128 THE GOSPEL AND THE PLOW 



sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are bruised, 

 to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." St. Luke 

 4:16 et al. 



The first thing I notice is that the Spirit was upon 

 Jesus for service. "To preach the Gospel to the poor." 

 That I take to mean the oral, the spoken, presentation of 

 His truth about salvation. A great many good people 

 would stop with this oral presentation of the Gospel 

 because they are afraid of works. It is true that Jesus 

 placed preaching first, but it is only part of His mes- 

 sage. He continued, ' ' He hath sent me to heal the broken- 

 hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recov- 

 ering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that 

 are bruised." Jesus' Gospel is preaching plus action 

 which explains and gives content to the preaching. We 

 can take all of these clauses in their primary literal sense, 

 and from the literal interpretation find a place for help- 

 ing India's outcaste, broken-hearted and broken-spirited 

 by centuries of persecution, degradation and oppression, 

 we can find warrant for medical missions and all other 

 forms of humanitarian and social service. We can take 

 all of these clauses in their spiritual and figurative sense 

 and some would say, their fuller sense, and find out that 

 Christ was anointed to help all human life, to make it 

 better, to rid it of wrong and oppression. In other 

 words His complete Gospel is more than an oral presen- 

 tation, more than a matter of words. It calls for doing 

 as well as being, the act that proves the faith, "Not every 

 one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth 

 my Will"; "He that heareth my words and doeth shall 

 be likened unto a wise man." "If any man will do 

 His Will, he shall know of the doctrine." 



