Evangelization and the Evangelists
Scott Lyons
3/19/2008

Traditionally the writers of the Gospels are called “the Evangelists.” Tradition, on the other hand, has not given us “St. Paul the Evangelist.” This seems odd given Paul’s apostleship, his great missionary journeys and zeal, and his establishment of so many churches. Certainly Paul was (and is) one of the greatest of all evangelists. And yet it is not St. Paul who is remembered as “the Evangelist.”

The four Gospels are evangelistic (more than that, to be sure). Indeed, the English word gospel is the most common translation for the Greek word euangelion, from which we derive our words evangelist and evangelization. Perhaps this is an exercise in the obvious, but consider the implications, the purpose of the writers of the four Gospels. St. John the Evangelist comes out and says it: “The disciples saw Jesus do many other miraculous signs in addition to the ones recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name” (John 20:30,31). The Gospels are written not that we might have a record of all that Christ said and did; they are not simply a biographical or historical record—and certainly not an exhaustive one at that—but they are written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

And it is for this reason that the timeless appellation is given: The Evangelists.

John says elsewhere that the world could not contain it all—the account of all that Jesus said and did. What kind of proclamation is this from the disciple whom Jesus loved, from this aquiline evangelist? Is it simply hyperbole? I don’t believe so. Even in our age of information where we can compress text into so little space—on a CD for instance—even in this age, the world could not contain all that Jesus said and did. For Christ is the perfect icon of the Father: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” And if Christ reveals the Father, whom the universe cannot contain, then John is not exaggerating.

Now to call the Gospel writers “the Evangelists” is not to say that others have not been known as such. All who proclaim Christ are evangelists; all who are called are called to be evangelists. And traditionally many have been given this title. But it says something that it is the Gospel writers who have kept the appellation.

So what does this exposition on who is and who is not called evangelist have to do with evangelization? It is simply this: The Gospels uniquely reveal Christ. The hype we sell our young people does not make them evangelists. Bracelets, Christian music and books, necklaces, T-shirts that are takeoffs of popular advertisements, magnetic fish, and bumper stickers—none of these help us show the world Christ. Though not necessarily wrong, and some are quite good (especially for personal exhortation), such things do not proclaim Christ. They only identify us as “one of those Christians” (often negatively so), or serve to identify us to those who already believe as we do. And to tell the world we are Christians is not our purpose. Our purpose is to show the world Christ, to let the world encounter Christ in the mercy and compassion of grace-filled words and lives. Our purpose is to make Christ known to everyone, and that is why we must love one another, love the least among us, love our enemy. The world will not be wooed by the Christian version of whatever it is that the world already has in spades. The world will be wooed by what it does not have: the love of Christ.