And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.

Hey listeners, this is Nick from Scripture Central, and today's podcast addresses the question,

What is an evangelist?

In organizing the New Testament Church,

multiple offices and callings were established by Jesus Christ and his apostles.

One of these callings was that of an evangelist,

Ewanjolistas in Greek.

However, this calling is only mentioned explicitly three times throughout the New Testament,

and Paul never directly described what it entailed. The first century context behind this word,

as well as modern revelation, may help clarify what an evangelist did. What can immediately be

ascertained from the New Testament is that, although only briefly

mentioned, the calling of an evangelist was a critical part of church organization. As Paul stated,

Christ gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers

to lead the church.

Based on this verse, Joseph Smith likewise declared,

We believe in the same organization that existed in the primitive church,

namely apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

Another important piece of information about the meaning of the word

Eangelisites comes from the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. In the Septuagint,

the word evangelist is frequently used to denote literally a messenger-bearing good news, and it can

be used in a variety of contexts.

This understanding was likely shared to some degree by the early Christian church.

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