By Frank M. Severn, General Director Emeritus — Our first ministry assignment was in the Philippines. Many of the Filipinos who became believers in Christ were very poor. I struggled with how to relate to them. Is it proper to preach the gospel first, or should I do deeds of compassion, justice, and mercy, and only then preach the gospel? Of course, in the crucible of life you must do both!
However, I am convinced that the greatest good is done through the ministry of the Holy Spirit as he takes the gospel proclaimed and brings conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Through the Spirit’s ministry, repentance and faith in Christ happen. This results in a “new birth,” a new man! As the poor gain great worth as children of God through faith in Christ, changes occur in their lifestyles, which enable them to live with dignity. This often results in a lift in their economic status. This phenomenon of redemption and lift has been documented in many areas as the church grows among the poor.
This does not mean that poverty is always the result of lifestyle choices. Many people are born into poverty. In some cases, as in the caste system of India, there is practically no way to escape the cycle of poverty. In many areas of the world there are unjust systems that make it very hard for the poor to rise above poverty. Sometimes even the good values of the local culture work to keep people poor.
What should a missionary do to address and help alleviate injustice or systemic poverty? Should we rail against the injustices? Should we seek to work for liberation of the poor by encouraging the overthrow of unjust systems? Do we simply go about our preaching and teaching being blithely ignorant of the condition of people around us?
Once again I would plead for the priority of the proclamation of the gospel. As I have studied the Book of Acts and the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul, I am convinced we have been given a model of mission that gives us a clear understanding of how the Apostles understood Jesus’ mandate to them. It is a revelatory paradigm. Not every detail of strategy can be applied in today’s contexts; but we can know how the early church understood the teaching of Christ and what they did about it.
Paul preached Christ in the Roman world, which was full of injustices and rampant immorality. He preached Christ to rich and poor. He pled with men and women to be reconciled to God through faith in Christ. Many who responded were from the lower classes. In fact many were slaves. Paul did not seek to change the government, nor did he lecture about obvious abuses such as slavery. However, he did insist that within the household of faith there was neither slave nor free. All came to the table of the Lord on level ground through the cross. It was through the household of faith and their attractive love, even in the face of persecution, that a quiet but powerful transformation began, which impacted the society around them.
The key biblical reason I believe the missionary movement must give priority to proclamation is the overall “narrative of the Bible.” There are many clear statements of Jesus regarding his purpose and priority, for example, “For the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost” (New International Version, Luke 19:10
). It is evident that Jesus had the cross in view from the start to the finish of his ministry on earth.
The disciples often missed this. They rejoiced when Jesus feed 5,000 and were excited when the crowd wanted to make Jesus their King – after all, here was a person who could provide bread for the hungry! However, Jesus withdrew from the crowd and sent his disciples back to the Sea of Galilee to face a storm. They were arguing about places in the Kingdom as Jesus was headed for the cross. In the Upper Room our Lord gave the great object lesson of foot washing. A towel of service was to come before the robe of reigning with him. They constantly rebuked him about his statements that he must suffer and die.
Jesus came to give his life a ransom for many. He came to demonstrate the glory of God through the cross, whereby “God was reconciling the world unto himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
There is no question that Jesus ministered to real physical needs. He healed some who were sick. He raised some who had died. He feed 5,000 on one occasion and 4,000 on another. However, he did not eliminate poverty and disease. Nor did he overthrow the political powers of his day.
A study of the life of Christ reveals a consistent pattern of teaching, preaching and healing. Even in that three-fold ministry there was a priority on preaching (cf. Luke 4:14-21; 31-36, 43; 5:1, 17-26, 31). Jesus taught and lived out the Great Commandment – to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. He loved people even unto death! All of His preaching, teaching, and healing were a walking demonstration of the Great Commandment. However, there was a clear priority in the life of Christ that related to the glory of God being demonstrated through the cross whereby the great redemptive purpose of God would be accomplished.
