9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them. (Acts 16:9-10)
What does it mean to help someone? There are many ways in which we can offer help (or even things that we perceive as helpful that are actually unhelpful). What caught my eye here was a view into the biblical theology of real help. To really help someone is to tend to their 'realest' need. For example, we can help someone who has a headache by giving them paracetamol. But whether that actually is helping them is not immediately clear. If their headache is simply a symptom of a much greater problem, and the paracetamol only relieves the symptom but ignores the true need so that the person being helped can ignore the urgency of their real need, and thus we haven't actually helped them. In fact, we have given them a drug with which to escape the reality of a pressing need.I'm not implying paracetamol is bad, but I say this to illustrate a point. Sometimes we think people's greatest needs are comfort, health, or some social or emotional need. If we make our primary occupation meeting these needs in an effort to be helpful, we can miss the great need.
The great need is the gospel, and the realest help for that need is for the gospel to be preached to them. The Apostle Paul understood this. The man appeared in the vision and said 'help us'. Paul and his companions concluded that the best help was to preach the gospel to them. The gospel addresses the core of every problem that people face. If we are consumed with medicating, then we never come around to the healing that only the gospel can bring (Isaiah 53:5).
I do not discount the reality that the preaching of the gospel is often partnered with meeting needs socially/physically. However, if we think we are helping anyone with what we do, and what we are doing does not involve the gospel, then at best we have given the one we are trying to help a false security. Should we help people socially/physically? Absolutely, however the core must be the cross of Jesus and the message must be the cross of Jesus and our 'help' is then only a shadow of the real help that only Jesus can give.
3 comments:
Great stuff Pastor Matt! I couldn't ignore the conviction that we as a church all to often (and I'm speaking to me as well) will do just that, help the persons sysmtoms. I wonder how many times I have "bailed" somebody out of a trial only to find out later it was a lesson that the Lord was trying teaching them.. I think we as the body need to remember that taking the burden away is not always the best thing to do. Gal 6:2 says we are to "carry eath others burdens" I myself see this passage (opinion)
As walking "WITH" them and helping them with it. Not always taking it "FROM" them... (just my thoughts)
Very true. Galatians 6 also says each one is to bear his own load. That is why our help must be prayerful and gospel oriented.
Yeeeeaaaahhhh! Bring it on, Matt! This stuff is great :) I'm going to add it to my reader :)
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