Let me start by saying that I have enjoyed my break from blogging. I have not had much interest in it over the past several months, but my zeal is back and I am ready give all of you such deep insights to life and Gospel.
I have been on a difficult journey through the past several years on how to live for the Kingdom. I believe that when Jesus ascended into heaven, He took seat on His throne and began reigning as King. As such, the Kingdom was instituted and we are now living with Jesus as our King in His Kingdom.
With all that said, I have done several posts on this blog called "Kingdom Living=Kingdom Giving." I have been so moved by the Lord to try and give "everything." Ondria and I by God’s grace have been trying to give to those who need things more than we do. As we have embarked on this difficult task, we have seen the hand of the Lord on our life - blessing us and always meeting our needs (just as He said he would in Matthew 6 if we meet the needs of the poor).
With this way of life in mind, I have been thinking lately about the Social Gospel and what its intentions were/are. I can say that the theology behind the Social Gospel is something I am certainly not comfortable with (Theologically, the Social Gospel leaders were overwhelmingly post-millenialists. That is because they believed the Second Coming could not happen until humankind rid itself of social evils by human effort. Wikipedia). Each time I hear of the Social Gospel, it is always being used as a tool to fix the broken social/political structure and bring poor people into a better financial standing. I would love to see another definition given to the Social Gospel - a definition that meets the needs of the poor, but does so for another reason other than fighting injustice and feeding the hungry. When I look around at my church's current cultural context in the Deep Creek Community I see surrounding it a multitude of homeless and hungry people. My heart brakes for them and I want them to be fed. But what food do they need? These hungry and homeless people need bread to eat. Bread that will feed their starving stomachs and Bread that will fill their starving souls.
In John 6 Jesus sees the needs of the hungry and meets their physical hunger. After he draws away from them that night they go looking for him. They find Him and Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you." Boy, have I felt this way almost every time we have reached out to the needy. They always come back looking for the physical food and not the spiritual food I was also trying to give them; yet Jesus uses the physical food as a tool to offer the spiritual food. He tells them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
If we think of the Social Gospel as a tool to give the true Gospel through social means, than we must use the Social Gospel. The term needs redefining based on a Biblical understanding of the Gospel - Jesus giving all of Himself to a group of hungry, dirty, smelly people who think that all they need is get fed through physical bread and then hoard what they have. Jesus gave all of Himself to give us real Bread! We must find a way to use physical bread to offer spiritual bread. I would like to call this as the real Social Gospel!
I have so many more thoughts on this issue, but these will do for some introduction…
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