It seems to me that the word “Evangelical” is used often these days to describe people who are perhaps not actually Evangelical, so lets have quick a look at this word, and see what It means.
The word Evangel is another word for “good news” as is the word “Gospel” the good news is the Gospel of The Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, an Evangelical is one who is “Of the Gospel”.
The Gospel is found in the Bible and a true Evangelical has a particular view of the Bible, an Evangelical believes the Bible is the way it describes itself.
So how does the Bible describe itself?
Let’s look in a couple of places, firstly in 2 Timothy 3:16.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God” yes, a true Evangelical believes this.
But there’s more 2 Peter 1:21 “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
These are just two of the many verses in The Bible on the subject of authorship, which should leave us in no doubt that the author of The Bible is God Himself.
So another title for the Bible is “God’s Word”, God’s message to Human kind and to people individually.
Now the Gospel of John begins with “In the beginning was the Word” and a bit later “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”.
So now we see that The Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour and King Himself is described as The Word of God. So, what did He have to say about the Bible, He says of the scriptures of the time, that which we now know as The Old Testament, “these are they which testify of Me”.
But what is the good news? Jesus said “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”.
Or to put it another way “You don’t have to die!”
An Evangelical is a person of the good news, The good news is The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
If the propagation of the Gospel isn’t some people’s primary concern and they have other priorities then perhaps they are not Evangelicals after all.
What is an Evangelical?
