Where In The Bible Will I Find:

The Apostle Paul Receiving And Preaching A Social Gospel?

Saul (later Paul) met the Lord on the road to Damascus, and was told, "…Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do" (Acts 9:6). In the city, Ananias came to him saying, "And now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16). Did this sound like a social gospel to Paul?

After being taught the Word of God by Jesus Himself, Paul writes, "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3-4). Then to the church of Christ at Galatia, he wrote, "For as many of you has have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27).

Paul knew, and he taught, that all Christians had been baptized into one body (Eph. 4:4), which is Christ's church (Eph. 1:22-23). He taught that when one is baptized into Christ it makes that one a new person, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, lie is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (II Cor. 5:17). If Paul had received a "social" gospel he certainly would not have been preaching such a strong "legalistest" gospel.

At Philippi, Paul preached to some women by the river side. One woman, Lydia, "…whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us…" to accept her hospitality (Acts 16:13-15). To Paul's sound gospel preaching, she heard attentively, she believed and then obeyed by being baptized. Had Paul delivered a modern day "social gospel," she would have never known that the Lord had commanded baptism to all those who believe (Mark 16:16).

For preaching the gospel of Christ, Paul and Silas were shut up in prison but had the opportunity to preach the gospel to the jailor, "And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, the and all his, straightway.” (Acts 16:32-33). How did the jailor know that the must be baptized in order to be saved? He did not learn this by hearing a "social" gospel. It was from the sound gospel as Paul had learned it from the Lord Himself.

If in preaching the gospel today, the results are not the same as they were when Paul preached, we had better study the gospel to see if we are preaching a "social" gospel or are we preaching the same sound gospel that was preached by Paul and the other proclaimers of the true gospel of Christ in the first century.