Remember, "distinction without separation." Although the Great Commission itself does not include social justice as part of the church's mandate, "teaching everything I have commanded" includes the New Testament's moral instruction as essential to that substance that the church communicates in making disciples. Although Scripture does not tell us which causes or political candidates to support, its gospel brings renewal as well as forgiveness, and its law guides us, corrects us, and provides wisdom for relating to our neighbors and the wider creation. In other words, through Scripture, God gives us the corrective lenses through which we view ourselves and the world. Through the ministry mandated in the Great Commission, we all become better equipped not only to use our spiritual gifts in the body of Christ and to share the gospel with others, but also to glorify and enjoy God in our worldly stations.
Like two great continental plates, the Great Commandment and the Great Commission converge at various places, sometimes provoking tremors and even the occasional earthquake. One such fault line is mercy ministry.
There is little controversy over the diaconal care of the saints in their temporal needs. The ordained office of deacon was created for this very purpose (Acts 6:1-6), and its qualifications are delineated in 1 Timothy 3:9-10. As an extension of his ministry of proclamation, Paul was particularly preoccupied with a collection for relief of the Jerusalem saints. He includes lengthy references to it in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, Romans 15: 14-33, and again in 2 Corinthians 8:1-9:15.
This official mercy ministry of the church has become somewhat anemic in our day. As with other aspects of the church's commission, the slack is often picked up by parachurch organizations. Much is lost in the process, however, particularly the essential connection between the spiritual and physical reality of Christ's church in the world. After all, the church is not Christ's soul but his body, his visible organization and society. Sharing in Christ, we necessarily share in one another, feeling one another's aches and pains as part of our own flesh. But this personal intimacy’our physical as well as spiritual interdependence’is increasingly threatened by an individualism that surrenders bodies to impersonal bureaucracies and market forces. As the importance of physical presence becomes increasingly undermined by a nearly Gnostic enthusiasm for technological disembodiment, disguised somewhat ironically as "social media" and "connectivity," a reformed and revived diaconate could make a big difference not only in the lives of believers but also in the church's witness to the world.
I wonder if we take this seriously enough today. It's estimated that two hundred million Christians are under the threat of arrest, imprisonment, mutilation, and death right now. (Not to downplay early church persecution, but the highest scholarly estimates place the total martyrdoms under the Roman emperors at one hundred thousand, while a couple of million Christians have been martyred in recent years alone.) Are our resources being pooled sufficiently, like Paul's collection, to serve as a witness to the power of the gospel? Are we really caring for the household of God? Are families of martyrs in northern Nigeria being assisted by gifts from churches in Southern California? When one part of our body is injured, the rest of the body compensates, sending blood to the weakened part’and that's the analogy Scripture uses for Christ's body: "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it" (1 Cor. 12:26-27). If one part of the body is devastated by a natural disaster or by persecution, the rest of the body should rush to its support’not only spiritually but materially. It's easy to talk about social justice. Championing a cause doesn't exact as much of my time and energy as caring for actual neighbors right under my nose. If the church is not fulfilling its diaconal obligations, which are ordained by Christ, then it should not indulge in triumphalistic announcements about ushering in the kingdom through social justice and political policies.
The Debate
While mercy ministry for the saints is generally acknowledged at least in theory, the tension’sometimes the epicenter of quakes’occurs over the question of whether (or to what extent) mercy ministry is a form of social justice. In other words, is the church commissioned to change social, political, and economic structures? Is it even called to alleviate suffering beyond its pale? Is the church commissioned to own and operate hospitals, schools for general education, and recreational centers? What are its qualifications, much less authorization, for such mandates?
First, I believe that confusing mercy ministry with social justice is crippling for both. Again, we have to ask what Scripture mandates. Reformed Christians have historically affirmed what's called the "regulative principle." This principle holds that the church's authority is restricted to that which is explicitly taught in Scripture or can be deduced from Scripture by good and necessary consequences. Beyond this, Christians have liberty. The church has biblical warrant to expect its members to support the local ministry, missions, and diaconal care. However, the church risks usurping Christ's magisterial position in binding the consciences of Christians beyond his Word. Christians must love their neighbors through a variety of callings, but the Great Commission is a very specific ministry.
