Real Christianity #130： Does Social Justice Belong in the Church？
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Summary
Many modern Christians are finding themselves and their churches fighting more diligently for social justice than they are fighting for the gospel. In fact, some argue that social justice, that is caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, freeing those who are oppressed from sinful situations, is the ultimate mission of the church. While these are all characteristic works of a person who s experienced the love of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, the question is: Is social justice really the mission or even part of the mission of The Church?
Transcript
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Welcome to this episode of Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge, where each week I
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offer 15 to 20-minute answers to tough theological and pastoral questions. This show is a 100%
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join the over 500,000 Christians who follow us on social media just by searching for relearn.org
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on any platform. Now, many modern Christians are finding themselves and their churches
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fighting more diligently for social justice than they are fighting for the gospel. In fact,
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Some argue that social justice, that is caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, freeing those
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who are oppressed from sinful situations, is the ultimate mission of the church.
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You know, while these are all characteristic works of a person who's experienced the love of God
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through the gospel of Jesus Christ, the question is, is social justice really the mission or even
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part of the mission of the church? Now, as you're going to see in this episode, I don't think it is,
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But together, we're going to look at the scriptures to evaluate not only where social justice fits into the Christian church, but ultimately what the mission of the church truly is.
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But before we dive in, I just want to make one quick announcement.
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Okay, today's question is from Calista from Manhattan, New York.
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Pastor Dale, I'm a 29-year-old Reformed conservative Baptist woman
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As you know, this makes it quite difficult for me to find a biblical church.
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The church I currently attend is becoming more and more progressive
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and is constantly focusing its sermons and outreach efforts
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not on the gospel, but on social matters like racism,
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The pastor keeps preaching heavily on how it's our mission as the church to make the world like
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heaven. Honestly, I know in my heart that something is off with this position, but I'm not
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sure what's actually right. Can you please help me understand this more? Okay, great question,
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Calista, and cool name. I expect that many listeners are actually struggling with this
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to some degree, depending on what kind of church they're in. And they're probably trying to attempt
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to understand the mission of the church, but also where does the church play in the social justice
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conversation. Now, the biblical term for doing social justice is called mercy ministry. In fact,
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acts of mercy is one of the gifts given by the Spirit to those in the church listed in Romans
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12, 6 through 8. So it's really the gift of sympathy toward those who are hurting. And you
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may have someone in your church who is obviously gifted in this manner and is hypersensitive to
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those who are maybe in trial or sorrow or pain. And these people are usually out in front serving
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the lowly in the church, maybe the elderly, special needs individuals, prison ministry,
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going to the hospitals to visit the sick, homelessness. And they do this without
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complaining, and it brings them joy to basically extend the love of God to the hurting people
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around them. But the problem arises when we as a church confuse the commands of Scripture given
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to individuals with the commands of Scripture given to the corporate church. So for example,
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the Bible tells me individually as a Christian husband to love my wife as Christ loves the
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church, but it does not tell the church corporately to love my wife as Christ loves the church,
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right? So on the other hand, I think there's another example is that the Bible tells the
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corporate church to go out into all the world and make disciples. But that doesn't mean that
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the Christian family who stays in their hometown in Indiana is sinning by remaining, you know,
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static in their lifestyle. So essentially, we need to separate the individual and corporate
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ethics of the church so that we can start to identify really who is responsible for what,
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and what are the mission of the church, and what are the characteristic commands for the
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individuals. Now, in a generation that's saturated with emotionalism and sensualism,
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many churches and ministries have confused mercy with mission, meaning that they've elevated
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humanitarian ministry, and as a result, catered more to the carnal matters of health and economics
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and physical well-being than they are to the spiritual necessities of divine forgiveness
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and reconciliation with God through the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, you know, some have called
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this mercy-centric missiology the social justice gospel—that's what we've called it, I think,
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in pop culture, while other more conservative proponents may argue, oh, it's not the social
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justice gospel, it's the fully integrated gospel. Now, it's obvious that both Jesus and the
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apostles support, and I would say even command, Christians individually to care for the temporal
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needs of others. But how are these commands to be viewed in connection with the mission of the
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corporate church? That's the question, right? In other words, you know, is the one true mission,
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the central vital mission of the church, temporal mercy or spiritual mending? Is it physical
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philanthropy or spiritual freedom? You know, is it moral righteous deeds or is it eternal
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reconciliation with God? Now, you know, I believe when we look at these questions, there's a ditch
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on either side of the discussion. And as with most issues, there's really two extremes, right?