Jesus gave his disciples and all who follow him another commandment called the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:44-49; Acts 1:8; John 20:21-23), which only his believing community (the Church) can fulfill. In that commandment there is a priority given to make disciples (Matt. 28:19) through proclamation (Luke 24:46-47; Mark 16:15). Proclamation is to be incarnate and in the manner demonstrated by Christ (John 20:21).
Jesus sums up the “narrative of the Bible” in his commission to his disciples in Luke 24:44-47, “’This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their mind so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, ‘This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.’”
Some might say that giving first priority to gospel proclamation is a “post-biblical invention and a result of Western modernist compartmentalized thinking.”* I am sympathetic to the fact that our thinking is often clouded and sometimes held in bondage to the presuppositions of our value system or educational system. However, I must ask, does the Bible have a primary narrative? Are we free to choose any narrative that might best fit our context and make it our point of departure for theology and practice?
For instance, a Filipino colleague asked me the question, “Would Luther have rediscovered the emphasis on ‘justification by faith,’ if he lived in [1970s] Philippines?” He went on to explain that justification by faith was discovered out of the context of the abuses of the church in Luther’s day. He said, “If Luther had lived in the context of the Philippines in the 1970s he would have discovered the liberation of the poor as the primary emphasis of the Bible.”
There is no doubt that the Bible, from the law to the Prophets, as well as Psalms and the Gospels, has a lot to say about God’s concern for the poor, and the people of God’s responsibility toward the poor amongst them. However, how does God liberate the poor, whether that be poor in spirit or poor in economic terms? He does it through redemption. God will deal with injustice! God will rule and restore all of creation to its perfect state (Romans 8:18-25)! When Jesus returns to rule, justice will flow like a river! In the eternal state of the New Heavens and the New Earth, the great effects of sin will be wiped out! The glory and wonder of the cross and God’s redemptive plan will result in a Kingdom of priests purchased by the blood of the Lamb from every tribe, people and nation who praise and give glory to the Lamb and to God the Father (Revelation 5)!
We are not free to choose our primary storyline or to say we are not quite sure what the primary narrative of the Bible is. Jesus has declared to us the primary narrative of the Bible. “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:45-49).
As members of his Kingdom, now in its mystery form, we must do our proclamation in the manner of the Great Commandment. We declare Christ because we love God and love our neighbor, and even our enemies. We must couple our proclamation with good works and deeds of love and mercy. We must be holistic. However, if we have not proclaimed the Good News of Christ, his death, burial and resurrection, and have not proclaimed repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name, we have not done mission as Jesus commanded! There is a priority in our missionary task!
I am reminded of a decal that our local Fire Department gave to us after the birth of our last child. It was a picture of a baby, which we were asked to place in the corner of the window in our child’s bedroom. If our house should catch on fire, the firemen would enter that room first to save the infant even before they battled the flames. They had to do both, but there was a priority on saving lives first.
The priority of the Great Commission also demands that we teach the followers of Christ to obey all of Jesus’ commands. We are not simply snatching people from the flames. We have seen the sad evidence of genocide and injustices among societies that have identified themselves as Christian in some form. We confess that too often our proclamation has not led to teaching that results in obedience to Christ’s commands. We who do mission must walk alongside our brothers and sisters who have repented and received forgiveness of sins and help them to apply Christ’s teaching to their lives and contexts. Together with them we must strive to live out the new commandment to love one another and to love our enemies. Our discipling must help the church practice justice among the people of faith and be a prophetic voice by the way they love one another, help the poor, and accept one another as equal recipients of God’s grace.
It would be wonderful if the believing church in our day could put forth an apology like Justin’s Apology 14:
We who formerly delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone; we who formally used magical arts, dedicate ourselves to the good and unbeggotten God, we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions now bring what we have into a common stock and share with everyone who is in need; we who hated and destroyed one another and, on account of their different customs would not live with men of a different race, now, since the coming of Christ, live on excellent terms with them and pray for our enemies.
*Green, Michael. Evangelism in the Early Church (Grand Rapids. Mitch: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. 1970) p. 45.
