The reason the
Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
For in [Christ]
all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to
himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of
his cross.
Then comes the
end, when [Christ] delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying
every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put
all his enemies under his feet.
1 John 3:8, Colossians 1:19-20 & 1
Corinthians 15:24-25
The Centenary of the death of the Reverend
Albert Swift has just passed. A few days before Christmas 1913, while he was convalescing
from a long illness, but feeling better than he had in some while, he was
cycling with his son. He commented that it looked like it was going to snow –
and then said, ‘Oh’. A passing doctor thought that Swift was dead before his
body touched the earth, dying without knowledge or pain.
Albert Swift’s good friend was the famous
preacher, G Campbell Morgan. They met as teenagers and were close all their
lives. They worked together on evangelistic missions before they were ordained
but after that worked together just once, at Westminster Chapel in London, when
they we co-ministers from 1904 until 1908. (Dr Morgan remained at the Chapel
until 1917 and then returned for a second period of ministry in the mid-1930s;
he was ‘minister emeritus’ when he died a few days after the end of the Second
World War.)
Albert Swift wrote far fewer few books than his
friend Campbell Morgan but the one that has impressed me the most is, First Principles of Christian Citizenship,
published in 1908. In it, Swift gives the best explanation I have read of why
Christians should be involved not just with acts of individual kindness and specific
‘good works’ but with the social evils and injustices of their communities,
their countries and the world.
Very often, Christians separate evangelism and
what today we call social concern or social action. The Lausanne Covenant of
1974, and the exposition and commentary on it by Dr John Stott, deal with the
importance of both, but separately. They are excellent documents that I have
found enormously helpful and I recommend them. But they and everything else I
have read that has been published since then on the same theme seems to keep evangelism
and action separate, although complementary and overlapping.
But it seems to me that in Jesus’ ministry, teaching and good works were woven together seamlessly, and needed to be, for him to pursue his mission of destroying the
works of the devil and reconciling to himself all things in heaven and on
earth. He did this by teaching and helping people. Although we may not be able
to teach with the same authority as Jesus, and we may not be able to do
miracles as he did, we can teach and we can do what we can to help. James wrote
that faith without works is death and that pure and undefiled religion is to
visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep ourselves unstained by
the world: see James 2:17 & 1:27.
Swift wrote: ‘Evangelism, rightly understood, is
the mightiest factor in social reform. It proposes to remake the man, and then
set him to remake his environment. Conversion is, in the purpose of Christ,
preparation for social responsibility.’
Albert Swift is not as well remembered as he
ought to be and his book is almost forgotten but I think it helps us recover a theologically
sound vision for social concern. That is why I have produced a pdf version that
you can download at
Or you can go to the page dedicated to the book
at my blog (link below).
As I write this, I remain uncertain about how
regularly to produce Reflections during 2014. I will let you know. In the
meantime, I commend Albert Swift’s book to you with by best wishes for the New
Year.
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Copyright © All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans
2013. You are welcome to copy these Reflections for circulation to family and
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Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
Handling
money and dealing with debt can be complicated and neither the author nor
anyone else involved in the production of these Reflections is responsible for
any action you take, or fail to take, based on what is written here.
