Lutheran Vocational Evangelism

(An Evangelist is . . . )

The word evangelist comes from the word evangelism. Whereas evangelism is the system, practice or philosophy so to speak, an evangelist is one who participates in or practices the system. In other words, an evangelist is one who evangelizes. But we still have not answered the question of what is an evangelist.

The word evangelism simply means sharing the good news and in particular the good news of Jesus. An evangelist is one who shares the good news of Jesus.

It is said that 90% of people are witnesses and only about 10% are truly evangelists. Whoever said that must have been attempting to make those who fail to share the good news feel good about themselves because the Bible tells us that we are all witnesses and we are all truly evangelists. It is just that sometimes we are not good evangelists.

When we understand that a witness is one who sees (an eyewitness) and then bears witness of what they saw (perhaps in a court of law), and when we understand that with the eyes of faith we see Jesus in His Word and Sacraments and then bear witness of what we see in our lives through our thoughts, our words and our actions, we then truly understand we are all witnesses and evangelists.

But again, very often we are bad witnesses and evangelists especially when we refuse and reject seeing Jesus by absenting ourselves from where He is, reading our Bible, attending Divine Service and so on and when our lives are lived in a way that is not in line with what we see in our Bible. Thanks be to God there is forgiveness, and very often our Lord can and does work even in spite of us and through our poor witnessing efforts.

You are a witness and you are an evangelist, not necessarily only by what you say, but by what you do, how you live, and as you are asked and as you are given the words to speak, by what you say. The rest, the giving of faith is not your work, but that of the Holy Spirit. So, after giving our witness through our words and actions of evangelism, we leave the rest to the Lord.

9 of 52    © Rev. Dr. Ronald A. Bogs (2018)