Meeting Physical Needs or Sharing the Gospel?

Alan Knox got me thinking about false dilemmas. Although, John Piper and Art Sido helped.

Should we meet physical needs or share the gospel.

Yes!

You must do both.

There is often a tension in Christian thought concerning whether or not the church should be focused on sharing the gospel or doing works of mercy in the world. Should the church worry about people's souls or people's bellies. Few evangelicals will outright say that social work is more important, but in practice they may act as such. Many evangelicals will say that evangelizing is the controlling purpose of the church, to the point that issues of justice and mercy either take a back seat or do not matter. Some will say that it is pointless to help somebody have enough food if you do not share the gospel with them. Others will even say that pastors should not help the poor if it distracts them from their sermon preparation time (people really say this). I once heard it argued that since Jesus says, "the poor are always with you," that means that evangelism is more important that caring for the poor.

My thought is simple: Jesus wants us to do and teach others how to do everything he commanded us to do.

Jesus commanded meeting physical needs. Jesus commanded evangelism. For the Christian they are both commands of Jesus that are to be followed. It is that simple. People need food. People need the gospel. Jesus is not stupid, he knows this, and he says to do both. That is enough. In many ways, sharing the gospel, feeding the hungry, and getting over your anger problem are just as important to Jesus. Sure, he thinks some things are more important than others, but nevertheless, the question is this, "do you care enough about what Jesus said to revising your affairs in such a way that you start to actually do those kinds of things?"