The Distinguishing Marks of an Authentic Evangelist

Author: Michael Gott

Essentially, there are two and, I believe, only basically two distinguishing marks of an authentic evangelist.

It is someone, first, with an anointing and, second, under an authority  Therefore, let’s consider—

With an Anointing—that is, someone touched by the Holy Spirit and supernaturally gifted to do this important and vital work of the evangelist.  This person is “set apart” and sovereignly selected by God.

Bob Dunnett of England says, “The outpouring of the Holy Spirit had a major effect on the early church—a band of very powerful individual evangelists emerged.  They were men who were ‘born in the fire,’ and they inevitably ‘carried the fire.’”

Other people often recognize all this before the person who has it does!  That’s very intriguing to me.  But there is a special and a unique touch of God on all authentic evangelists.  They are selected by God and anointed to do this ministry.  And this should produce humility because we had very little to do with it.  It was in the mind of God before the earth was formed.
 
Under an Authority—All true evangelists submit to the Lordship of Christ and publicly wear a yoke of willing submission.  They yield all and are, as a result, full of the Holy Spirit.  They bow down before Him with a spirit of total surrender and make their lives completely available to Him.  He is Lord!  Reformer John Calvin commented, “There is nothing holier, or better, or safer, than to content ourselves with the authority of Christ alone."

The result is personal holiness of life.  Pride, then, is an abomination to the life of an evangelist.  Walter J. Chantry is correct to point out “to ambitious men nothing is so surprising as the humility of the Lord Jesus.”

But there is another authority, an unapologetic submitting to the Word of God.  The true evangelist says by faith, “This is your Word, Lord.  I will not doubt it but declare it!”  True evangelists will not sit in judgement on it but allow it to judge them first and then all who hear them preach.  I have never met an effective evangelist who, when he took the Bible in his hand, did not by faith accept and believe it completely and without question.

Alexander MacLaren said, “He who has the Holy Spirit in his heart and the Scriptures in his hand has all he needs.”  Augustine adds, “If you believe what you like in the Bible, and reject what you like, it is not the Bible you believe but yourself!”

"Everything a true evangelist does, then, is based on those two distinguishing factors.  A lot more could be said, and these points could be emphasized and expanded, but essentially that’s it in summary.  We cannot evangelize unless we understand the Word; and we cannot evangelize unless we understand the world.”  (Donald Macleod)
 
There is a wonderful illustration from the great game of baseball.  Just as in baseball there are “throwers” and pitchers.  Now, a thrower is someone with a good arm and a raw, innate ability, but this person does not understand what pitching really is all about.  On the other hand, a true pitcher understands the art of pitching.  He has some ability, but more importantly he possesses insights into what he is trying to do and why.  He is a student of baseball.

Using that word picture, all evangelists need to be pitchers, not throwers!  We need to understand what is behind all we do!  Will Metzger is quite right, “If we think wrongly about our definition of evangelism, we are likely to act wrongly in our methods of evangelism,” or to say it in another way, consider this:  If we are unsure of our definition of evangelism, we will be unstable in our doing of evangelism.  We need to think and then bow before the Lord with a wholesome biblical understanding.

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