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The first group views the mission of the church as a command to bring about the physical
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manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth. And they want to see physical healing, emotional and
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mental recovery, and freedom from economic and political oppression. And this is kind of why
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the communistic egalitarian ideals are so popular within the progressive church that
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adopts this kind of social justice view. And they believe that it's their mission to bring this
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kind of heaven-like utopia to their local communities. And I actually remember just not
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a couple weeks ago, I saw a viral tweet from a proponent of the social justice gospel
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that said, and I quote, so long as Christians keep thinking their faith is about salvation from hell
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instead of liberation from oppression, we will continue to have to deal with Christian terrorism,
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end quote. Actually, someone responded to that tweet, another person in the social justice gospel
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community, and they said, and I quote, they don't understand that heaven and hell are states of
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being on this earth during life, not the afterlife, end quote. Now again, these are extreme examples,
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but that's where this theology ends if your church doesn't operate within the boundaries of
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Scripture. You begin prioritizing physical mercy above spiritual mending, and it becomes the
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central focus, and you actually shift that it's not about reconciliation with God, it's actually
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about freedom from oppression, and the whole gospel gets perverted and distorted.
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And so, in a sense, the social gospel folks really view the church as an army of good Samaritans or
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spiritual Samaritans that are looking to bring the physical goodness of God's kingdom to their
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local cities. And the mission of the church becomes more about what they're doing than what
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Christ has done. And this view is, you know, usually it's supported by folks who disproportionately
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focus on the ministry accounts of the gospels over the ministry accounts of the Old Testament
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or the epistles or the whole, you know, just the whole structure of the Bible. Meaning, you know,
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this group that's kind of, again, focused on gospel, like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John gospel
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ministry, views kind of the description of Jesus's ministry as the prescription for their own
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ministry. And namely, that they're both called to, they believe that they're both called to
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and capable of producing the same type of ministerial work and miracles and wonders and
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change that's performed by Jesus, right? This is kind of the Bethel doctrine as well.
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Mike Riccardi, who's a pastor at Grace Community Church under John MacArthur, in a white paper
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that he once wrote, he said, where's this quote? Okay, he says, the mercy ministry or the mercy
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centric view that would have the church, quote, build the kingdom, usher in the kingdom, or
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establish the kingdom, drastically overestimates both our ability and responsibility to do so.
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And I actually think he's right. While we are citizens of a future kingdom, and while we are
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redeemed, you know, in part, but not fully, right? We have the spiritual redemption,
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but not the physical redemption at this point. You know, we are individually called to be
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compassionate and benevolent and loving toward those whom we encounter, to take those character
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standards of the Christian life or the miraculous works of Jesus, which again are, just to be clear,
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the miraculous works of Jesus were specifically to validate His message during His ministry.
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So to take those, again, those loving characteristics that we are called to do in Scripture and the
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miraculous works of Jesus, which were to validate His message during His ministry, and make them
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the mission of the Church forever, the universal forever mission of the Church, is to confuse both
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the Church's place in the world and its purpose in the world. Now, on the other extreme, we have
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what I call the Stoic Gospel. So you have the Social Gospel, and then you got the Stoic Gospel.
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And this view, the Stoic gospel, is typical of kind of fundamentalist groups that are within the church.
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They view the mission of the church solely as a gospel proclamation and find their efforts kind of void of mercy ministry altogether.
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And this view treats the mission field kind of like a war zone of bullet-wounded individuals, right?
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Like they can't justify putting in any time into healing broken fingers and preparing meals
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when they're just surrounded with all these folks with fatal bullet holes in their bodies, right?
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I got to go preach the gospel. I got to go preach the gospel. I got to go preach the gospel.
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Now, while this view seems to rightly prioritize the gospel message,
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it leaves the culture with an incomplete view of the Christian life
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and lacks kind of the extension of the sympathy and kindness that is to be reflective of the members of the church.
