Gospel comes from the Greek word “euangellion”, meaning “glad tidings” or “good news.” Evangelizing is a verb and therefore means: bringing a good or happy message. In that sense how the word is not to be used explicitly in biblical context and is not necessarily Christian loaded. Yet it is generally used for bringing the good news of the Lord of Jesus Christ to mankind.
What’s the message?
Now that we know that evangelizing means bringing a good message, the question arises what exactly that good message means. This seems like an easy question, but when I look at what is sometimes preached during evangelism, the answer is not that simple. Some people claim that the good news is that God loves people. They do everything they can to proclaim that. You often meet them on the street. “Boy, did you hear, God loves you.” Sometimes beautiful tracts are handed out, with the caption that God loves people. My experience is that this way of evangelizing is more likely to keep people away from Christ than to see that there is a need to flee to Jesus Christ.
I have often heard that when I call people to seek salvation from Jesus, the response was, “I don’t need salvation. Because if God loves people, won’t everyone be fine? If He loves people, does He not send them to hell at the end of their lives? No, God loves all people, so what are we worried about? Everyone will be fine in the end. I don’t need that salvation. “Do you see how dangerous it is to deliver the good news in the wrong way? By the way, where in the Bible are we called to tell people that God loves people? I don’t see it anywhere. Yes, you say, but what about the well-known text from the Gospel of John?
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Here we read clearly that God loves people, right? Yes, is this so? If I read carefully, it says “has loved” and “has given.” A completed act that took place in the past. Now here in the context, in Greek, seems to be a word that does not directly indicate a past tense how. Still, most translators, and I have looked at ten different translations, all use the perfect tense here. Only The Book speaks of loving in the present tense. Unfortunately, in many people’s minds is the idea that God loves all people. They believe that this is also the message they must proclaim.
