What if a American shoe maker showed up without the Gospel?

Do me a favor. Imagine for a minute that you are impoverished. You live in a third world country, and your busting your tail because from youth you must actually work for a living. Today, you are taking a short break to play soccer with your friends. You have noticed the creation, the trees, the beautiful grass, the food that grows all around you. You know about the creator, and you have been given a conscience, so you strive to live a pure life that is honoring and glorifying to the God whom you do not know. Finally, you get to play soccer with your friends. Ahh, sweet bliss. You go out to the dirt field, kick whatever you use for a ball, and have a riot with your friends.

Now, change gears a little. You are older, and work 14 hour days at the local plantation. You make a dollar a day, but that is enough to meet your needs. You still wonder about God that you understood in your youth, but nobody has told you about Him. You still like to think about Him, but still really don’t know anything about him other than the creation.

Suddenly, in the middle of your soccer game or your work day, a young person from America shows up. Now, he’s not just trying to engage people in conversation and talk to them about this God that he or she knows, he’s with a group of friends and they’ve brought shoes with them. They are strange things you put on your feet. They start putting these strange appendages on your feet and tell you that this will make your life better. There’s no discussion whatsoever about God . In fact, if you come up close to them, they will jam shoes on your feet and wait for the next person in line. They will take videos of this and show them back home as a promotion of their product so people will feel good about buying that product and in a small way helping a child.

Now, you could speak up. You could ask these Americans about this God you do not understand. But these shoe people, they do not know your language, and they only came equipped to give out shoes. Even the ‘christians’ among them believe that your understanding of God is a-ok and God will accept you no matter if you worship a rock or the sun or a false god. Do these Americans have the right to force their product on you? Do they have the right to believe that shoes are improving your life and thus bringing God’s kingdom to earth? Do you have a right to play football in bare feet? Should the American be arrested? Can I be honest? I think that he should be.
When the good shoe pushing americans are confronted, he points out that these are good works and they will bring the kingdom of God to this earth. When you point out that you would like to know this God, the kind feet soldier explains that is not in his or her job description.

Parenthetically, imagine if this same shoe pusher showed up at certain C?RN.info’s vacation? Can you imagine the blog posts? ‘Oh they are doing God’s work by being kind to the people, therefore they are bringing the kingdom to earth.’ They might even go barefoot for a day to bring the plight of the shoeless to the notice of the nations. They would do this so they could feel guiltless that they have shoes and the glorious Gospel to share, but they would rather blog and criticize those who are preaching the Gospel and discerning false doctrine. Would you be angry? Would you just want to tell these C?RN.info ers to shut up? I imagine that a lot of these people felt the same way about a man bringing them shoes without the beautiful feet spreading the good news.