I want to address the common evangelical idea that the Gospel is best communicated through our actions and not by words. The saying "Preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary use words, our actions should be doing most of the talking" is a popular idea, but is it biblical?
Throughout whole bible it commands us to teach, preach, proclaim, tell, etc. The old testament is full of prophets and people selected by God to verbally communicate His will. Could God have communicated his will to each and everyone of us without using these prophets??? Yes. Did he?? Not really. There is something powerful about God's procalimed word. God has chosen the medium of speach as the means by which his Gospel has been communicated thoughout history.
Many times in the new testament Jesus, Paul, James, and John talk about good deeds. These however are ALWAYS in the context of instruction to belivers to carry out and actually do what they have been talking about and saying. (See the book of James, 1 John, and Matthew 5:16)
In the context of evangelism and proclimation of the Gospel...there is NO better way to communicate God's Truth than with the spoken word. The Bible is written in a language that is communicable.
I believe the idea of letting our actions do most of the talking has been abused by people who don't put in the study time to be able to know God deeply and to communicate his Gospel verbally. I know that sounds harsh, but you must be able to communicate. I know this isn't the truth for everyone, but it is easier for me to live a good life than it is to communicate the Gospel clearly. It's easy for me to feed people, but harder to tell them why I'm doing it. If that were the case with everyone...we would have alot of people doing "christian" things and no one communicating the Gospel...DANGEROUS. If you have good deeds without the right communication of the Gospel you get the American Red Cross.
It may be better to change the idea to, humbly, clearly, and rightly communicate the Gospel at all times and actually practice what you preach. I don't believe it's a matter of doing one thing more than the other, rather doing both with humility and excellence.
1 comment:
good word stud. Its funny you wrote that because i have been struggling on how to handle a few different situations about that very thing. a few of my teammates i want to reach out to but have been wrestling with just how to do it. and with the concept of just living our lives in a Godly way to reflect what I believe. But i always wonder exactly how God wants me to handle those situations....
A few of the guys I think i'm running the risk of over cooking my grits if you know what i mean. I want them to understand but so many people are at delicate spots....
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