When it comes to mercy ministry, Scripture teaches that the church as Christ's embassy of grace is to care for the saints. Its diaconal ministry should be deeply invested in this enterprise, not only locally but also in the wider body of churches. The same catholicity expressed in the covenantal connection of local churches at the level of pastors and elders in broader assemblies should also be evident in diaconal ministry, as I've suggested above. Broadening this mandate ("mission creep") not only undermines diaconal ministry, it also weakens the genuine claims of social justice. On many issues’such as abortion, euthanasia, racism, environmental stewardship, poverty, stem cell research, cloning, and the contemporary slave trade’Christians can make common cause with non-Christian neighbors. Where Scripture addresses questions of life and justice, the church must speak. But when we try to turn the church into the vehicle for these important causes and specific policy agendas, we divide Christ's body into political action committees for Republicans and Democrats.
Second, the texts that are often adduced to support this confusion of mercy ministry with social justice are often misunderstood. Paul says, "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith" (Gal. 6:10). Hebrews 13:16 exhorts, "Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares….Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God" (Heb. 13:1-2, 16). Entertaining angels unawares is probably a reference to Abram's unwitting hospitality to strangers who were actually angels sent to save him and his family from the destruction of Sodom. In any case, the reference to strangers here, like the prisoners mentioned in verse 3, is most likely to believers who were showing up on doorsteps of fellow saints seeking a hiding place from the authorities.
Jesus had already prepared his disciples for this scenario. One place is Matthew 24-25, where he speaks of what will happen in between his ascension and return in glory. There will be persecution. Believers in Christ will be cast out of the synagogues, their own relatives will hand them over to the authorities, and there will be wars and rumors of wars, until the gospel is preached to every nation. And then Jesus speaks of the last judgment when he separates the sheep from the goats:
Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." (Matt. 25:34-36)
What is especially striking is the righteous answer: "'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you and thirsty and give you drink?'…And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me'" (vv. 37-40, emphasis added). Meanwhile, the reverse happens in the case of the goats: Jesus indicts them for turning their back on the saints’and therefore on him’while they protest the charge and defend their righteousness (vv. 41-45).
The bond between the head and his body is so inextricable that when the ascended Jesus appeared to Saul on the Damascus road, he asked, "'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' And he said, 'Who are you, Lord?' And he said, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting'" (Acts 9:4-5). Paul would never forget’and would only grow in his understanding’of the significance of this bond of union between Christ and his church.
Third, the confusion of mercy ministry with social justice assumes that whatever callings Christians have in the world are to be done by the church. This confuses the church-as-institution with the church-as-people. The church is where Christ makes disciples; the world is where he sends them throughout the week. Christians (and non-Christians) are called by the Great Commandment to be good spouses, parents, friends, relatives, and neighbors. Alongside non-Christians, with deeper grounds and eschatological motivation, believers care for God's creation. They defend the common good and the rights, health, and dignity of fellow humans. However, the church as an institution is not called to raise children, repair streets, or transform economic structures.
Both the ministry of the Word and the ministry of mercy were so important to the church's mission that Christ, through his apostles, established the office of deacon so that the apostles could dedicate themselves to the ministry of the Word and to prayer. Furthermore, social justice is so important that God has spread out its concerns to a variety of common institutions’by no means exclusively political. Not only because social transformation would distract the church from its ministry of Word and Sacrament, but because temporal justice requires expertise and divinely ordained powers of coercive enforcement, God exercises his providential governance through secular courts and rulers who are believers and unbelievers. Where Scripture speaks, the church speaks. Where it presses God's claims of justice on behalf of our neighbors, we must hear and obey. Yet the church has neither the authority nor the competence to bind its members' consciences in matters beyond Scripture's scope.
