Are We Fully Partaking

Why Should We Partake In Redeeming Society?

If we want to see change in our God given communities and society, we need to go beyond holding onto the gospel as our own personal plan of salvation. By remaining passive in our salvation, we minimise God’s ongoing relationship towards creation, and his concern with mankind. We are all called to participate in his mission which is centred on redemption towards those who are lost, oppressed and suffering injustice.

We need to think upon the ‘good works’ that have been prepared for us in advance before creation (Ephesians 2:10). These good works should be an outworking of our faith, and an extension of the grace and mercy given to us. These include acts of mercy, charity, and service, which are given as service to those individuals, and communities affected by acts of injustice and oppression from the effects of the fall.

Our gifts and talents are to be used to help to bring relief to the social ills that surround us. To help in the redeeming of society, we approach issues using kingdom principles, expressing the love of God, giving people a foretaste of God’s kingdom here on earth.

We need to share the full gospel of the kingdom - which includes being saved by grace – if not, we are only telling half the story and using it to gain entry to heaven. Let us abandon our individualised Christianity and not be like our western individualistic culture and instead show the world that God does care deeply about what is happening in the world and the individual.

I like what Dick Staub writes in his book The Culturally Savvy Christian, he shows how popular media has diverted our attention from issues that matter.

“Humans sit in front of television sets, passively watching human misery unfold, while just outside their door, down the street, or in an apartment next door, a real person faces the same problem and there is no one to help them because we’re all preoccupied with our favourite characters on reality TV” (p.7).

I really like this quote as an example of how one medium can have a huge influence in making society passive towards the real world, and numbing our reality. Just imagine how living fully engage in our purpose would reverse the effect we would have our everyday lives.

When we live the gospel message fully, we become more motivated by the love of Christ, then we can engage fully. Until we engage as a redemptive community of believers we won’t be able to provide solutions for society that only the ‘good news’ can provide. However, taking on a redemptive approach is a willingness to take on real world problems, seeking remedies for social and individual problems using a biblical world-view to find truth to solutions.

There is no relief for anyone if we just watch the world go by, when we have the answers for a world that weeps and groans for redemption.