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(you will need Windows
Media Player, to hear Dave's Greeting) |
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God has given to the church leadership
to help bring us to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ.” That leadership is found in Ephesians 4:11, “He gave some
apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors
and teachers.” The apostles and prophets do not exist today. When
the Word of God was finished, there was no further need for the direct
revelation of God through the mouths of men, so today we have no need
of apostles and prophets. What do exist today are evangelists and
pastor/teachers. The other office mentioned here is the evangelist.
This is the calling that God has laid on my life, so if you will humor
me I will take a few minutes and walk through what I believe the Biblical
evangelist really is. I don’t think that the standard idea of an evangelist,
someone traveling around in an RV, preaching a few days or a week
of meetings and hitting the road to the next church, really fits the
Biblical model. Also, it is not really consistent exegesis to define
the apostles, prophets and pastors based on a broader Biblical model,
and limit the ministry of the evangelist to just that of a strict
application of the literal definition of his title. The Bible does
not tell us a great amount about the evangelist, but I think it does
give us information about what he did. I believe that many of Paul’s
companions, including Timothy, Titus, Silas, Epaphras and Epaphroditus
were evangelists. For simplicity’s sake I will not examine all of
these men, but let me look deeper at why I believe Titus was an evangelist.
First, Titus did not hold any of the other offices stated in Ephesians
4:11, he was not an apostle, or a prophet, I think we all would agree
on that. Some have suggested that Titus was a pastor, but the Titus
we see in the New Testament does not fit the Biblical model for a
pastor. Consider the brevity of time Titus spent in ministry at Crete.
Paul wrote the letter to Titus when he was at Crete in 63 AD. At that
time Titus was charged with doing certain things in the ministry there.
From that book many people have assumed that Titus was a pastor. However,
when Paul wrote to Titus, Titus had only been there for a short while,
probably a few months. The very next year, 64 AD, Paul tells Timothy
in 2 Timothy 4:15 that Titus is now in Dalmatia. That means that Titus
was at the church in Crete less than two years. Even by modern standards
of short term pastors that is a very brief span of time. More than
that, at the end of the Epistle to Titus, Paul told Titus to come
to Nicopolis. I can hardly imagine Paul calling a new pastor to leave
the church to travel with him. What little the Bible reveals about
the duration of pastoral ministry shows a much longer stay than less
than two years. In Acts we see James as the elder of the church in
Jerusalem for most of the apostolic era. We also see in Acts, Ephesian
elders that Paul has called to him to give them further instruction
and then has sent them right back to the ministry they were serving
in. I see nothing in Titus that indicates Titus was the pastor of
the church, but instead I see plainly that Titus was given a specific
task to fulfill in those churches before moving to other ministries.
That having been said, what was Titus then? The only Biblical identifier
left is “evangelist.”
I want to attempt to lay a Biblical framework
from which we can hang a new understanding of evangelism. From Ephesians
4 we can clearly define some features of the office of evangelist
beginning with the source of the ministry: the church and gifts of
Christ. The evangelist cannot operate outside the bounds or functions
of the body of Christ, but must function within its shelter and guidance.
The office of evangelist is something gifted by God, through His Holy
Spirit, according to the gifts of Christ. The evangelist must build
his ministry on the gifting of God, for it is a ministry that requires
supernatural power to perform. From the source of ministry we have
to consider the purpose of the ministry: to completely equip the saints
for the work of the ministry so that they may go out and do that which
God has called them to do. The evangelist is not just doing ministry,
he is training others to do ministry. The evangelist is to edify the
body of Christ, so that this wonderful congregation that Christ has
formed is built up. The function of the evangelist is not that of
a demolition expert who blows up and leaves a mess for someone else
to clean up but a builder who works to carefully renovate, remodel
or rebuild the congregation. This means blowing up has to be matched
with binding up. Exhortation and rebuke have to be paired with training
and instruction. The evangelist of today is an ordained minister sent
out under the authority of a local church who goes to different churches
to provide essential assistance to their ministry. This assistance
is primarily in the understanding and application of the Word of God.
Generally, the evangelist would go to a church to meet a specific
need rather than just performing a generic ministry of the Word. This
need may be as an interim pastor, an assistant for a crucial period
of time, conflict resolution, pulpit supply, training other pastor
and staff or to instruct the congregation on a specific truth. The
evangelist is to work so that Christians are brought to maturity and
enabled to stand firm in the midst of false doctrine, unswayed by
the myriad winds of deceit. In the end the purpose of the evangelist’s
ministry is that each believer be drawn into closer obedience to Christ,
fully submitted to His provision, direction and working. But a builder
who works to carefully renovate, remodel or rebuild the congregation.
This means blowing up has to be matched with binding up. Exhortation
and rebuke have to be paired with training and instruction. The evangelist
of today is an ordained minister sent out under the authority of a
local church who goes to different churches to provide essential assistance
to their ministry. This assistance is primarily in the understanding
and application of the Word of God. Generally, the evangelist would
go to a church to meet a specific need rather than just performing
a generic ministry of the Word. This need may be as an interim pastor,
an assistant for a crucial period of time, conflict resolution, pulpit
supply, training other pastor and staff or to instruct the congregation
on a specific truth. The evangelist is to work so that Christians
are brought to maturity and enabled to stand firm in the midst of
false doctrine, unswayed by the myriad winds of deceit. In the end
the purpose of the evangelist’s ministry is that each believer be
drawn into closer obedience to Christ, fully submitted to His provision,
direction and working. |
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