The gift of the evangelist is a most precious
one. I know in some quarters it is thought to be simple, and is
sometimes looked down upon for that reason. It is remarkable then,
to see the place the Lord gives to the evangelist when it is a
question of what is for the blessing and good of the Assembly: “he
has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists,
and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints;
with a view to [the] work of [the] ministry, with a view to the
edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4: 11, 12). Why is the
evangelist in the list? Because if you had no evangelists the
Assembly would not grow! Do you look down on the gift? The
evangelist is full of the Gospel, and the Gospel is the revelation
of the heart of God, and what can be higher than that? It is the
unfolding of the testimony about God’s Son, and the object of the
evangelist is to bring souls to Him, and thus, as a consequence,
into the Assembly. The evangelist is a man who busies himself with
souls. He has a burning love for them, and an unquenchable thirst
for their salvation. His object is to by all means to win the soul
for Christ and yet, mark you, if he is labouring in a Scriptural
way, he will be working out from the bosom of the Assembly. He is of
the Assembly. His work, therefore, though in no way
in the Assembly, goes out
from the Assembly. The
soul that is led to the Lord becomes a member of His body, and, when
all was in its Scriptural order, would be found amongst the gathered
saints. And despite the disorder introduced by man, the order of the
Lord remains. The evangelist should be like a pair of compasses with
one leg fixed and the other sweeping all round as far as it can
reach. If his work is to be successful, not only in conversion but
in edifying the body, then the evangelist must have a fixed leg,
that is, he remembers he is of the Assembly, and works out from, and
returns to it. Too many evangelists look upon their work as a sort
of guerrilla warfare. They are spiritual sharpshooters, free–lances,
delighting in being ‘unattached’. In all such, man’s will is
working. They are like a man who brings out a lot of stones from a
quarry, and having got them into the road, has no place to build
them into—no building to fit them in. You would say of all such that
they are loose, careless workmen. Thus I ought to have a definite
object before me in preaching the Gospel: first, to bring the soul
to Christ, and, second, to put it into its right niche in God’s
Assembly on earth. It is not that the evangelist may always be used
in this. Others have to be satisfied as to the reality of the fruit
of his work.
The wise evangelist will not in any way press
the apparent fruit of his labour into the Assembly—and I am speaking
now of those truly gathered according to the principles of it. In my
judgment, he would be very lacking in wisdom if he did so because
the evangelist, from the very nature of his gift, is a warm–hearted,
hopeful man, led much by his own fervency of spirit. Look at Philip,
who is the only man in the Bible called “the evangelist” (Acts 21:
8). In Acts 8 what is he doing? Preaching Christ, seeking
conversions, turning the city upside down, and longing for the
apostles to come and visit. He was admitting many outwardly to the
house of God on earth by baptism. He had baptised Simon the sorcerer
on a confession of faith, and would doubtless have let him into
fellowship with the saints had it not been for Peter. I have no
doubt Philip thought he had caught a great fish when he heard that
“Simon also himself believed” (v13), but as the after history
showed he had not got him. It needed the calm discernment of Peter
to show the real position of Simon, and very sad it was: “Thou hast
neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not upright
before God” (v21).
What should the evangelist do when he gets the
soul converted? He should introduce him to the Assembly, though not
necessarily bring him into it. Others should do that. It is well to
let others judge of the reality and soundness of God’s work in the
soul. They are responsible to do so. Perhaps, you say, the
evangelist should now teach the new convert. No, the one gifted as a
teacher should teach him. I quite admit that owing to the ruin of
the Assembly the evangelist often has to teach, but it is not his
proper work. Owing to the ruin and failure of the Assembly many of
the gifted servants of God do not do the part for which they are
fitted. They have been dislocated from their true functions by the
purely human organisations with which Christendom abounds, and in
which the free activity of the Holy Spirit in the members of
Christ’s body is hindered by what man calls ‘the ministry’. Many
are, in their timidity, afraid in case they trespass upon the office
and work of those whom they may regard as specially called to
minister in the things of God—a ministry to which these silent ones
have also been called, but to which they are not, from what is
called ‘order’—man’s order—responding.
How beautiful, by contrast, is the divine
order in God’s Assembly! The evangelist reaches the soul, and brings
him to the gateway of the Assembly. He leaves those who are already
in the Assembly to assess the convert, and, if confident of him, to
receive him into the fellowship—for it is the Assembly, as a whole
that receives. Each and all composing it are responsible—not only
the labourers, or those who may commend souls that seek admission.
When the young convert, judged to be born of God and indwelt of the
Spirit, is admitted, he is to be instructed. That is where the
pastors and teachers come in. Let us beware of keeping souls out of
the Assembly until they have as much intelligence as those within.
Such a thought is very common, and some saints have the strange idea
that all such should be kept outside until they have got a certain
amount of intelligence. That shows how little intelligence they have
themselves, and how little they really know the mind of the Lord,
because when a child is born, it needs a great deal of nursing,
attention, and care. Now the Assembly, if in a right state, is just
the place to find all this. It is the spot to which the new–born
soul is rightly led by the evangelist, in the expectation that
there, if anywhere, will be found plenty of nurses who are glad to
foster and help on the infant life given of God. Would that we saw
more of this! Thus may the Lord help every evangelist, cheer them,
and encourage them, and increase their number a thousand–fold. If
you are wise, and really “walking in the fear of the Lord” (Acts 9:
31) you too will help them by every means in your power.
