By Thomas P. Johnston
- 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.'"
Advertisement
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?
__________________
Thomas
P. Johnston is Assistant Professor of Evangelism at Midwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Kansas City, MO.
__________________
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.