The Gospel: Good News & Good Works
Here at Renew we desire to embrace and live out the Story of God and Man in both our words and in our works. We desire to live out the ways of Jesus through our proclamation of the message and our presence within and among the community. The holistic gospel is one that is about good news and good works together.
The words of Lesslie Newbegin from his book Mission in Christ’s Way challenge us greatly. Here are a few excerpts from the first chapter:
“Word without deeds are empty, but deeds without words are dumb. It is stupid to set them against each other. It is, for example, stupid to say, ‘The one thing that matters is to go everywhere and preach the gospel; all other activities such as schools and hospitals and programs for social action are at best merely auxiliary and at worst irrelevant.’ Why should people believe our preaching that the kingdom of God has come near in Jesus if they see no sign that anything is happening as a result, if they can see no evidence that disease and ignorance and cruelty and injustice are being challenged and overcome? Why should they believe our words if there is nothing happening to authenticate them?”
Or, on the other had, it is equally stupid to say, ‘Preaching is a waste of time. Forget it and get on with tackling real human problems of poverty, injustice and oppression… We know that our true life is beyond our grasp, and we are deceived when we invest all our hopes, and encourage others to invest all their hopes, in programs that do not reach beyond the horizon of this present age…
Our preaching is mere empty words if it does not have behind it a costly engagement with the powers of evil, with all the powers that rob men and women of their humanity, and if it does not call men and women to share in the same costly engagement. But, equally, our programs for teaching, healing, feeding the hungry, caring for the sick and action for justice and freedom are futile if they do not point beyond themselves to a greater reality than they – to the great healer, the great liberator, the one who is himself the living bread…
Let us not fall into this game of setting words and deeds against each other, preaching against action for justice and action for justice against preaching. Do not let us set ‘kingdom’ against ‘church’ and ‘church’ against ‘kingdom.’ The church is not an end in itself. ‘Church growth’ is not an end in itself. The church is only true to its calling when it is a sign, an instrument and a foretaste of the kingdom…
Success in the sense of growth in the number of committed Christians is not in our hands. It is the work of God the Holy Spirit to call men and women to faith in Jesus, and the Spirit does so in ways that are often mysterious and beyond any possibility of manipulation or even of comprehension by us. What is required of us is faithfulness in word and deed, at whatever cost; faithfulness in action for truth, for justice, for mercy, for compassion; faithfulness in speaking the name of Jesus when the time is right, bearing witness, by explicit word as occasion arises, to God whose we are and whom we serve.
There are situations where the word is easy and the deed is costly; there are situations where the deed is easy and the word is costly. Whether in word or in deed, what is required in each situation is that we be faithful to him who said to his disciples: ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you,’ and showed them his hands and his side.”
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