In Ephesians 4:11, the apostle Paul says God has given ‘SOME to be apostles, SOME to be prophets, SOME to be evangelists and SOME to be pastors and teachers’. The inference is, not all of God’s people are evangelists. But what does this mean?
To begin with, God has not gifted all Christians with identical gifts. As passages such as 1 Cor 12 and Rom 12 tell us, God has given different gifts to each Christian. We are called to use our God given gifts for the good of the body of Christ. Yet not everyone has the gift of evangelism.
We know of two evangelists in the NT; Philip (Acts 21:8) and Timothy (2 Tim 4:5), who were both set aside to travel around proclaiming the gospel (evangelising) to non-Christians. A modern-day equivalent could be missionaries or itinerant preachers, who are specifically commissioned for the particular task of proclaiming the gospel. Not every Christian is so gifted.
However, just because a Christian does not have the spiritual gift of ‘evangelism’ does not mean they do not need to evangelise? As the Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15, ALL Christians are to ‘always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’. All Christians are charged with being able to explain the gospel to someone who asks. Furthermore, the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20) is to ‘make disciples of all nations’. Since this is yet to be accomplished, it still stands for Christians everywhere.
Therefore, while you and I may not be specially gifted for evangelism, we are still called by God to help make new disciples. At Earlwood Anglican we do this by PRAYING for non-Christians, INVITING them to church events, and ENGAGING them in the word by explaining the gospel to them (P.I.E.). Let us make sure we are doing our part for the Great Commission.
