Category: Social Gospel

At times, saints of old were guilty of “running ahead of God,” that is, they presumed to know the will of God and put forth human efforts to help accomplish His will. The results were always bad. We can be guilty of doing the same thing – as individuals and collectively as the church.

Some conservative preachers have moved freely between conservative and liberal churches, even having institutional preachers in for gospel meetings because it’s “different” in Europe than in the U.S. Non-institutional churches in the U.S. have financially supported so-called “conservative” preachers who labor in Europe who practice such blurring of lines as we have described in the preceding sentence because ‘it is not the same over there; they have not divided over these issues.’

It is a relatively simple thing to demonstrate that the scriptural work of the church is spiritual and not recreational, and that the word fellowship in the New Testament is a spiritual relationship and not banqueting or basketball.

The church needs to address the needs of man, and be an agency of change to benefit mankind. And it can and will do so as long as it fulfills the call of God to preach the Word. The power is the gospel, and it alone is “relevant” to the eternal needs of sinful man.

We do not want to send our young people to a college run by brethren if we can’t trust that they will be taught the truth while there. We don’t want to send our children to summer camps run by brethren if an appeal to emotionalism is the rule. We don’t want to have our children attend youth retreats and lectureships if they get the idea that fun and frolic is the work of the church. While we want our children to know how very precious their souls are, we do not want them to think that the work of the church is to cater to their whims.