Social work and gospel proclamation

As to Jesus’ miracles, etc., and whether they are “social gospel” or not, here are my two cents. Matthew 5:38-48 is the passage you ought to read before completing my thoughts, actually. What I see in that passage, basically, is Jesus teaching us that whatever good provisions there are in the world, they come ultimately from the hand of God. Crops need rain? God sends it… for both good people and bad. Crops need sun? God sends it… for both good people and bad. So when Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” He means that we are to be “perfect” with regard to the way we love people. Our love shouldn’t be expressed only toward those who love us, but also toward those who don’t love us. Our love shouldn’t be expressed only toward those who love God, either, but also toward His enemies. Not our devotion, mind you. That’s reserved for Jesus, as we can see in other passages (e.g., Matt. 10:34-39). But our love – our willingness to meet people’s needs and overcome people’s obstacles – our love should be expressed to everyone, just as our Father’s is.

 

This is obviously social, but in what sense is it gospel? It is gospel first of all in the sense that it communicates to people what kind of God we serve. We truly serve a God who loves all of His creation, and despite the presence of real pain, suffering, decay, sin, and death in the world, God works to provide for and sustain His creatures – especially people. But someone might respond with a statement such as, “You THINK that’s what you’re communicating. But you’re really just showing that your decent human beings, like other decent human beings from other cultures and religions. A lot of people who aren’t Christians recognize that we ought to do good to each other, and a lot of people do more good than most Christians I know! So how does that prove that Your God is good, loving, or even real?” I think this is an important question to grapple with. Because ultimately, what matters is that we communicate the gospel clearly because the gospel is eternal and can lead us to eternal blessings (1 Peter 1:23-25). I think this objection is what makes it clear that social action is not evangelism on its own. It is a part of evangelism, because it is a picture of our God sacrificially loving His enemies (Romans 5:8). But if a picture is left unexplained, then people can give the picture any interpretation they want to.

 

This is why the gospel must also be proclaimed in words. Words leave no doubt as to what we mean by our activity. They define what we’re doing, and they let people know where we stand. They distinguish between those who are doing purely social work and those whose whole lives are devoted to God. In fact, those who do social work without being devoted to God’s words are actually in opposition to God, claiming to be doing social work out of their own goodness or out of devotion to another god (both of which oppose God’s will). Deuteronomy 13:1-5 gives a good description of how deeply it matters to God that His people walk with those whose actions AND words come from Him. Even if God permitted a man to do seemingly good works – even miracles! – the people were not to follow that man if He taught devotion to someone other than God Himself. And the New Testament describes people who say and hold to the right words without appropriate lives of goodness (1 John 2:9-11; 3:14-15; 4:19-21; James 2:14-26). Such people are lost in their sins, and their knowledge of God’s words is useless… because their lives demonstrate that they don’t really believe the words are God’s. Otherwise, they would take the words seriously.

 

So that’s my understanding. In a lot of ways, I wouldn’t really call it “social gospel” at all. What Jesus teaches us is that our words and our deeds go hand in hand. If either of them is rebelling against God, WE are rebelling against God. Only when we are seeking to serve God with our entire lives – words and deeds – are we responding to Him in love. We all stumble in many ways (James 3:2), so we must remain humble and thank God for His grace through Jesus Christ toward us – and toward others around us – whenever we see how far short we fall. But His grace calls us to try, for He covers our failures.