Life Before Death
I think its fair to say that I used to think that the most important thing for me as a Christians was a) to make it to heaven, and b) to take as many people with me as possible. Is this really what the Gospel is about though? Is that the message Jesus left us with and commanded us to share with all the world? I don’t think it is. Many Christians seem only really concerned with helping people find life after death whilst Jesus seemed equally interested to helping people find life before death. Jesus never taught us to go and get as many converts as possible; He taught us to disciple as many people as possible. The difference is huge.
Like it or not, Jesus was committed to making a difference for good in countless peoples lives even though many of them never went onto follow Him. I grew up with the impression that things like healing the sick, feeding the poor, meeting phyiscal needs et cetera were not really important - the important thing was that people got “the Gospel” i.e. were preached at about Jesus saving from sins and saving us from hell. Now this clearly is important but Jesus didn’t have this distiction in His ministry. He recogised the holistic nature of man; that spirit, soul and body are all intertwined. For Jesus, it seemed that healing was as much about “the Gospel” as when He spoke to the people and taught them. The Gospel - as I see it at least - is not just a message that we speak or proclaim. It is that, but when I look at the Gospels I see that Jesus’ approach to sharing the Good News was through proclamation, demonstration, and incarnation. Or, to say it in less wordy terms; say it, show it, live it.
I guess I’m just trying to say that we need to get back to a holistic approach to taking the Gospel to the world. A Gospel that is for spirit, soul, and body. A Gospel that is not limited to “spiritual things” but is truly holistic in its approach. That, I believe, is what the world is looking for, and that it what the world needs. Jesus didn’t teach us to go into the world and “save souls”; He taught us to love our neighbours. We need to learn to love our neighbour (colleagues, friends, coursemates etc) holistically that gives them no sense that we’re only interested in them to “get them saved”.
