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The Two Parts of the Ministry

“And departing, they began going about among the villages, preaching the gospel, and healing everywhere.”

There’s the two parts to the Ministry of Reconciliation. First there is the articulation of the truth, the good news and the implications of it. And secondly, acts of kindness. When looking at the life of the Lord Jesus, we find this scenario occurring time and time again. He got in among people doing acts of kindness as the matrix for the articulation of the truth.

The articulation of the Gospel can take on a number of different forms, depending upon who the listener is. There are those who know nothing of the scope of God’s eternal desire for us, so a great deal of explanation is needed, a great deal of information needs presented. Foundational issues need attention, from an understanding of our sin nature, or our obsession with independence through the Father’s plan to allow us to return to him. Helping the listener sort out the issues and get them in proper perspective takes a lot of time. There is the need to answer and ask questions to make sure that the points are clear and understandable, at the pace appropriate to the Spirit working within them. This tends to be in the realm of preaching, the presenting of new information for the listener to process.

The other form that the articulation of the Gospel takes, is teaching. Teaching in the Scriptures is not the teaching that we are used to. We are used to the Greek form of teaching, which is more like preaching (the presenting of new material). Teaching in the process of the Gospel, is the idea of bringing people to a place of choice on material that they are already familiar with. Putting them in the position where they must bring evidence to where they stand on the issues of the Gospel. Jesus did this as much as he proclaimed the information. The Rich Young Ruler is a good example. Articulation of the Gospel is something that we must develop to a fine pitch in our lives.

The other part of the ministry is the developing of ‘acts of kindness’. Jesus went around healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers and giving sight to the blind. Unfortunately I’ve never been given those abilities. But that doesn’t let me off from doing acts of kindness for those in need. Doing acts of kindness gets us into the lives of those who need us. We’re able to rub shoulders with, and relate with those we are reaching. It creates an environment where they come for help.

When you leave one of these things out, you either get a people who have left out the articulation of the truth and are left with nothing but a social services organization. Or, you get a people who leave out acts of kindness, and are left simply with trying to persuade others on the basis of academic enterprises. The two are woven into a beautiful endeavor, the Ministry of Reconciliation.