Posted by Dave on 03/20/07 at 08:15:33 am
Categories: Theological Ravings

I often hear people discuss the need to "speak God's truth." This is often done in a way that is in contrast to meeting the physical needs of a person, which is often referred to as the "social gospel."

I have seen this on friends' blogs who have said that we meet the physical needs of a person in order to make others "comfortable" and us feel good and we ignore "God's truth" because it makes us "uncomfortable." I have also seen this in the comments on this blog, most recently here where a commenter questioned the validity of Christians protesting the war in Iraq because the "gospel" had not been preached.

But this is what I do not understand. The teachings of Jesus, and in turn the Gospel, clearly emphasizes the need to meet physical needs, not because it makes us feel good, but because when we are meeting physical needs of the poor we are meeting the physical needs of Jesus:

(34) Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: (35) for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; (36) I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

Nowhere in this passage does Jesus say this:

‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for you spoke 'God's Truth' because the eternal life is more important than the earthly life.

While Jesus did speak of an eternal life, he did not only focus on such. He also focused on the temporal and the physical world. He spoke of meeting tangible needs like food, clothing, shelter, and friendship. And while he also spoke of the need to confess and stop sinning, he did not command us to do the same. We were not commanded to tell people to sin no more. We were commanded to give food to the hungry, offer a drink to the thirsty, give our bed to the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and go to the prison.

We also see this clearly in Jesus' ministry. Of course, we see Jesus "preaching" about "truth" and "sin." But it is also quite clear that Jesus spent time caring about "comfort" needs: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, etc. This care for the temporal was also not a secondary task, bot often a primary one. There are numerous examples of Jesus first meeting the physical needs, and then the spiritual needs. There are also examples of Jesus solely meeting the physical, or "comfort," needs of those around him. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Peter cut the Sanhedrin's ear off, Jesus took the time to heal the man.

Do not get me wrong - I believe that there can be, and often is, a need to speak God's truth. But I strongly believe that God's truth goes a lot further than many see it as. God's truth is meeting feeding the hungry. Part of God's truth is standing up against unjust violence and war. God's truth is befriending a prisoner on death row. God's truth is showing love to those that are often difficult to love.

[cross posted at Theology for the Masses]

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