I doubt many lay people understand how risky this article is or really understand the nuance of stating that you believe the Gospel but don't subscribe to what is called Gospel centered preaching. I am with you but for slightly different reasons.
When I am in meetings or listen to sermons from modern gospel centered preaching, it seems that the object of worship is shifted from the one true God, to the Gospel, the story of what God did. God saves us, the gospel is a means to salvation but in the metaphysical sense, there is no such thing as the Gospel.
I am a disciple of Jesus, not the Gospel. I was created in the likeness of the Father, not the Gospel, I was filled with the Spirit, not the Gospel, and in heaven all of creation is not surrounding the gospel crying holy holy holy.
Maybe this is splitting hairs but for me it's significant. I get that gospel centered preaching causes people to make a decision for Christ, but it is not teaching the whole counsel of God, it does not trust that it is Holy Spirit that convicts the world of righteousness, sin, and judgment, and it distills salvation to a single binary belief where I don't see that in the Text.
This is a very interesting point. Ive been doing a deep dive on the priesthood and since ive noticed in the worship sets im leading - ive been choosing songs with the main priority to minister to God rather than share the gospel. obviously there are songs that do both and that sharing the Gospel does absolutely glorify God, but its just interesting how I'm noticing a different bottom line in worship. I want to hold the tension well!
I'm a "lay-person" and I'm not willing to give up "gospel-centered" language. As one theologian put it, Jesus is himself clothed in his gospel. In other words, Jesus *is* the central message of the Scriptures and *is* the gospel. I think too often we think of the gospel as the first step we take in the Christian life (my pastor calls this conversionism), but it's not—it's the entire road we walk on. In our union with him by his Spirit, he transforms our lives/how we live/how we treat others, but if we're not walking around looking at life through Jesus-tinted lens, I think we've completely missed the mark.
I think I understand the spirit of what you're saying. But any theology that says that Jesus is something else, like the gospel or anything other than God is deficient. He is divine and the perfect representation of the Father.
Carl, thank you for your response. Can you explain what you mean by "any theology that says that Jesus is something else... other than God is deficient?"
Follow-up question: According to the Scriptures, what has God revealed concerning himself in his gospel?
And this may not answer your question, but, when I hear gospel centered, I hear the entire story of the triune God boils down to it all being about man.
God is God alone. Yes, he saved humanity. But is that all he is? Is that the center of who he has revealed himself to be? Is he not the god to be worshiped regardless what he has done for us? Is he not the God to be revered apart from what he has done for us?
I believe that he is, and the idea that the identity of God centers around what he can do for me is both unscriptural and not helpful.
This was all voice to text so he is lowercase because that's how it came out. Not a theological statement.
I agree with you there—Jesus is beautiful, not because of what he has done for us, but of who he is. However, while they are distinct, but they are never separate. God is certainly the God of the universe, but even more, he is still the God of a people. The Scriptures never separate Jesus' person and work like that. I think the biblical teachings of justification and sanctification will help us understand this more.
The apostle Paul is always pointing us back to our justification. We're always looking back to Jesus for all of life. That's why Luther called the Christian life a life full of repentance. We're always repenting and always looking to our being declared right by God in Christ Jesus. In other words, as one old church document put it: justification is the act of God's free grace where God pardons our sins and declares us as righteous.
Of course it doesn't end there; that's where our own sanctification comes in. Now that we have been right with God (in other words, been declared holy), we can actually begin to live holy lives, by the help of the Spirit of God working in us. That same church document calls sanctification the work of God's free grace—a continually work (of the Spirit) that we are renewed in the new man to be more and more like the Lord Jesus, dying to sin and living more in righteousness.
EDIT: To answer your question, I think the Scriptures teach us that the gospel is the person and work of Jesus Christ. In other words, the whole Christ is the gospel.
Jon, I’m new to your Substack, but you’ve earned a follower! I really appreciate your emphasis on moving beyond lazily preaching the atonement in every sermon and advocating for a fuller view of the gospel. I've thought about this a lot myself. But perhaps you're advocating not for moving beyond the gospel, but deeper into it. You’re absolutely right that the gospel is often reduced to justification alone, but I believe we can still be gospel-centered with a larger, more comprehensive vision.
