“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;” (Ephesians 4:11). The Greek word Evangelios, from whence the English word Gospel and more directly the word Evangelist come to us, meant a sacrifice of thanksgiving for good news received. President Spencer W Kimball described it best what this sacrifice of gratitude for the best good news ever received might look like: “If you could only see the vision I have. I wish I had your bodies to do this work. I would run from house to house telling everyone of the gospel, and after I lost strength to run I would begin to walk, and after I collapsed from walking, I would begin to crawl, and after my knees were so bloody that I could not use them I would use my arms to drag myself, and once my muscle in my body was gone I would begin to yell…oh, only if you could see the vision as I have.” There is no better news than that Jesus Christ has overcome the world and has provided for us a chance to have real peace in this life, a rest from all of the chaos and confusion and doubt, a chance to grow and develop and leave behind the old, broken version of ourselves and march steadily onward to a higher and holier life filled with love and meaning and purpose, that we may one day qualify to receive all that the Father has and to dwell in eternal glory with everyone that we care about forever and ever. We all have enough bad news in our lives. We have so much, in fact, that they've invented whole new terms like doom scrolling just to describe how much doom and gloom we're all drowning in. That's why we need evangelists! We need people who will sacrifice traveling down the same easy path, filling our feeds with more and more sadness and cynicism and instead insisting on sharing the good news until the light and joy of their message chases away the darkness. The last days will be great and terrible. We have algorithms and whole industries reminding us every day how terrible everything is. Let's all try a little harder to be evangelists and remind people that the last days are also great.
