evangelist
/ɪˈvan(d)ʒ(ə)lɪst
/noun
1A person who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, especially by public preaching: an American television evangelist...
- Wesley was blessed with a living experience of Christ and from the time of his conversion became an earnest evangelist who spent the rest of his long life preaching the gospel.
- He delivered countless lectures all over the world, crossing all the continents and successfully engaging some of the biggest names in Christian evangelists in public debates.
- Many evangelists preach an easy believism: no repentance, no yielding to Christ as Lord, no necessity for water baptism, no casting out of demons, no infilling of the Holy Spirit.
Synonyms
preacher, missionary, gospeller, proselytizer, converter, crusader, propagandist, campaigner, televangelist
1.1A layperson engaged in Christian missionary work: a local evangelist working with a youth mission...
- The Soviet Union was inundated with foreign evangelists and missionaries commanding technological resources unimaginable to a church just emerging from captivity.
- The missionary evangelists blessed many wells and encouraged Christian practices of prayer, fasting and barefooted processions of mortification.
- From 1872 the mission made increasing use of Chinese Christians as evangelists.
1.2A zealous advocate of a particular cause: he has become an evangelist for the European Union...
- In technology, evangelists illustrate innovations by promoting an idea that will catch the popular imagination, but insiders typically know that it will be something different that acts as an adoption catalyst.
- This is an area both WiFi advocates and 3G evangelists both want to ignore.
- The evangelists for privatisation were really the naughty think tanks - the IEA, Adam Smith Institute and Centre for Policy Studies.
2The writer of one of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John): St John the Evangelist...
- The first part of this paper should close with the due reference to Mary, mother of Jesus, by the evangelists Luke and John.
- On this fourth and final Sunday of waiting, Matthew is the only evangelist to tell Joseph's side of the story of Jesus' birth, emphasizing his role as devout Jew and adoptive father.
- Interestingly, in Mark's gospel the evangelist mentions scribes 19 times.
Origin
Middle English (in sense 2): from Old French évangéliste, via ecclesiastical Latin from ecclesiastical Greek euangelistēs, from euangelizesthai 'evangelize'.