THE 5-FOLD EVANGELIST
I grew up on evangelists. At four or five, Ah been down to the river and Ah been baptized (or to the baptistry, anyway. No river in Hayward, California.) Raised Baptist — 5 different kinds by the time I got kicked when a senior in high school.
They came regular as clockwork. All my life, I thought they came because God called ’em to our church — then I found out they were regular as clockwork because churches put them on the annual church calendar. And whichever one came, they all sounded alike. Oh, their sermons had different titles like “And Jesus said, ‘Come!’” or “Are you Goin’ to be a Rapture Saint or a Tribulashun Sinner?” or “The Roman Road of Salvation”, &c.

Most were not quiet. Somehow, getting loud and yelling made their presentations more effective. At least, it made them different from our regular preachers who were generally more quiet and decidedly more boring.
There were two major distinctions: (1) the evangelist who wanted you to bring your friends so they could hear the Gospel Preached and get saved, and (2) the evangelist who wanted you to learn a Method to use on your friends so they could hear the Gospel from YOU and get saved and start coming to church. Both kinds had some kind of Method to walk a person through to get them saved.
The worst evangelists were the ones who taught you their Method then set up Thursday night in the local park or downtown (we had no malls in those days), and pushed you out with another person (the Bible says Jesus “sent them out, two by two” so we had to go in twos, not threes and certainly NOT in fours), and you had to find people and practice on them. If you accidentally got someone saved, you had to come on Friday night, and the three of you would have to stand up front while everybody clapped and cheered. Of course, at the end of Friday night, however many “came forward” during the week or got saved in front of the hardware store were all counted to prove that he was an effective evangelist. From 20 to 30 saved and you can bet he got invited back the following year. Less than 5 and he got to keep the offerings for the week.
Definition of an Evangelist: a person who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, especially by public preaching.
Now in Eph 4.11, it mentions that Jesus gave “five gifts to the Body of Christ” — “evangelist” is one of them. Typically, this person, mentioned in the Bible, is called a “5-fold evangelist”. Nowhere does the Bible tell us what a “5-fold evangelist” is but it does say of all five “gifts”, that they’re given to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ [in love]”.
I’ve seen a lot of “5-fold evangelists” and isn’t it understandable that every one of them look like the evangelists I was raised on? Either (1) kind or (2) kind, but mostly (2).
I like to be precise. I figure if there are “evangelists” and then there are “5-fold evangelists”, there ought to be a difference other than charging 5 times as much or shouting 5 times as loud. Gotta be some sort of real difference.
So I look at the word “evangelist” in a Greek dictionary (the New Testament was originally mostly written in Greek.) It’s actually the same word. “Evangelist” comes from “evanggelizo” and “evanggelizo” comes from the word “evanggelion” which is the word translated “Gospel” but which actually means “Good News”. So, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is actually the Good News of Jesus Christ (which is actually only mentioned once in the Bible.)
An evangelist is someone somehow related to good news. When I first learned this, I wondered why so many I’d listened to preached on hellfire which struck me as really, really NOT Good News.
I’m going to slide into another definition of evangelist — one related to not only Good News, but Great News! I don’t believe people “get saved” by having someone win an argument with them. Personally, I believe people “get saved” by God talking to them. Privately. Inside. DEEP inside.
That’s what happened to my dad. He actually met Jesus one morning (coming off a drunk — Dad, not Jesus) and what Jesus said to him convinced him instantly that Jesus loved him and that He was his best friend. He drove back home and started reading the gospels and after a little difficulty (he had trouble believing Jesus could really be a Jew) he came to know and love Jesus is a way (without church) that literally transformed his life.
I think what Dad experienced is normal — that there’s a lot of people who deep inside already believe God exists and that He’s a GOOD God (a rewarder of anyone who wants to know Him), but they DON’T KNOW IT. It’s there, inside, but they don’t know who Jesus is. So along comes someone who’s supernaturally gifted to discern those people who are already in God but don’t know it yet, talks to them about the Great News that what they know inside is really Jesus and He’s ALREADY started to do good things in their lives, and — BAM! — they start growing up spiritually like they didn’t know how to before.
What’s different about my idea of a “5-fold evangelist”? (a) They don’t get anybody “saved” (and they don’t try to), (b) they have the gift to discern people who ALREADY know God but just don’t know what they know, and (c) they have the gift of leading them into a closer familiarity with God whom they know and Jesus whom they may NOT know anything about — yet.
This angle on evangelists doesn’t allow them to “take coup” (count how many people they “saved”) and is a lot more relational (not slam, bam, get ’em in church then take off…)
And looking back at that Eph 4.11 verse which says the 5-fold evangelist equips the saints for the work of THEIR ministry for the building up of the body of Christ [in love], my idea would mean that the 5-fold evangelist is able to share his special gift with everybody else so that they, too, can begin to discern people who are ready to know more about the God Who they’ve met but don’t know too much about! Everybody becomes equipped to be a carrier of Great News to people hungry to know more about God!
Em