The gospel is not just about Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection for forgiveness; it’s the good news of God’s entire redemptive work in Christ. Justification is foundational, but it’s not the whole gospel. The gospel also encompasses sanctification, transformation, and the renewal of all things—how God is making all things new in Christ.
Being gospel-centered doesn’t mean limiting ourselves to justification; it means embracing the full scope of the gospel. It’s not just the entry point into the Christian life—it’s the framework through which we live, grow, and engage the world. A fuller view of the gospel allows us to live out its implications in every area of life, from personal transformation to our mission in the world.
Yes. My obsession is that the very first thing Jesus tells his disciples to pray for is not “that people get saved“ but, that God would be glorified: “hallowed be thy name.”
Yes! I am so tired of earnest young pastors whose sermons imply the important thing is to cross the threshold. Meat! I want meat! I can get it on my own but I want to eat it in community.
I share your concerns, but I have a couple of thoughts. My first is more of a question. One of the preachers you speak of comes up to you and says, "This is well and good, Jon, but what about the Road to Emmaus? Did Jesus not say all of the Scriptures are about Him?" What is your response?
Secondly, my gut reaction to this concerns relegating the Gospel to just the "basics" of the Christian faith. I'm not sure that's what you mean, but I fear that reading of this. Against that, the Gospel is not the basics but rather the entirety of all of what we do, and in that sense, it *should* be the entirety of preaching. This does not mean we abuse the texts or avoid practical sermons; instead, we apply texts from the appropriate side of the cross and preach their application to those saved by grace through faith.
I am basing the basics off of strictly biblical standards here.
[Heb 6:1-3 ESV] 1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.
So the foundation, or basics, are: repentance, faith, baptism, laying on hands (this one is tricky, but I think it refers to something about receiving the Holy Spirit), the resurrection, and eternal judgment.
Appreciate how measured and reasonable your comment is. And also, just want to say that it is very interesting to me that this topic in particular has generated as much response as it has, it seems like Christians, and especially pastors are re-considering and thinking through how to preach after Keller's death and the rise of new leaders.
To your first question:
If one of those men asked me about the road to Emmaus, I'm not sure how I would respond. They are my betters, so that certainly would make me want to respond humbly. But to you, I would say a few things.
1. Of course everything that we do as Christians flows out of our changed identity. Parenting, engineering, architecture, cooking, all of it is affected by the fact that we are Christians, and we are only Christians because of the gospel.
2. One mistake that many pastors make when seeing that everything is about Jesus, is thinking it is easy to tell how a story is about Jesus, or that every story is an illustration of the Jesus, and they make these leaps awkwardly and woodenly. Take my example in the article- would you agree with the application that the pastor used of the donkey, the prophet and the lion? Would not a far better way to approach that scene be to say that Jesus is the prophet that only spoke what His Father would have Him speak, and never sinned, and that we are far more like this disobedient prophet, but wonder of wonders, instead of me dying He does?
3. Every story in the old Testament could be said to be based on a few major themes, prophet, priest, King, kingdom, sin, covenant, grace, and certainly Jesus is the fulfillment of all these things.
3. But here is what I am really trying to say in the article- after giving thanks to Christ for dying for us, we must keep going. We must say, as pastors- now that Christ has bought you, obey Him. Many people love to preach Romans' 8. but very few people preach Romans 13. People love Ephesians 1-3 but few pastors preach 4-6 with as much zeal.
Let me share with you where I am personally coming from in all this. when 2020 hit, I was in a state of confusion. Should I support BLM? Should we stop having service for a bit? What is the role of the state? what is the role of the church?
Because I was raised on a steady diet of gospel centered preaching, I had no idea how to answer these questions. I could tell you 1000 illustrations of the atonement. but not when a Christian should practice civil disobedience. I could say that Jesus is Jacob's ladder and the snake in the wilderness, but I could not tell you why communism should be opposed in all of it's forms.
I couldn't turn to my gospel centered pastors for answers to those questions, I had to go to other pastors. Like Doug Wilson, or Voddie Baucham, and those guys are decidedly not what I understand gospel centered" to be.
