As I  watch the TV, when I talk with others, I find it irksome when words are misused. One of my pet peeves is the misuse of the words evangelical and evangelistic.

From context, you can usually guess which of the two a person meant to say, yet it would be nice if they used the right one in the first place instead of relying on error correction in the listener!

For the record, an evangelical is a Christian who holds to a particular theology, with a strong emphasis on the Bible as the word of God and the gospel (the ‘evangel’) of Jesus Christ contained therein. Something like the basis of faith from the Evangelical Alliance is fairly representative.

Whereas an evangelist is a Christian who seeks to tell the gospel (the ‘evangel’ to all. So they both have similar roots word, but are different in meaning.

With this in mind, it’s possible to be an evangelical and not an evangelist (although it shouldn’t happen!), or an evangelist but not an evangelical. Ideally, an evangelical should also be an evangelist.