Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. (2 Timothy 4:2-4)

The Social Gospel

Satan always likes to make things fun, enjoyable, and pleasing to the flesh. One of his greatest tactics is to take something good and wholesome and turn it against the will of God. He appeals to the nature of the heart to seek the betterment of others as a ploy to change the purpose and design of authority for his own malicious ends. It is a difficult issue to discuss because of the emotional baggage of the social gospel. There is a feeling of doing good for others. Good people aim to do good things in the name of God. Who can blame a person for this kind of philosophy?

The ‘Social Gospel’ is the gospel of Christ driven by the community’s social needs. As the church began to grow, men sought ways to embrace more people with a greater effort to become like the world around them. The church began to be a place of benevolence to all the poor. Programs were established to feed, clothe, and care for everyone. Leaders of the church began to embrace a political role in the community to further their cause. The church services changed to appeal to what the people enjoyed. A time of social preaching, tickling the ears of the respondents, grew churches in great numbers.

Nothing is sinful about feeding people in need, setting programs up to care for others, and creating opportunities for fun and frolic. The challenge the church faces is how to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ without the social gospel of health, wealth, and prosperity. Someone identified the social gospel as a social movement applying ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, lack of unionization, poor schools, and the dangers of war. All noble causes, but to what end must the church include this in its work?

Another part of the movement of the social gospel, but according to the social gospel, is that Jesus didn’t complete our salvation. Instead, it’s up to humanity to achieve Jesus’s mission and bring salvation at a societal level. To this end, many churches spend more time on the social aspect of the work of the church instead of the fundamental purpose of the church to save souls. The rise of the social gospel has changed the message of the gospel of Christ to be less abrasive. If social programs bring in all different types of people, it would be unwise to preach the truth about sin because it would offend them. Preaching the social gospel excludes the message of the gospel of Christ. The two cannot dwell in the same space.

Feeding a man a loaf of bread will not save his soul, but giving them the Bread of Life (Jesus) will. Jesus could have built His kingdom on the social gospel when He fed five thousand men (not counting women and children), but He refused. When the crowds came to Him the next day (John 6), they were offended that the miracle bread maker was out of business. He upset them by demanding they change their hearts. Many turned and walked with Jesus no more. Jesus did not preach the social gospel. Many churches use the “carrot at the end of the stick,” trying to draw people by it. Jesus had the greatest carrot in the world to offer the people. They wanted to make Him their king. Jesus refused because that was not the purpose of His work.

The church is limited in what it has the authority to do because the word of God defines the work of the church. This does not suggest individuals do not have obligations. Jesus pictures the judgment scene in Matthew 25 as one of benevolence from the individual. The mission of the church is not to feed the poor of the world. An adage from the pioneer days of preaching suggested if the church brings someone in with fried chicken, ice cream, and sweet tea, they have people as dead as the chicken, cold as the ice cream, and weak as the tea. What drew believers to Christ in the first century was the preaching of the gospel.

Many churches have ‘Fellowship Halls’ where great kitchens and dining areas are found. A study of the word “fellowship” in the New Testament church shows it never refers to the eating of a meal, with one exception. The Lord’s Supper is called a fellowship. No other passages use the word “fellowship” in the context found in churches today. Gymnasiums are built to bring in the social gospel advocates to tickle the fancies of the youth. Softening the gospel helps the crowds grow in number. Sin is no longer a bad thing. The Bible is barely opened and read. Devotees to the social gospel become social Christians who have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge (Romans 10:2).

Kyle Pope writes, “Man is a spiritual creature dwelling within a physical body. The focus of the gospel and the primary responsibility of the church is to address man’s spiritual needs. There are responsibilities that the church has to assist Christians in need, but it is not the work of the church to attempt to feed, clothe, and provide medical treatment to the world. The word of the truth of the gospel is God’s means of drawing people to Himself.”