My wonderful husband, Jody, posted a quote from E. Stanley Jones recently where he discussed what happens when you separate an individual gospel from a social gospel.
An individual gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body, and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost and the other a corpse… (The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person. Abingdon Press, 1972. p. 40.)
In other words, faith without works is dead, but we are only justified through faith–our works will never get us there. They are only the fruit of our actions. This goes along with something I was just reading in Chasing Daylight by Erwin McManus. He succinctly summarizes the entire book of James by saying that “if you know what is right to do and you do not do it, it is sin” (p.37).
So it’s not enough to be happy about the fact that Jesus died to save you unless you do something about it… care for the poor, feed the hungry, and so forth. But the flip side is, if you only care for the poor and feed the hungry and do not proclaim Jesus, then you’re not getting anywhere either. You can’t split up the gospel, it must be proclaimed as a whole with word and deed together.