{"id":2408,"date":"2009-11-20T09:43:03","date_gmt":"2009-11-20T17:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=2408"},"modified":"2009-11-20T09:43:03","modified_gmt":"2009-11-20T17:43:03","slug":"why-do-christians-evangelize-instead-of-just-feeding-the-hungry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2009\/11\/20\/why-do-christians-evangelize-instead-of-just-feeding-the-hungry","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Christians Evangelize Instead of Just Feeding the Hungry?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Soup<\/a>I was recent\u00adly inter\u00adviewed by a stu\u00addent writ\u00ading for the Stan\u00adford Dai\u00adly<\/a>. A group of off-cam\u00adpus Chris\u00adtians had put on a con\u00adtro\u00adver\u00adsial out\u00adreach activ\u00adi\u00adty and he want\u00aded to know why Chris\u00adtians share their faith. Appar\u00adent\u00adly my answer was\u00adn\u2019t pithy or inter\u00adest\u00ading enough, because I did\u00adn\u2019t make it into the final arti\u00adcle<\/a>. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

His ques\u00adtions (which he asked sep\u00ada\u00adrate\u00adly but which I com\u00adbined for my answer): \u201cWhy do Chris\u00adtians try to spread their beliefs? With so many oth\u00ader prob\u00adlems in the world, why expend so much ener\u00adgy on spread\u00ading the gospels instead of, for exam\u00adple, feed\u00ading the hun\u00adgry?\u201d<\/p>\n

My emailed response: <\/p>\n

\nJesus said that he is the way, the truth, and the life \u2014 he even said that no one could come to God apart from him. So the same com\u00adpas\u00adsion that com\u00adpels Chris\u00adtians to build hos\u00adpi\u00adtals and orphan\u00adages and feed the hun\u00adgry also com\u00adpels us to share the news that every\u00adone can be rec\u00adon\u00adciled to God through Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In addi\u00adtion, we know that by spread\u00ading the gospel we also increase the num\u00adber of peo\u00adple who are feed\u00ading the hun\u00adgry and oth\u00ader\u00adwise doing good deeds. We know from research that reli\u00adgious peo\u00adple give more to char\u00adi\u00adty than non\u00adre\u00adli\u00adgious peo\u00adple do, and so we see that com\u00adpas\u00adsion and evan\u00adge\u00adlism are not anti\u00adthet\u00adi\u00adcal. If any\u00adthing, they rein\u00adforce each oth\u00ader.<\/p>\n

In sum\u00adma\u00adry, we share the gospel with some\u00adone because we believe that the gospel meets their deep\u00adest needs and will also cat\u00adalyze them to like\u00adwise go meet the spir\u00adi\u00adtu\u00adal and prac\u00adti\u00adcal needs of oth\u00aders.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He asked me more ques\u00adtions than that, but I did\u00adn\u2019t have time to answer them before his dead\u00adline. And even this answer was kind of rushed. If I had my answer to give over again I prob\u00ada\u00adbly would have put a line about heav\u00aden and hell in there, but as it is I feel pret\u00adty good about it.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re not a Chris\u00adt\u00adian and won\u00adder why we keep urg\u00ading you to trust in Jesus, I hope my answer helps you under\u00adstand our motives. We love you and we love Jesus, so we want to arrange an intro\u00adduc\u00adtion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recent\u00adly inter\u00adviewed by a stu\u00addent writ\u00ading for the Stan\u00adford Dai\u00adly. A group of off-cam\u00ad\u00adpus Chris\u00adtians had put on a con\u00adtro\u00adver\u00adsial out\u00adreach activ\u00adi\u00adty and he want\u00aded to know why Chris\u00adtians share their faith. Appar\u00adent\u00adly my answer was\u00adn\u2019t pithy or inter\u00adest\u00ading enough, because I did\u00adn\u2019t make it into the final arti\u00adcle. \ud83d\ude42 His ques\u00adtions (which \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cWhy Do Chris\u00adtians Evan\u00adge\u00adlize Instead of Just Feed\u00ading the Hun\u00adgry?\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reasonable-answers-to-honest-questions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-CQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2408"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2421,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2408\/revisions\/2421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}