Should Evangelize Be Translated Evangelize?

• Rom 1:15, "So, for my part, I am eager to evangelize you also who are in Rome."
• Rom 15:20, "And thus I aspired to evangelize, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man's foundation."
• 1 Cor 1:17, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to evangelize, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void."
• 1 Cor 9:16, "For if I evangelize, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not evangelize."
• 1 Cor 15:1-2, "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel by which I evangelized you, which you received, in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word by which you were evangelized, unless you believed in vain."
• 2 Cor 10:16, "So as to evangelize regions beyond you, and not to boast in what has been done in the sphere of another."
• Gal 1:8-9, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should evangelize you contrary to how we evangelized you, let him be anathema! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is evangelizing you contrary to what you received, let him be anathema!
• Gal 1:23, "but only, they kept hearing 'He who once persecuted us is now evangelizing the faith which he once tried to destroy.'"

It was incredible to me to see the impact of unearthing this one word in the Bible. I am amazed at how many times various persons in the Bible were involved in a ministry of itinerant evangelism, and of how many times the Apostle Paul and others addressed this important mandate!

But, you may ask, doesn't "preach the Gospel" mean the same thing as "evangelize"? Please consider Mark 16:15, which states, "And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." The original words for "preach the gospel" in this verse consist of three words "preach the gospel" — not "evangelize". If God had chosen to use "preach the gospel" (as in Mark 16:15) in every context that He used "evangelize," He could have. But He did not. He chose to use the verb "evangelize." If one believes in verbal inspiration (that every word is inspired by God, cf. Matt 5:18), then the conclusion for translation is quite clear — why not use evangelize to translate the Greek word evangelize?

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Thomas P. Johnston is Assistant Professor of Evangelism at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, MO.

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This column is provided on an occasional basis by the Proclamation Evangelism Network (PEN), which includes leaders of man of the nation’s key evangelistic and mission ministries.