‘Evangelist’ comes from εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, ‘to evangelize’ or ‘publish good tidings,’ a verb which is fairly common in the Septuagint , and is very frequent in the writings of St. Luke and in the Epistles, especially the four great Epistles of St. Paul. This verb is derived from εὐαγγέλιον, ‘good tidings,’ especially the good tidings of the evangel or gospel. ‘Evangelist’ is found in only three passages in the Bible. Philip, one of the Seven, is so called in one of the ‘we’ sections of Acts (Acts 21:8), which may mean that he was the evangelist out of the Seven, i.e. the only one, or far the best. Again, St. Paul, in his list of five kinds of ministers which have been given by Christ to His Church (Ephesians 4:11), places ‘evangelists’ after ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets’ and before ‘pastors’ and ‘teachers’; and ‘evangelists’ may be classed with the two groups which precede, ‘Apostles, prophets, and evangelists’ were itinerant ministers, preaching wherever they found a door opened to them, while ‘pastors and teachers’ were attached to some congregation or locality. Philip was a travelling missionary. He went from Jerusalem to preach in Samaria, was on the road to Gaza when he converted the eunuch, was afterwards at Azotus (Ashdod), ‘and passing through he preached the gospel to all the cities, till he came to Caesarea’ (Acts 8:5; Acts 8:26; Acts 8:40). Possibly prophets commonly preached to believers, evangelists to unbelievers, while apostles addressed either. This would agree with the frequently quoted dictum, that ‘every apostle is an evangelist, but not every evangelist is an apostle.’ There is at any rate some evidence that those who acted as missionaries to the heathen were called evangelists. The word itself points to this-‘publishers of good tidings.’ It is when the first Christians were ‘scattered abroad, and went about preaching the word’ after the martyrdom of Stephen, that the verb ‘to publish the good tidings’ is often used by St. Luke (Acts 8:4; Acts 8:12; Acts 8:25; Acts 8:35; Acts 8:40). and Philip ‘the evangelist’ is one of these preachers. An evangelist would know the gospel narrative thoroughly, and would be capable of explaining it, as Philip did to the eunuch. But we need not suppose that Ephesians 4:11 gives us five orders of ministers specially appointed to discharge live different kinds of duties. No such organization existed. The distinction of ministry lay in the work that was done by individual workers, and that depended on their personal gifts, which often overlapped (Westcott, Ephesians, 1906, pp. 169-171). Philip was called ‘the evangelist’ because of his good work in preaching to the heathen. The third passage is 2 Timothy 4:5, where Timothy is charged to ‘do the work of an evangelist’ in addition to his other duties. He is in charge of the Church at Ephesus in place of St. Paul; but he is not to omit the work of endeavouring to convert unbelievers.

‘Evangelist,’ rare in the NT, is not found in the Apostolic Fathers or in the Didache. The use of the word for a writer of a Gospel is later, and the use for one who read the gospel in public worship is perhaps later still. When the reader (ἀναγνώστης or lector), an official first mentioned by Tertullian (de Prœscr. 41), expounded what he read, he resembled the evangelists of apostolic times; but the latter had no written gospel to expound; they expounded the oral gospel, which they knew by heart. The description of them given by Eusebius (HE ^{[Note: E Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.).]} iii. 37), though somewhat rhetorical, is worthy of quotation.

‘They preached the gospel more and more widely and scattered the saving seeds of the Kingdom of Heaven broadly throughout the whole world. For, indeed, very many of the disciples of that time (i.e. disciples of the apostles), whose soul had been stricken by the Divine Word with a more ardent love for philosophy (i.e. the ascetic life), had previously fulfilled the Saviour’s injunction by distributing their possessions to the needy. Then setting out on long Journeys they performed the duty of evangelists, being eager to preach Christ to those who had never yet heard anything of the word of faith, and to pass on to them the Scripture of the Divine, Gospels. These men were content with simply laying foundations of the faith in various foreign places, and then appointed others as pastors, entrusting them with the husbandry of those newly reclaimed, while they themselves went on again to Other countries and nations with the grace and co-operation of God.

Harnack (Mission and Expansion of Christianity², 1908, i. 321 n. ^{[Note: . note.]} ) thinks that ‘evangelists’ has been inserted in Ephesians 4:11 into the usual list of ‘apostles, prophets, and teachers’ because this circular Epistle is addressed to churches which had been founded by missionaries who were not apostles; also (p. 338) that ‘evangelists’ were not placed next to the ‘apostles,’ because the combination ‘apostles and prophets’ was too well established to be disturbed. There was no such close connexion between ‘prophets’ and ‘teachers.’ The shortness of the list of gifted and given persons in Ephesians 4:11 as compared with the three lists in 1 Corinthians 12 may be taken as evidence that the regular exercise of extraordinary gifts was already dying out. Yet in the short list in Ephesians 4:11 there are two items which are not found in any of the oilier lists, viz. ‘evangelists’ and ‘pastors.’

Literature.-In addition to the works quoted, see J. H. Bernard on 2 Timothy 4:5 (The Pastoral Epistles [Camb. Gr. Test. 1899]); R. J. Knowling on Acts 21:8 in Expositor’s Greek Testament , 1900; P. Batiffol, Primitive Catholicism, Eng. translation , 1911, p. 51; articles in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , Hastings’ Single-vol. Dictionary of the Bible , Dict. of Christ and the Gospels , and Encyclopaedia Biblica .

A. Plummer.

Bibliography Information
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Evangelist'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/e/evangelist.html. 1906-1918.

Bible Dictionaries Evangelist

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

Bible Dictionaries
Evangelist