Merciful: The Opportunity and Challenge of Discipling the Poor Out of Poverty by Randy Nabors

Author:Randy Nabors [Nabors, Randy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen Randy Nabors
Published: 2015-03-24T07:00:00+00:00

EVANGELISM AND THE POOR

I believe God wants us not only to do evangelism, but also to do it especially among the poor. To live a Christian life in a congregation that does not engage in evangelism, and never does it among the poor – especially if they are within reasonable proximity – is a completely artificial and foreign idea to the New Testament Church. The debate over which poor to help proves to be an artificial, intellectual exercise if we are in fact evangelizing them.

I am afraid we have taken the problem of James 2:1-9 – that of showing favoritism and deference to people of higher social standing – and solved it by not evangelizing among the poor. We don’t have a problem of favoritism about people unlike us coming into the worship service because we are not intentionally reaching any of them. Okay, I admit some congregations still might have this problem. However, I think we mainly “insult the poor” by refusing to bring the Gospel to them in their neighborhoods.

If we indeed preach the Gospel to the poor, as Jesus did, we will constantly be in the communities of the poor. If that is our reality, we cannot escape caring for their needs as Jesus and the Jerusalem church did. As we read in the book of Acts, after the day of Pentecost, the poor were in the church. I marvel at the early Jerusalem church, where they were growing in numbers (and how difficult it can be to grow that fast), taking care of the widows by feeding them, and facing cultural division issues head on and resolving the problems (Acts 6:1-7).

Later in the New Testament we see the apostle Paul instructing Timothy to create a list of widows. Evidently the church was financially supportive of them, and in turn used them in its ministry (1 Timothy 5:9).

The Scripture does set priorities for the church, in both the Old and New testaments. It is interesting, however, that when Paul speaks to this issue in Galatians he begins the verse with “…Let us do good to all men,” and then “especially to the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). To “all” men is the direction of our good works. It is amazing how many pastors and churches seem to skip over this very small but hugely encompassing word.

It is proper for the congregation to set priorities in its benevolence and be a good steward of God’s resources. Widows, orphans and aliens, along with any of its members who are in need, are proper concerns of the church, but it should not use this as an excuse to be hardhearted toward the people in its own neighborhood.

We have been amazed that some pastors, even in the face of natural disasters affecting their entire community, have closed their hearts to their neighbors. When we called them and asked if they needed our help to come and help them repair roofs, gut houses, cut fallen trees they said “no.” This was because none of their members were in trouble.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.