This is a good response; thank you. Where you're coming from makes a lot of sense. Here is where I get to brag on my pastor: We have at my church what we would call "Gospel-centered preaching," and yet it is always highly applicational. It deals with current events and real-life situations while never failing to see Christ in every text (to show my cards, I do think this is how we ought to approach it, but more in the way you said so - more on this later).
I agree with you that Gospel-centered preaching is not an excuse for lazy preaching, but I disagree with you about abandoning the Gospel-centered label. I would instead reclaim Gospel-centered preaching as a label for preachers who genuinely do fall in line with the greats like Keller and Piper, and even on back through the Puritans and earlier, I would argue. Unfortunately, we have a very low standard for what we consider "good preaching," and lazy connections to Christ pass as following in this wonderful homiletical tradition. I'd rather have Christ-centered preaching that finds the text's original meaning and then translates it to Christ, rather than just lazily throwing in Christ at the first instance it makes sense. Your better example is, in fact, better, yet it still falls under what I would call genuine Gospel-centered preaching. In short, we would agree but prefer to use different words, haha.
Thank you for your thought-provoking article and responses. I appreciated this dialogue :)
I appreciated reading your article. I found myself nodding and thinking it’s both/and not either/or, but you covered this well. The theme of redemption goes throughout the full counsel of Scripture. But it’s true that we often don’t move on to maturity. The Life Model: Living From the Heart Jesus Gave You explores the need for maturity in a holistic way. The message of salvation and His grace is very important. But we are to grow into maturity. If we are given new life in Christ, we are also called to mature in Him. Good job.
“So, I love the gospel, and the gospel is our foundation. But I want to go on building the house.” That’s a great line. Thanks for writing and sharing this.
This is well expressed and I agree with your assessment. I've found that in 'Gospel-centred churches' the sermons become like hearing music played in the same key over and over again. There's so much richness in the Scriptures that gets missed. It was so strange when I heard a pastor at a Gospel-centred church preach on Abraham fighting the four kings. He still found a way to make that story about the Gospel!
Excellent article. The historic moral and social teaching of the church allows us to, as you say:
"We make progress. We try to teach people what Christ commands of them in the workplace, in their families, in politics, in their habits, and in everything He has commanded us."
Our limited moral vocabulary shows our immaturity here, where a handful of generic adjectives serves for all of our discourse: "biblical", "Christian", "godly" etc. It also shows up when we use traditional moral virtues to baptize our views: reproductive justice, restorative justice, immigrant justice etc.
Appreciate you taking the time to chime in. I will admit even that I am more comfortable than many with seeing types of Christ in the OT. The snake in the wilderness, Jacob's ladder etc... What's your process for separating general themes from typology? what guides you in that process?
Just a thought - it seems like you are confusing being “cross centered” with being gospel centered. Not everything is about the death and resurrection, nor needs a direct link to calvary. But gospel centrality is about being kingdom centered and christ centered. The “good news” is a proclamation of that kingdom come through the crucified and risen king. A good place to maybe sort of some of these thoughts would be Jared Wilson's new book, “Lest We Drift”. Jared was one of the first public authors to comment on the movement as being “gospel centered.”
The concern with the approach you outline is that it limits the very point of scripture and therefore preaching. God's word is not just instruction in apt living (not less than that), but a transformative meeting with the living God. A sermon that doesn't draw us to see God in the face of Christ is a lacking one.
Hey Drake, good thoughts here. I especially appreciate you distinguishing cross-centered vs gospel-centered. I am sympathetic to the gospel centered preaching that you lay out here, for sure all of our commands to obedience come from what God has already done. Romans 12-16 follows 1-11. Ephesians 4-6 follows 1-3, hearty amen! but I think you should judge that based on the entire body of a persons work, not necessarily every sermon. It is ok, and has always been ok to preach a singular message that doesn't mention the kingdom of God, or the cross, or the gospel.
To be honest, the word "centered" has even become a tiresome word for me that I try to avoid using. It seems like a lot of people are trying to be a center church that preaches in a gospel centered way rather than a cross centered way while trying to be somewhere center-left, but it all tends to feel like buzz words to declare to the world that a person is a Keller disciple.
