October 2009 – Ask most evangelicals to explain the Great Commission, and you’ll probably get the right answer. Believers are to go into the world, preach the Gospel and make disciples.

Unfortunately there remains a debate within evangelicalism – it has been going on for a century or more – about just how to define what that Gospel is. Is the core message of the Gospel about individual salvation or social transformation – or both?

Paul B. Raushenbush, associate dean of religious life at Princeton University and an ordained American Baptist minister, recalled a statement by a conservative evangelical that characterized the two sides of the debate.

“Anyone can give a hungry person a sandwich. We have to give them Jesus,” the person said.

Raushenbush even used the statement in a series of short blog entries posted on Beliefnet.com. He called it the ‘Jesus vs. Sandwich’ debate.

The kingdom now
While conservative evangelicals frequently cite John 3:16 as the heart of the Gospel, liberal or “progressive” evangelicals camp out elsewhere.

In Luke 4:18 Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”*

This verse is understood to teach that Jesus came not only to save lost souls but to reform cultures – hence the term ‘social Gospel.’ This Gospel is an exhortation to a Christ-driven renovation of a fallen world for the blessing of humanity.

“Jesus has invited us to live in the kingdom of God right now, and to transform our society to better reflect God’s will on earth,” Raushenbush said.

Announcing free food?
However, in Luke 4:18 is Jesus declaring that, because He has come, imprisoned people could expect to be set free? Or that, here on earth, the blind are to be given back their sight – by society? Is this a glorious announcement that poverty would end – free food for everyone?

Such promises would no doubt attract crowds. In fact, when John tells of the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1-15), the miracle seemed to provoke precisely that reaction – the people wanted to make Jesus their king because He apparently had the power to make lunch.

It seems preferable to see the passage in Luke as primarily a promise that the power of Christ would deliver those who trust Him from the spiritual poverty, bondage and blindness that marks the lost condition.

That is not to dismiss the liberal emphasis completely, however. There is no doubt that the kingdom of God has a ‘right now’ aspect to it as well as its more commonly-cited future facet. The power and righteousness of the kingdom is to be felt in every culture through the Christ-like lives of the citizens of the kingdom.

As a result, Christians are to alleviate temporal suffering and injustice as much as possible. In this way the kingdom is demonstrated right before the eyes of those who live outside its blessed borders.

As the late Christian songwriter Rich Mullins said, “I do not know that we can have a heaven here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a hell, either.”

Bill Hybels, the founding and senior pastor of the 20,000-member Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, believes that knowing Christ personally should invariably lead to acts of service.

“For 32 years now, I have had a front-row seat to observe how lost people get found and how found people get grown up,” he said. “In my experience … when I see a life get transformed by the atoning work of Christ, it is not long before that new believer sees the plight of the poor.”

Thus, if it is argued that Christians have a single duty – to preach the Gospel – and that feeding the poor and other works of service are an irrelevant distraction, that is flatly wrong.

In James 2:14-26, for example, the writer even uses provision for the physical needs of other Christians as an example of how good works demonstrate a vibrant faith.

In fact, Jesus’ teaching about the day of judgment in Matthew 25 indicates that good deeds reveal the state of one’s heart.

A message preached
Nevertheless, some social Gospel proponents seem too quick to view individual salvation (through preaching) and social transformation (through good works) as nothing more than two sides of the same Gospel coin. The two are thus somehow ‘equal partners’ in the mission of the church.

Raushenbush said this is the meaning of Matthew 6:10, where Jesus tells His disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

“Our central prayer in Christian life implores that God’s kingdom be established in this world,” he said. “That means that the Gospel is both personal and social, spiritual and material.”

This is precisely where the social Gospel gets off track. As it is used in the New Testament, the word “Gospel” has a specific content attached to it. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, the Apostle Paul gives what might be the clearest definition of that content: “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures … .”

The word is therefore not open to human interpretation or human tinkering. While good works are good, Jesus did not come to save societies. He came to save sinners. As the Apostle Peter said, Jesus died for sins “in order that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

As a result of the unambiguous meaning attached to the Gospel, it must be communicated clearly. That is why in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul also says this message is the “Gospel which I preached.” Preaching is the Scriptural method of transmitting the content of the Gospel, and through its proclamation people come to know the love of God through Christ (Rom. 1:15-16).

“How will they hear without a preacher?” Paul asks in the famous passage in Romans 10 dealing with salvation. While all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, Paul makes it clear that preachers – not necessarily in the sense of paid clergy but Christian proclaimers – are the instruments of the saving message. Of course, good works might make a person more open to the Gospel message (Matt. 5:16), but they are not the message itself. At some point the content must be clearly expressed to those who are blessed by good deeds. Ultimately the Gospel is good news precisely because salvation isn’t about what we do but about what God has done through Christ.

Otherwise, to make actions the primary means of communicating the Christian faith makes Christianity indistinguishable from other religions. How would an unbeliever know the difference between the faith of a compassionate Christian and, say, the faith of a compassionate Muslim?

Ultimately, then, such efforts as feeding the poor – or protesting outside an abortion clinic, for that matter – are the fruit of lives changed by the Gospel. The works are not the Gospel itself.

Serving and saving
There are evangelicals who understand the distinction between preaching the Gospel and ministering to the needs of a suffering world – and who try to do both.

One example is the work of the Luis Palau Association (www.palau.org) in Portland, Oregon. Already well known for its focus on preaching the Gospel – evangelist Luis Palau has been preaching around the world for more then 40 years – the organization held its first Season of Service last year.

The concept was a simple one. In the months leading up to a planned evangelistic “festival,” hundreds of churches were mobilized to put Christians on the ground serving the community. Working closely with civic and corporate leaders of Portland, the needs of the community were identified. Then Christians got to work. Last year 27,000 believers rolled up their sleeves and tackled 300 service projects, from providing food for the hungry to cleaning schools to volunteering at free medical and dental clinics.

But that time of service was not an end in itself. It culminated in an evangelistic outreach that the Palau organization hoped had a broader and deeper impact because of the charity that preceded it.

“We believe word and deed are both Biblical,” Kevin Palau, executive vice president of the Luis Palau Association and son of the famous evangelist, told AFA Journal. “Clear evangelistic preaching and helping meet the needs of the suffering is the best of both worlds.”

But as excited as the younger Palau is about Season of Service, he said there was no confusion regarding the most important aspect of the church’s work. “You cannot just love and serve people. You have not proclaimed the Gospel without using words. Don’t get me wrong, you can soften hearts [with good deeds] to pave the way,” he said, “but just simply living a good life and serving others is not proclaiming the good news.”

Palau is exactly right, and the Luis Palau Association seems to have struck the right balance. To serve the suffering is to glorify Jesus Christ; but to avoid preaching the Gospel is to voluntarily muzzle the voice of the church.

And in the end, it is doing no favors for those whose bellies are filled. If the Gospel truly is the announcement that God is delivering blind and bound souls from the dominion of darkness through the power of a crucified and resurrected Christ, even hungry people deserve to know that.    

*All Bible verses used are from the New American Standard translation.