite
clear also that Timothy and Titus are evangelists. The Apostle Paul reminds Paul to do the work
of an evangelist. It seems clear from
these references that an evangelist was a very special man who was in close
association with the apostles…. The evangelist
is a man who had been given special ability and power to make known, and to
expound, the facts of the Gospel.
Generally, he was a man appointed by the apostles themselves, and can be
described as a kind of understudy to the apostles. He was one sent by the apostles to do a given
work. Sometimes he was sent ahead of the
apostles, as Philip was sent to Samaria, but generally, he followed the
apostles…..
This does not mean that there have not been men since then,
and in the Church today, who are given a special call to preach the Gospel in a
particular way and manner, but strictly speaking they are not evangelists in
the New Testament sense of the word. It would
be better to call them ‘exhorters’, as they were called at the time of the
evangelical awakening of the eighteenth century (pp. 191-192).
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