Glen Beck created a firestorm over his saying that if a church preaches a social gospel, “run as fast as you can.” LEONARD PITTS JR. MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS took umbrage with Beck in an article, which appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 23, 2010. While I don’t agree with Beck’s religion, he is correct and Pitts is wrong in what he wrote in his article. The Bible does not teach a social gospel, i.e. aid to the needy through the government taxation and social programs. The teaching of the Bible is for individuals and assemblies of the people of God collectively to help the needy.

First and foremost, the Bible teaches salvation in Christ. Being in Christ creates a new way of life in which the believer looks out of himself or herself to others in order to help them find salvation. Once the gospel is obeyed, the social aspect of the new life begins in the life of the believer. Not one word can be found where Jesus and the apostles ever appealed to the believers living the new life in Christ to use government to meet the social (economic) needs of the people. Anyone who so teaches is a false teacher and must be avoided according to the social gospel false teachers. To them, the government is salvation.

Pitts cited Rev. Jim Wallis, a preacher of the social gospel and president and CEO of the liberal religious activist group Sojourners for proof of the social gospel. Quote from Wallis:  “When I was in seminary,” he says, “we made a study of the Bible and we found 2,000 verses in the Bible about the poor, about God’s concern for the left out, left behind, the vulnerable and God’s call for justice …” The Bible does contain God’s teaching to help the less fortunate but not through the government. The teaching, once more stated, is to individuals and assemblies (churches) of the saved.

Paul wrote in Galatians 6:10: As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. That instruction is to the church at Galatia and most certainly, it was not directed at them for the helping of others through the government. Then in I Corinthians16:2 we find another instruction: Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.  That was directed to the Corinthian assembly to gather up their means to help the needy in Jerusalem who were undergoing persecution. The challenge is to Wallis to show where and how Paul was telling the saved to help by going through government programs.

Liberal preachers who do not know the Bible (doubtful that any do) refuse to believe the plain truths of the scriptures. They substitute man’s wisdom (?) for God’s and presume to know what isn’t true and then teach it for the truth. It appeals to those who put government and politics ahead of God. Thus when anyone blows the whistle on the apostles of biblical error, as Beck did, they try to kill the messenger of the truth. They can’t destroy the truth so they twist it and pillory the messenger. The other fact is that most of the pundits know what the Bible looks like but do not know anything of the message it contains. If they did, then Pitts and others wouldn’t write the foolishness that appeared in the article.

© 03-23-2010 DEC