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So how do we sort out the truth between these two extremes? How do we divide what Scripture calls
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us to do as individuals with what the Bible delivers as the corporate mission for the church?
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And that should be your church, for your local church. What's your church's mission? And then
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that's different from your individual commands in Scripture to you as an individual Christian.
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The first point I want to make is that mercy ministry is important, and it should be seen
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in the church because we are called by Scripture to display the love of Christ to others, first to
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those in the church and then to those that are in the world. Now, if we're going to look at love
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in degrees. You know, the highest degree of love is not helping people with their physical needs.
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Now, I know that's a big statement, but that's not the highest degree of love. Jesus says in Mark
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8.36, for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul, right? So this
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is, you know, this is a clear teaching that the reigning priority in ministry individually and
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corporately is soul work. The soul is the most valuable thing. It is the most important thing
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that we have. The soul is eternal. The body is not, right? In terms of our resurrected bodies
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will be, I'm not going into that debate. But the idea is that the soul is eternal. We need to be
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dealing with the soul work. You could gain the whole world. You can gain your health. You can
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gain wealth. You can gain all these things. But if you don't have the soul healed, meaning you're
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reconciled, forgiven by God, believe in Jesus Christ, redeemed, then it doesn't matter, right?
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So that's just kind of the priority that Jesus puts on it. We can't just meet physical needs
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that cannot be the mission of the church. We can't also kind of show them Jesus through our
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good works. That's what a lot of these social gospel people argue is, you know, just show them
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Jesus through your good works, right? They say that Francis of Assisi thing, you know,
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preach the gospel, use words if necessary. The gospel in, you know, Romans 10, 17 says,
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so faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Okay. The gospel people is
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verbal. Okay. The gospel is not your testimony. The gospel is not giving someone a sandwich on
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the side of the road. The gospel is not your moral example. The gospel is not your Christian life.
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The gospel is not a donation to a ministry. The gospel is a verbal communication to other
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individuals who don't believe in Jesus of their current state of condemnation before God and
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their ability to find forgiveness and reconciliation by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ alone.
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Bad news first, and then the good news. And the good news isn't good unless there is bad news,
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Right. Darren Patrick, he wrote a book called Social Justice, and he said,
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especially as a church-wide endeavor, centrally serve the goal of gospel proclamation, end quote.
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The great late pastor Vance Havener, who started actually preaching when he was 12 years old,
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he passed away, I think, in the 80s, in 1980s, he said,
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if they had a social gospel in the days of the prodigal son, somebody would have given him a bed
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and a sandwich, and he never would have gone home. Okay, so ultimately, there's nothing wrong
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with performing mercy ministry, especially as a church. There's nothing wrong with that at all.
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It's actually a good thing. But mercy ministry is not the mission of the church. Therefore,
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mercy ministry should never receive greater attention than the mission-centric ministry
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of the church. And I actually think that this whole social gospel issue, especially here in
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America, is really a product of affluent Christianity. When you get on the mission
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field in remote villages and try to lay upon those people the weight of the social gospel,
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you just crush people. Most Christian communities throughout history can barely feed their own
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families, let alone spend their time fighting for freedom from political and social oppression for
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others. In other words, the social gospel is not a universal gospel, and therefore it cannot be
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the true gospel. The true gospel must be able to work everywhere equally for everyone. And that's
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just, again, a revealing point, which again leads me to answer the vital question of this episode,
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which is, What is the Mission of the Church? Okay, Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert wrote an
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entire book on this topic. I actually have it in my hands right now. It's almost 300 pages,
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and it's titled, What is the Mission of the Church? The subtitle is Making Sense of Social
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Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission. I had to read this, actually, for one of my seminary
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classes on evangelism and apologetics. But they answer this question quite well, and I'm just
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going to read you their answer, because they put a lot more work into this than I have. They say,
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quote, the mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the
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gospel of Jesus Christ and the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches
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that they might worship and obey Jesus Christ now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father,
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end quote. So ultimately, the Great Commission is the mission of the church. That's Matthew 28,
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18 through 20. I'm going to read it for you right now. It says, and Jesus came and said to them,
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all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples
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of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
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teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always
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to the end of the age. Okay, this means that Great Commission ministry, which is the mission
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of the church, should be your church's central reigning priority, not just in words, but also
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in action. This is what you should be doing. The primary duty of your church, your local church
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should be this. And Great Commission ministry is really made up of three ingredients. Number one
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is going out and making disciples of Jesus Christ through the proclamation of the gospel. So you're
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going out, you're making disciples, and you're making disciples of who? Of Jesus Christ
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Okay, the third thing is teaching them the word of God.
