The gospel is news. News has to be announced, communicated, written, and delivered with words. Think of any major news story or event: the reporter doesn’t seek to act it out, but he just delivers the news.
This is why I find it so confusing when I hear people say: “We’re just trying to live the gospel” or “We’re trying to be the gospel.” There is of course the well-known quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” I’d argue that it’s always necessary to use words, because the gospel is news.
The gospel is the good news that God sent his perfect Son Jesus Christ to live, die, and resurrect on behalf of sinners, to save their souls and reconcile them to God.
As important as it is to do good works, care for the poor, nobody becomes a Christian and enters into eternal life because we gave somebody a sandwich; They get saved because they hear the preaching of the news of Jesus. Good works that adorn good news do not only earthly good but also eternal good.
Paul told Titus that good works have their proper place when they adorn the gospel: “… but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:10). But to be clear, neither Paul, Jesus, nor any of the apostles never tells us that good works are the gospel. The gospel is a message that must be preached, proclaimed, and told using words.
I talk to so many people who go to the church where I pastor, and they tell me, “I’m just being really friendly and helpful. They know I am a Christian and when the want to know they will ask me.”
I ask two questions “Did you get saved because someone was nice?” and “Did you conclude from their kindness that Jesus is God, you are a sinner, Jesus died for your sin and rose from the dead as King?” The answer of course is no. They will just think you are nice. And then continue to walk in darkness.
You are not the gospel; Jesus Christ is the gospel. You are not Jesus; Jesus is God. Therefore you cannot live or show the gospel: you must proclaim it.
3 comments:
The content and "news" of the gospel certainly can -- and must -- be communicated without words. That's because the content isn't merely information about God's love and work in Jesus Christ, but it is also the actual experience of that love in and from those who encounter it. News isn't just the telling of what happened, it's the thing that happened or the thing actually happening. The good news is not just the telling, but it's the breaking in of God's life at every moment into the life of the world, into the hearts and lives of people, and the actions of those who are empowered by the Holy Spirit certainly accomplish or manifest this. Of course, I am not Jesus and I am not, per se, the gospel, but if the gospel has anything to do with "the mystery hidden for ages and generations ... this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory," and if Christ is in you or me and we are "in Christ," then we are, as it were, instances of the gospel's power in the here and now. As such, we most certainly can live or show the gospel beyond just speaking about it, at least as effectively as the blowing tree shows the wind or the searing touch of the metal pot shows the heat of the stove. Or, to try to put it better, Christ can demonstrate the gospel in us. The gospel is not just the proclamation of something that happened 2,000 years ago, it is the eternal reality of that event, and that reality is breaking forth into every moment.
The transmission of the gospel is not simply the transmission of information about Jesus but also the performance of his work (not, of course, to earn righteousness, but to share in his work just as he promised that his followers would do). Of course, there do come countless times when the necessity of speaking is not "if" and words must be used, but if they have no basis in the love revealed in the speaker or in a life that is appropriating what is described in the beatitudes, which is the self-sacrificial life of Christ himself manifested in those who long for him to the exclusion of all else, they are empty clanging noise and amount to little more than conceptual clutter (though still not entirely void, I'd think). Such "news" can easily be lost in the din of all the other unending chatter and debate and persuasion that floods our distracted and burnt-out generation (not so different from earlier generations). It can also amount to "theology" that barely knows or reveals God beyond a dry series of strung-together statements and verses. What is lived is certainly an adornment of what is spoken, but it is more than mere ornamentation. While good works may not be the gospel itself, they are something like the gospel's endgame, inasmuch as we were "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." I have seen that an act of love, particularly in a moment of deep need, will reveal the face, power and providence of Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit who leads a person to trust in Christ even before the person understands who it is that he or she believes in (and we are always coming to understand more, we are always still in ignorance; our belief is always such that we must cry out for help with our unbelief).
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"... my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." Of course, speech is part of this, but to the degree that one speaks without the foundation of the demonstration of the power of God (that is, a life bearing the fruits of the Spirit, of love), then that's the degree that his or her words lack meaning and might better have not been spoken at all, particularly when hypocrisy turns someone away from the truth spoken and thus threatens to bring added condemnation to the speaker.
Of course, none of this is to excuse those who think that it never is necessary to speak of Jesus. I think Francis of Assisi (or whoever originally uttered the quote above -- Augustine might have said something similar) understood precisely that his "if necessary" was rhetorical because it WILL be necessary. But without any (usually prior) "demonstration of the Spirit and power," it might be necessary for people to keep their mouths mostly shut for a time, just as Paul more or less seems to have done for a few years before setting out on his great missionary exploits. It might also be necessary in a given circumstance for you or I to "preach" in action and not to speak many (or any) words, trusting that God will provide the appropriate words that will expand the meaning of those actions from the mouth of someone else later. Surely, one may sow, another may water and another reap. It can be sometimes arrogant for us to feel that we must "win" a particular soul when perhaps all we are doing is harassing that soul or giving it a complex.
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I'm sorry for showing up here and rambling like this on your blog. My intention is not to debate with you. It's just that I read what your wrote, and while greatly appreciating the gist of it, felt compelled to defend the very significant reality of nonverbal witnessing to Christ and the fact that it sometimes can be instrumental in drawing people to the Lord in a way that is far more powerful than many words can (not to deny the power of an apt answer that brings joy to a man or the great goodness of a word in season, or the need to be always ready in season and out to give an answer for our hope). I think of the power of nonverbal preaching that was demonstrated by the church's early martyrs, many of whom converted observers, and even tormenters, on the spot without speaking but by steadfastly suffering for Christ and thereby revealing his victory over the grave and the fear of death. Some of those bystanders joined the martyrs in their deaths, some with sketchy knowledge of who Christ is and all the dimensions of what he did. But surely -- knowing even less than Peter did when he called Jesus the Christ and the son of the living God -- they truly believed.
I'll shut up now. If you've read all of this, thanks for indulging me. Please excuse me in all the ways I have been ignorant here. I pray for God's many blessings on you and your family.
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