Initially, we do need to scratch them where it itches before giving them the eternal-life-giving-food. If that means sugar-coating your bitter-pill (truth), by all means do it! But let’s not use a hosepipe to drive the amrutham down someone’s throat. Friendship Evangelism is evident in Jesus’ own ministry (Jn6:26-27). In 2Tim4:3-4, Paul is speaking of those who exchange the truth for a lie altogether; not merely in the coating.
This is not salvation-by-works as is often misunderstood. A coating is a coating. We should not go overboard in an attempt to please. Nor should we come across as a fake in our love for others. But any humanitarian aid should only serve as a sugarcoat to the eternal-life-giving-food. Use available resources for maximizing results both in quantity and quality. A point to remember here is that God does not usually call the Qualified, but qualifies the Called. But also remember that there are matthews, whom He calls, who are from the beginning, God’s works-in-progress.
In short: Give the beggar the eternal-life-giving-food. Sugarcoat if you must. If not this life, he will have the more enduring eternal-life.
Friendship here, is anesthesia before the tortuous incision by truth on the diseased hearts of men.
But in all this, let us never forget the example that Christ set for us in His costly caring for us. How we’ve been befriended! “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).