It
seems intuitive. It seems logical. But since 1388 the Greek verb “evangelize”
has not been translated “evangelize” in the English Bible. What a
strange quirk of Bible translation!<\/p>\n
John
Wycliffe in his translation of the Bible in 1382 translated almost every one
of the 54 uses of evangelizare [Latin for evangelize] as “evangelise”
or “evangelysinge” [Old English]. The 1388 revision of Wycliffe published
after his death changed every use of “evangelize” to “preaching
the gospel”, “showing Jesus”, or something other than evangelize.
This change in translation remained through the Tyndale Version, the King James
Version, and has been followed by every version of the English Bible since that
time – with the exception of six uses in the 2000 Holman Christian Standard
Bible. How can such a verbal discrepancy be perpetuated for so long?<\/p>\n
If
you are a reader of an English New Testament, as I am, you will find approximately
115 uses of the verbs preach or proclaim. In reality, 61 uses are translations
of the verb kerusso – “preach” and 54 are translations of evangelize
into preach. My classes in evangelism cover quite a different content than what
is taught in a preaching (homiletics) class!<\/p>\n
Following
are some of the verses that contain evangelize, and you will notice the
impact of translating these as “evangelize”. Here are five of the
ten uses of “evangelize” in Luke (adaptations of the NASB):<\/p>\n
Here
are nine of the fifteen uses in the Book of Acts:<\/p>\n
Here
are 12 of the 21 uses of evangelize in the Pauline epistles (Paul only uses
kerusso – “preach” 19 times!):<\/p>\n
It
was incredible to me to see the impact of unearthing this one word in the Bible.
I am amazed at how many times various persons in the Bible were involved in
a ministry of itinerant evangelism, and of how many times the Apostle Paul and
others addressed this important mandate!<\/p>\n
But,
you may ask, doesn’t “preach the Gospel” mean the same thing as “evangelize”?
Please consider Mark 16:15, which states, “And he said to them, ‘Go into
all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” The original words
for “preach the gospel” in this verse consist of three words “preach
the gospel” – not “evangelize”. If God had chosen to use
“preach the gospel” (as in Mark 16:15) in every context that He used
“evangelize,” He could have. But He did not. He chose to use the verb
“evangelize.” If one believes in verbal inspiration (that every word
is inspired by God, cf. Matt 5:18), then the conclusion for translation is quite
clear – why not use evangelize to translate the Greek word evangelize?<\/p>\n
__________________<\/p>\n
Thomas
P. Johnston is Assistant Professor of Evangelism at Midwestern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Kansas City, MO.<\/p>\n
__________________<\/p>\n
This
column is provided on an occasional basis by the Proclamation Evangelism Network
(PEN), which includes leaders of man of the nation’s key evangelistic and
mission ministries.<\/p>\n
It seems intuitive. It seems logical. But since 1388 the Greek verb “evangelize” has not been translated “evangelize” in the English Bible. What a strange quirk of Bible translation! John Wycliffe in his translation of the Bible in 1382 translated almost every one of the 54 uses of evangelizare [Latin for evangelize] as “evangelise” or … Continue reading “Should Evangelize Be Translated Evangelize?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}