International (MNN) — How can care for the downtrodden and evangelism intersect? Andrew Bush often encounters this question. He serves as the president of the Bethlehem Bible College Institute of Peace and Justice. Learn more about the institute here.
He says evangelism has been at the heart of Christianity since Jesus gave the Great Commission and ascended. “But it can be abused when the neediness of people is being used to manipulate them. When having resources to give to people in need is abused in evangelism. These are important issues because they go to the heart of social service and evangelism, both of which we’re called to do in the Gospels.”
Bush writes about these issues in a new collaborative book called No Longer Strangers. He says we don’t have a formula to prevent abuse in evangelism. But we do have a call. “The Christian call to the world, Christian missions, is the call to love. And if it’s not the call to love, what is it? And if it is the call to love, how do we love our Muslim neighbors? How do we love our Hindu neighbors, etc. [We love] as Christ loved. He washed his disciples’ feet, He washes our feet.”
Ask God to supply His global Church with this love.
The header photo shows the traditional site of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem. (Photo courtesy of Bethlehem Bible College)
