Last month, we noted the importance of the calling to proclaim the Gospel audibly and legibly. The church should never resile from its obligation to preach the Gospel. Yet, important as preaching is, some people do not regard preaching as encompassing the whole of the ministry of proclamation, which the Holy Spirit enables the church to execute.

Some Christians explain that an effective program of proclamation must include the service of both word and deed. They point out that, in some contexts where the need for proclamation is evident, people may best receive the Good News when it is conveyed in action rather than solely in speech. In such situations, action reflects undeniably the selflessness and love that bear salutary witness to the love of God modeled by our Lord Jesus.

Deeds of kindness and acts of mercy marked the ministry of Jesus, who "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38). He declared the Good News of the kingdom while also "healing every disease and sickness among the people" (Matthew 4:23; 9:35; Cf. Matthew 11:5 & Luke 7:22). He proclaimed the Good News (Mark 1:14), but he also fed the hungry (Mark 6.30-44; Luke 9.10-17; John 6.1-14). He emphasized that "this Gospel must be preached" (Matthew 24:14), but he also clarified some of the issues that lay behind people's suffering (e.g. Luke 12:13-21; 14:12-14; 18:22-23). Besides, as Walter Rauschenbusch showed clearly, the kingdom of love that Jesus inaugurates calls forth the social redemption of all people (Cf. Matthew 7:21; 25:33-35, etc.). According to Rauschenbusch the kingdom of God "embraces the whole of human life" and the "kingdom ideal contains the revolutionary force of Christianity."

Our Lord calls us to a ministry marked by our identifying with people in need and our engaging in action to liberate and empower them to overcome whatever  represents an assault on their dignity. As Uruguayan theologian, Juan Luis Segundo, once said, "Whatever one may think about the political neutrality of Jesus himself, it seems evident that his commandment of love and his countless examples and admonitions concerning it in the Gospels must be translated to an era in which real-life love has taken on political forms." It is naive to presume that "love can be apolitical at all in a world where politics is the fundamental human dimension."

In his letter from Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King explained that, after collecting facts, engaging in negotiations and self-purification, he and those who followed him had no choice but to "prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the local and the national community." And they did this because of the conviction that "oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever." Sometimes, talk is not enough and this is the case even when there is no clear contest over what it means to be just.

Even if Ernst Troeltsch did not fully comprehend Luther's conception of the Pauline construct of the relation of the religious and the social factor, he was certainly right in pointing out that Paul was deeply committed to "the mutual service of all to each, the overcoming of evil with good, the strengthening of the good in the fight against evil... and the lifting up of the weak by the strong." Sometimes, words are not enough.

To fulfill the ministry of proclamation by deed, we need to hear the Spirit. It is the Spirit who quickens us to discern the ways in which we need to bear witness to Christ. It is the Spirit who enables us to dare take the bold steps that are required to help people in need. Because they see in our action the manifestation of the values we claim to believe, they are better able both to understand the message we preach and to take seriously the message we announce. By the grace of God, some will come to God earnestly seeking, and faithfully accepting, that precious gift that leads to eternal life.

Are we not challenged to Hear the Spirit and to proclaim in both word and deed the message of the one who is able to transfer us from the kingdom of darkness to the wonderful realm of divine grace? Word and deed become vehicles through which to communicate the life-transforming message -- the message we have received and desire others to know.

• A call to peacemaking 
• Baptists make human rights visit to Uzbekistan 
• Callam receives Caribbean awards  
• Syrian Baptists affected by uprising  
• Hurricane Irene causes widespread damage in the Caribbean and US  

200th anniversary celebration of Baptist witness in Sri Lanka, April 2012