Sure, all makes sense. Jargon is never super helpful. I still think every sermon must connect to Christ in some way, since the point of preaching is a distinctly Christian proclamation of God's word. But I'm not going to condemn anyone for a dud here or there, we've all had em!
I generally think the issue is that our Liturgy needs reformation more than our preaching, and that straight downhill preaching from every text to Christ serves the chur h by preparing them for the table! But I suppose that is a whole other point than you are making.
Yeah, I wouldn't want my sermons to always be welcome in a synagogue. but if some of my sermons would be welcomed there, especially preaching the old testament, I wouldn't be upset about it.
I literally spit my coffee back in my cup when I read this line I laughed so hard! "the main point of this passage was that Jesus rode on a donkey as our true prophet who was killed as the Lion of Judah." I think you're spot on, but I also would argue that "the gospel" is found everywhere in the Bible - from start to finish. As we fight a recurrence of modern Marcionism we should show how the gospel is seen in the atoning life and ministry of Christ, but it's even bigger - a continuation of everything God has ALWAYS been doing to bring us back to Himself and into communion with Him as His children and image bearers.
Would love to hear any comments about this sermon (link at bottom of comment) on 1 kings 13 :) (starts at min 37)
I agree with the comments here about the gospel being more than just justification. The scriptures point us to Jesus, pastor’s job is to point everyone to Jesus, regardless of whether they are preaching from the Old Testament or New. Gospel is the power of God to salvation for the unbeliever and to the believer for sanctification. May every sermon have milk and meat so all may eat and be satisfied- pastors should preach to both believers and non-believers in their sermons because the non-believers need to hear it and the believers need to learn how to do it skillfully and comfortably. The application of sermons for non- believers should be to believe the Gospel. There should also be specific applications to believers in sermons to help them mature/conform to the image of Christ in all areas of life - when the gospel is ‘assumed’ and not explicitly taught, legalism / moralism is often the takeaway (by both believers and non-believers) let’s not minimize the importance proclaiming the gospel, let’s not be unskilled in connecting the Old Testament to Christ, let’s not minimize the importance of helping believers mature, let’s have a both/and approach so regardless of who is in the audience, God speaks through us to all
Thank you for this. I totally agree with this. We are currently doing a series on the justice of God at our youth fellowship and we are walking through the scriptures seeing how they are informing and forming us towards justice. I happened to invite a friend of mine from a reformed church to come and preach on Ex 1. Somehow he managed to 'smuggle' Jesus in. I kept thinking to myself I don't think it was necessary. I believe Jesus is at the centre and at the heart of what we do. So I won't feel guilty for not 'smuggling' him in such a text. I think when we get to Jesus, it will be because the story has brought us there.
I doubt many lay people understand how risky this article is or really understand the nuance of stating that you believe the Gospel but don't subscribe to what is called Gospel centered preaching. I am with you but for slightly different reasons.
When I am in meetings or listen to sermons from modern gospel centered preaching, it seems that the object of worship is shifted from the one true God, to the Gospel, the story of what God did. God saves us, the gospel is a means to salvation but in the metaphysical sense, there is no such thing as the Gospel.
I am a disciple of Jesus, not the Gospel. I was created in the likeness of the Father, not the Gospel, I was filled with the Spirit, not the Gospel, and in heaven all of creation is not surrounding the gospel crying holy holy holy.
Maybe this is splitting hairs but for me it's significant. I get that gospel centered preaching causes people to make a decision for Christ, but it is not teaching the whole counsel of God, it does not trust that it is Holy Spirit that convicts the world of righteousness, sin, and judgment, and it distills salvation to a single binary belief where I don't see that in the Text.
Great article.
This is a very interesting point. Ive been doing a deep dive on the priesthood and since ive noticed in the worship sets im leading - ive been choosing songs with the main priority to minister to God rather than share the gospel. obviously there are songs that do both and that sharing the Gospel does absolutely glorify God, but its just interesting how I'm noticing a different bottom line in worship. I want to hold the tension well!
