The man who reads a serious book is a man who is, for the duration of his reading, rescued from the degradation of his environment. He is thinking about something other than his sentence, his enemies, his vices, and his despair. He is exercising faculties that the prison is systematically destroying. He is, in a real sense, more human while he reads than while he stares at a television screen showing yet another episode of programming designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator of an already debased culture. Churches that supply books to prisoners are doing whole-person ministry, whether they realize it or not.

Romans 12:17-21 and the Scope of Doing Good

The Apostle Paul provides the theological framework for whole-person ministry in Romans 12:17-21:

Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

The scope of this passage is universal: “no man,” “all men,” even “thine enemy.” In fact, Paul’s point is that by doing good to one’s true enemies, those who would harm Christ’s people, the Christian doer-of-good will augment the wrath of God poured out on them on the Day of Judgment. The passage does not refer to helping one’s enemies start fires in an era when starting fires was difficult, putting hot coals on their heads to carry home. The same principle operates in prison, where Christians do good to their enemies, who are already under the frown of God and now even more so as the list of charges against them is increased. Hence, Paul does not restrict the doing of good to fellow believers (although Galatians 6:10 gives special priority to the household of faith). We do good to unbelievers to show the love of God, to attract people to Christ, and to heap future wrath upon our enemies. Thus, he commands Christians to do good even to those who do evil—to feed the hungry enemy, to give drink to the thirsty adversary, to overcome evil not with reciprocal evil but with relentless good to serve a judgmental purpose.

In a prison context, this means one’s doing good needs to prefer saints and still help unrepentant sinners—to the faithful brother who suffers unjustly and to the convicted murderer who suffers justly, to the man who receives your kindness with gratitude and to the man who despises it, to the inmate who attends your Bible study and to the inmate who mocks it. Doing good is not conditioned upon the worthiness of its recipient. It is conditioned upon the character of the God who commands it and the obedience of the Christian who performs it.

This fact does not mean, however, that charity should be exercised without discernment. Paul’s command to “overcome evil with good” does not require the Christian to become a fool. Charity without prudence enables vice. The inmate who receives money and spends it on drugs has not been helped; he has been harmed. The inmate who receives food and trades it for weapons to assault others has not been blessed; he has been armed. The church that pours resources into a prison without understanding its informal economy and monitoring how gifts are spent—the bribes, the extortion, the drug trade, the manipulation—is not doing good; it is doing damage. Prudence requires knowing the men you serve, understanding the environment in which you serve them, and directing your resources toward genuine need rather than manufactured sympathy.

The Bathroom Repairs: A Parable of Practical Mercy

During my imprisonment, Historic Baptists and other Baptists financed the repair of three foul prisoner bathrooms at the Casablanca facility. The bathrooms were, to put it charitably, disgusting—broken fixtures, missing tiles, standing filth, conditions that communicated to every man who used them that he was not worth the cost of basic sanitation. The repair was not expensive by outside standards, but it required coordination: materials had to be purchased, delivered through institutional channels, and installed by inmates who were willing to do the work, for which they were well paid by prison standards.

The result was disproportionate to the investment. Two prisoners told me plainly that their lives had been improved by that single intervention. It was not a grand reform bill. It was not a legislative initiative. It was a repaired bathroom. Yet it reminded everyone involved that needless degradation is not a law of nature—that someone outside the walls cared enough about the men inside them to fix a toilet and lay clean tile. The filth of a prison teaches its inhabitants that they are worthless. The repair of that filth teaches them that someone disagrees.

This is whole-person ministry at its most concrete. It does not merely preach. It does not exegete. It does not only hand out tracts. It fixes a bathroom—and in doing so, it communicates the dignity of the human person more effectively than a hundred sermons on the imago Dei. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). The good works that cause men to glorify God are not always (or even usually) verbal. Sometimes they are plumbing and ceramic.

The Practical Cost of Doing Good

I would be remiss if I did not address the economics of whole-person ministry, because the cost is real and it is ongoing. Food at the prison kiosk may be overpriced. Phone access—essential for communication with lawyers, family, and the external church—requires payment. Bribes to guards for basic services (a medical appointment, a transfer, a cell assignment) were a routine feature of the institutional landscape. Medication, hygiene products, and clothing all cost money. The encomienda system—the channel through which outside supporters delivered supplies—was subject to arbitrary restrictions, inspections, confiscations, and delays. Every act of practical mercy carried a price tag, and the church that wishes to do whole-person ministry behind bars must be prepared to pay it.

I was fortunate. I had approximately sixteen people who provided substantial financial support over the course of my imprisonment, with about two-thirds of that support coming from abroad—the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Dubai, and the United Kingdom. My wife and Valentín regularly brought food bags, as noted previously. She never charged anyone. Valentín brought encomienda on more than 250 occasions. María cooked extraordinary meals. Bob sent financial support and essential equipment. This support network sustained not only me but also the men around me who had no support of their own.

Most prisoners do not have this. Most prisoners have no Valentín, no María, no Bob, no network of many international supporters who are appalled by one’s unjust conviction. Before the Covid-19 lockdown, each visitor was allowed to bring up to fifty thousand pesos—about fifty-eight U.S. dollars—to an inmate during visitation. This amount more than doubled by the time I left prison, and I still always had the money I needed to survive. Yet, for many inmates who had no visitors at all, this money simply did not exist. The disparity between inmates with outside support and those without was stark, cruel, and spiritually significant: the unsupported man was not merely poorer; he was more vulnerable to every form of exploitation, manipulation, and despair that the prison could inflict.

The church can bridge this gap. An informal economy fund of fifty dollars per month directed to a single, unsupported Christian inmate can transform his daily existence. Multiply that across a congregation, and the church can sustain a dozen men. Multiply it across a denomination’s local sister churches, and the impact becomes substantial. The money is not wasted. It is invested in the bodies and souls of men for whom Christ died, and the return on that investment will be measured not in quarterly reports but in eternity.

Doing Good to Believers and Unbelievers

Paul’s instruction in Galatians 6:10 establishes a clear priority: “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” The priority is the household of faith—fellow believers. But the scope is “all men.” The Christian prisoner who feeds a fellow believer is fulfilling the primary command and what Jesus taught in Matthew 25:31-46. The Christian prisoner who feeds an unbeliever is fulfilling the broader command. Both are obedience. Both are “doing good.”

In practice, this meant that the meals I financed, the chess games I played, the books I lent, the counsel I offered, and the prayers I prayed extended to believers and unbelievers alike. I did not check a man’s doctrinal credentials before sharing my food with him. I did not require a profession of faith before offering a game of chess. I shared the resources God had provided through my supporters with whoever had a genuine need among the men I discipled or shared a nearby table—and in doing so, I created opportunities for the Gospel that no amount of formal preaching could have produced. The Colombian inmate Michael stopped playing cards one afternoon to listen to me teach about the Gospel during a cookout. He later announced that he wanted to attend the Historic Baptists’ meeting, even though he did not entirely follow through. Nonetheless, that conversation would never have occurred in a chapel service. It occurred over shared food, in an atmosphere of ordinary human fellowship, because doing good to a man’s body opens a door to his soul.