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Making disciples and not getting them into churches
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It's part of it, but it's not great commission ministry.
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Baptizing individuals and not teaching the word
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is also not great commission ministry. Teaching them the word without baptizing them and converting
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them through the gospel wouldn't make sense either. You need all three. Those are the three
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ingredients of the mission of the church. Now, I want you to notice something. In verse 18,
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where Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. This means that we are
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not sent out to conquer the world, we are sent out by the one who has already conquered it.
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Okay, John 16, 33, Jesus says, I have said these things unto you that it may give you peace.
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In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.
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First John 5, 4, the apostle John then writes, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes
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the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith, end quote. Okay, so
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one, overcoming the world, the only way to do that, to have victory, to be free from the
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oppression of the world, is to be born of God. And faith in Christ, through Christ, like his work on
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the cross is the agent of overcoming the world. So if you want to be kingdom-minded and you want
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to be mission-minded and you want to bring victory into the world, you must do so by preaching the
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gospel of faith in Jesus Christ alone. So we go not because we have been sent out to fix what is
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ultimately broken. We go because he has already fixed what is already broken or what is ultimately
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broken. And this is the good news that we get to share with the world. It's universal. It's for
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everyone. And we get to go out and preach and proclaim that gospel message. Now, this does not
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nullify the great number of commands in the scriptures to display the love of Christ toward
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others in the church and in the world. Now, this does not mean that we become mission-only
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Christians who divorce the heart of Christian character from the mission of the Christian
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church. This simply means the primary mission of the church is to go and make disciples through
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the proclamation of the gospel, baptize those disciples into the church of Jesus Christ,
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and teach those disciples the biblical commands of their king or the word of God.
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Now, when we as a church include within proper prioritization, mission, then mercy, we begin to see the fruitful and faithful ministry of the church thrive.
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And we see reconciled souls find real physical needs being met.
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We find broken people, find real healing through biblical truth, and genuine relationships.
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But most of all, and I think this is the kind of crux of the show, is that we see the great
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commission being fulfilled and the people of God being revived and restored to their
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So that, in my opinion, Calista, is the central mission of the church.
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And I'm going to give you guys a few resources that I think will be really good for you.
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And I think these are really important for us as Christians right now to be very educated
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So I would read, if you get a chance, what is the mission of the church?
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It's actually just you could go chapter by chapter and choose the chapters you want to
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And I'll put a link on that for you guys in the show notes of this episode at relearn.org.
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If you just search for this episode, it's titled, Does Social Justice Belong in the Church?
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The second resource I'm going to give you is a four-part video series of four sermons that
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were delivered by John MacArthur titled, Social Justice and the Gospel. And then the last thing
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is a PDF. It's on a website. I'll link it to you on this blog post as well. And it's the statement
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on social justice and the gospel that was really put together by Grace Community Church and John
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MacArthur and that whole crew over there. As you guys know that I go to the Master's Seminary.
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I went to Western Seminary, but I also go to Master's Seminary now, and Master's Seminary is
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on the campus of John MacArthur's church. And so those three, I think, will be really good
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resources for you to understand this conversation on a deeper level. Last couple things, just if you
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guys are regular listeners of the show, we'd love for you guys to leave a review. You don't need to
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write anything, but you can just tap the stars in the podcast app. It's just a blessing when I get
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there. I'm on Twitter, at Dale Partridge, trying to release content on a regular basis, but we
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would love to have you online to stay connected with you as we further our mission here as a
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ministry. On that note, thank you guys for joining this episode of Real Christianity.
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I'm Dale Partridge, and I'll see you next week.
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