CHAPTER 10 - ON MR. WOLFF'S CHAPTER 10, ABOUT EVANGELISTS

CHAPTER 10 — ON MR. WOLFF’S CHAPTER 10, ABOUT EVANGELISTS

After having, in support of election by men and ordination, assimilated the pastor to the bishop, Mr. Wolff puts on the same line and in the same condition the pastor and the evangelist, in order that the election and the ordination which he connects with the first may be indispensable for the second. The charges of evangelist and of pastors,” says Mr. Wolff, “are so much of the same nature ... that they may often be blended together, and that one may pass from one to the other,” etc. (page 44).

The grand principles having been discussed, I will try to be brief, on this point.

The author has placed himself here in a complete confusion, which I shall only have to point out.

First, Mr. Wolff will have it that those whom the Spirit of God calls apostles can be nothing but bishops or evangelists.

What connection is there between a bishop and an apostle or sent one? This it would be difficult to discover. Moreover it is a merely gratuitous assertion. I allow myself to consider as being apostles those whom the word of God calls apostles, that is, as having been especially sent by the Lord, although it may not have been, as to all of them, with the same authority.

Secondly, Mr. Wolff confounds the messengers of the churches (2 Corinthians 8: 23) with the messengers of Christ. As to the application of the other passages, it appears to me more than uncertain. When Paul says “us the apostles,” it does not mean, necessarily, Silvanus and Timothy, who were with him. Even if it be so (and I am not anxious to dispute it), it is never said that their functions were those of an evangelist.

Thirdly, as to 1 Corinthians 12: 28. In spite of Mr. Wolff’s assertion, the evangelist is not named here.

In fine, having done with this confusion, I acknowledge that the evangelist was a gift of God according to Ephesians 4: 11.

As to the vocation which, according to Mr. Wolff’s assertion, the evangelist receives from men, I stop here. We have seen that all, according to their ability, preached; and that the mere fact that Paul wished Timothy to accompany him does not shew that he was called to a special charge as evangelist, and shews still less that all evangelists had received a vocation from men.

^[p. 260] Paul tells Timothy to do the work of an evangelist; and this seems to me rather to contradict the idea that a special vocation as evangelist had existed long before. Timothy, at that moment, was a delegate of the apostle for a special object; and Paul exhorts him to do also the work of an evangelist. This is most simple, but agrees very little with the notion of an evangelist specially appointed to that. We have already considered sufficiently the case of Paul and Barnabas.

I admit that all those who bear testimony according to their ability, are not, properly speaking, evangelists. The evangelist is a gift (Ephesians 4: 11); but the imposition of hands on an evangelist is never mentioned, either as necessary for his work, or in any respect whatever. We find ever and again in the author the desire to sanction at all costs the present order of things. An evangelist, according to him, partakes so entirely of the same nature as the pastor, that he may settle in a place, after having formed a flock; but I shall say nothing about it, for the reason — that there is not a syllable about all this in the word. If he who acts thus has both gifts, it is all well; if not, it is very wrong.

To understand the way in which Mr. Wolff draws conclusions from the word, I also beg of the reader to compare the quotations which he has made from Acts 18: 26; 1 Corinthians 16: 19, and Romans 16: 3, with a view to shew that Aquila was in turn pastor and evangelist, having, we must suppose, received the imposition of hands. Perhaps we ought to suppose he had received it twice; for nothing authorizes us to suppose that ministry was conferred by wholesale, as it is practised now. A special charge was conferred, those who received the collation of the charge being solemnly recognized by competent authorities, as being called to it of God. For otherwise, it would be a question, not of various ministries or of vocation, but of ministry in general, without a special charge. This is what is practised in our day. One man, after having been recognized as fit to be a bishop, goes on to present himself, upon his own authority, as evangelist; another, after having been ordained as evangelist, goes on to assume, upon his own authority, the charge of bishop in a locality which pleases him. We must remember, that, according to Mr. Wolff’s system, it is by no means a question, in ministry, of the exercise of a gift, but of a charge which is only received by the imposition of hands. A man evangelizes without a gift, a man is a bishop without the requisite qualities, a man preaches without a gift, and if any one has been ordained as evangelist, according to this chapter 10, it becomes no longer a question either of the choosing of bishops by the apostle, or of their appointment by him or his delegate; all that disappears. A man abides in the place where he has evangelized and becomes a bishop, “having undergone,” as Mr. Wolff says, “I know not what magic transformation, which stamps him with an indelible character, something mysterious and sacramental.” After that, the charge is no matter; the qualities demanded in the word are no matter. Pastor and evangelist are charges which are “so near akin,” that a man, when ordained for one, may establish himself in the other.

^[p. 261] I do not know how this strikes the minds of others; but for me, there is something that is most shameful in this servile adulation of what now exists. I admit that there may be skill enough in this, and a certain cleverness; but in the face of the word, and the immensity of the interests which are found in it, thus to be able to use skill to flatter all that exists — and that in the face of the word of God, the testimony of His love — what shall I say? ... Each one will judge according to the value he may attach to that word and to the grace of Him who gave it.

It is quite true that the church of Jerusalem was a centre, that it exercised a certain authority and a certain oversight; at least it was so during a certain time, the apostles being there. But that Barnabas had received a mission as evangelist or pastor, is what we see nowhere. It is true, that he was sent to Antioch by the Church, which took an interest in what was going on there; and when he arrived there, he exercised his gift, he “exhorted” those who had already been evangelized; that is what we find in Acts 13: 23, in the passage quoted by Mr. Wolff, page 44. Guided by the same interests and the wants that existed, Barnabas goes to seek Saul. In that, he used his Christian liberty, as Paul did when he took Timothy with him.

When Mr. Wolff says that the functions of evangelist are described at length in the pastoral letters of Paul, I hardly know what he means. Nothing is said in the epistles of Paul of the functions of an evangelist. He writes as apostle, he commands as apostle: he shews what he was as apostle, and especially as apostle. Does Mr. Wolff wish to deny his apostleship or to bring down his apostleship to the level of an evangelist, in order to exalt the authority of modern evangelists, as he has done by his pretended ordination to the charge of evangelist at Antioch? I repeat, I hardly know what he means, if it be not that; for otherwise the apostle never speaks of an evangelist except to name that gift (Ephesians 4), or to exhort Timothy to do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4: 5).