The Bait-and-Switch, the Sales Pitch, and the Motive of Love

By Greg Gilbert

If you give someone a cup of cold water and then share the gospel with them, are you guilty of pulling a bait-and-switch tactic in evangelism? That argument is often made against Christians who engage in social ministry while they are sharing the gospel with the people they're ministering to. You're doing "kind" things for them, the argument goes, so you can share the gospel with them, and that's not real compassion.

How much weight does that argument carry? I suppose it could be true---and maybe even is often true---but only, I think, among Christians who think of their evangelism as a way to put notches in their religious belts. When that's the case, it means that neither that Christian's kind act nor his evangelism is founded on care for the other person. The kind act is grounded on a desire to get to the evangelism, and the evangelism is grounded in a desire to make himself look good.  Compassion doesn’t figure in there at all.

But really, that’s a terrible way to think about evangelism, and we should examine our hearts to make sure that's not how we think about it---or do it. Evangelism is the act of telling other people about the plight they are in and how they can be saved from it. Therefore it is an act of deep love and compassion for another person. If that's true, then the argument that that act of love and compassion can’t legitimately be accompanied by other (yes, less important) acts of love and compassion doesn’t hold water. Christians are to love the whole person, and therefore it makes perfect sense to love someone by giving them food and at the same time to love them in a different, higher way by giving them the gospel. There’s no bait-and-switch there; that’s simply holistic compassion—compassion for the whole person, not just part of him.

Understanding that, we can also see an opposite danger facing those who make the bait-and-switch argument. That danger is that they will compassionately meet physical and even emotional needs, but out of fear of falling into a bait-and-switch scenario, they’ll neglect to compassionately meet the person’s spiritual needs by sharing the gospel with them. In other words, they’ll show compassion to people only at the basest levels---and one could legitimately question whether that is real compassion at all. The reality is that people who do that see evangelism as no more an act of compassion than the person who sees it as a way to put a notch in his belt; it’s just that they see it as something they are trying to sell, and they don’t want to “corrupt” their compassion by moving into the sales pitch.

If we understand evangelism itself, though, as a deep and profound act of love for another person, we will do it more often (because we won't have the awkward feeling that we're making a sales pitch), and we'll do it with the right motives, too (love for people, instead of regard for ourselves.)

HT: 9 Marks