{"id":6011,"date":"2023-06-02T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6011"},"modified":"2023-06-01T15:23:15","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T21:23:15","slug":"the-centrality-of-the-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6011","title":{"rendered":"The Centrality of the Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before we jump back into Exodus (I haven’t forgotten!), I want to write one more blog on Tim Keller<\/a>. No promises, but I think this is the last one. It occurred to me that there are readers who have never heard of him and wonder what all the fuss is about. Someone just shared with me an extraordinary article Tim wrote called “The Centrality of the Gospel<\/a>.” I hope you’ll take the time to read it in its entirety and pass it on. As the copyright notice at its end says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9 2000 by Timothy Keller. This article appeared in adapted form in Chapter 3 of the book\u00a0Center Church<\/a> by Timothy Keller (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012).<\/em> We encourage you to use and share this material freely\u2014but please don\u2019t charge money for it, change the wording, or\u00a0remove the copyright information.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point of “The Centrality of the Gospel<\/a>” comes from Galatians 2.14 where Paul is describing a confrontation he had with Peter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, … <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul lays down a powerful principle. He deals with Peter\u2019s racial pride and cowardice by declaring that he was not living \u201cin line with the truth of the gospel.\u201d From this we see that the Christian life is a process of renewing every dimension of our life\u2014spiritual, psychological, corporate, social\u2014by thinking, hoping, and living out the \u201clines\u201d or ramifications of the gospel. The gospel is to be applied to every area of thinking, feeling, relating, working, and behaving. The implications and applications of Galatians 2:14 are vast.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not going to summarize the article for you. Please read it for yourself! A fellow Navigator described it as “the best nine pages outside the Bible.” Another Navigator said, “I try to get it in the hands of every believer I disciple as soon as possible.” It’s certainly going to become another arrow in my quiver as soon as I internalize its message a bit more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll leave you with just two more snippets and a key verse:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul is showing that in our Christian life we never \u201cget beyond the gospel\u201d to something more advanced. The gospel is not the first step in a stairway of truths; rather, it is more like the hub in a wheel of truth. The gospel is not just the ABCs but the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom but the way we make all progress in the kingdom.<\/em>..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All problems, personal or social, come from a failure to apply the gospel in a radical way, a failure to get \u201cin line with the truth of the gospel\u201d (Gal. 2:14). All pathologies in the church and all its ineffectiveness come from a failure to let the gospel be expressed in a radical way. If the gospel is expounded and applied in its fullness in any church, that church will begin to look very unique. People will find in it both moral conviction yet compassion and flexibility.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world… (Colossians 1.6, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before we jump back into Exodus (I haven’t forgotten!), I want to write one more blog on Tim Keller. No promises, but I think this is the last one. It occurred to me that there are readers who have never heard of him and wonder what all the fuss is about. Someone just shared with … Continue reading The Centrality of the Gospel<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-1yX","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6012,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6011\/revisions\/6012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}