Thanks, Carl
I'm a "lay-person" and I'm not willing to give up "gospel-centered" language. As one theologian put it, Jesus is himself clothed in his gospel. In other words, Jesus *is* the central message of the Scriptures and *is* the gospel. I think too often we think of the gospel as the first step we take in the Christian life (my pastor calls this conversionism), but it's not—it's the entire road we walk on. In our union with him by his Spirit, he transforms our lives/how we live/how we treat others, but if we're not walking around looking at life through Jesus-tinted lens, I think we've completely missed the mark.
I think I understand the spirit of what you're saying. But any theology that says that Jesus is something else, like the gospel or anything other than God is deficient. He is divine and the perfect representation of the Father.
We worship God, not the gospel.
Carl, thank you for your response. Can you explain what you mean by "any theology that says that Jesus is something else... other than God is deficient?"
Follow-up question: According to the Scriptures, what has God revealed concerning himself in his gospel?
What do you mean “in His Gospel"?
And this may not answer your question, but, when I hear gospel centered, I hear the entire story of the triune God boils down to it all being about man.
God is God alone. Yes, he saved humanity. But is that all he is? Is that the center of who he has revealed himself to be? Is he not the god to be worshiped regardless what he has done for us? Is he not the God to be revered apart from what he has done for us?
I believe that he is, and the idea that the identity of God centers around what he can do for me is both unscriptural and not helpful.
This was all voice to text so he is lowercase because that's how it came out. Not a theological statement.
I agree with you there—Jesus is beautiful, not because of what he has done for us, but of who he is. However, while they are distinct, but they are never separate. God is certainly the God of the universe, but even more, he is still the God of a people. The Scriptures never separate Jesus' person and work like that. I think the biblical teachings of justification and sanctification will help us understand this more.
The apostle Paul is always pointing us back to our justification. We're always looking back to Jesus for all of life. That's why Luther called the Christian life a life full of repentance. We're always repenting and always looking to our being declared right by God in Christ Jesus. In other words, as one old church document put it: justification is the act of God's free grace where God pardons our sins and declares us as righteous.
Of course it doesn't end there; that's where our own sanctification comes in. Now that we have been right with God (in other words, been declared holy), we can actually begin to live holy lives, by the help of the Spirit of God working in us. That same church document calls sanctification the work of God's free grace—a continually work (of the Spirit) that we are renewed in the new man to be more and more like the Lord Jesus, dying to sin and living more in righteousness.
EDIT: To answer your question, I think the Scriptures teach us that the gospel is the person and work of Jesus Christ. In other words, the whole Christ is the gospel.
Jon, I’m new to your Substack, but you’ve earned a follower! I really appreciate your emphasis on moving beyond lazily preaching the atonement in every sermon and advocating for a fuller view of the gospel. I've thought about this a lot myself. But perhaps you're advocating not for moving beyond the gospel, but deeper into it. You’re absolutely right that the gospel is often reduced to justification alone, but I believe we can still be gospel-centered with a larger, more comprehensive vision.
The gospel is not just about Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection for forgiveness; it’s the good news of God’s entire redemptive work in Christ. Justification is foundational, but it’s not the whole gospel. The gospel also encompasses sanctification, transformation, and the renewal of all things—how God is making all things new in Christ.
Being gospel-centered doesn’t mean limiting ourselves to justification; it means embracing the full scope of the gospel. It’s not just the entry point into the Christian life—it’s the framework through which we live, grow, and engage the world. A fuller view of the gospel allows us to live out its implications in every area of life, from personal transformation to our mission in the world.
Thanks again for your work.
Thanks Jordan!
I appreciate your take, it seems faithful and fully-orbed to me. Maybe I should change the title of the article to "why I am not gospel-truncated" :)
Yes. My obsession is that the very first thing Jesus tells his disciples to pray for is not “that people get saved“ but, that God would be glorified: “hallowed be thy name.”
And the great commission includes the command to go and teach them to obey all that we have been commanded! Not only to proclaim the gospel.
Yes! I am so tired of earnest young pastors whose sermons imply the important thing is to cross the threshold. Meat! I want meat! I can get it on my own but I want to eat it in community.
I want meat! lol
Thought provoking.
I share your concerns, but I have a couple of thoughts. My first is more of a question. One of the preachers you speak of comes up to you and says, "This is well and good, Jon, but what about the Road to Emmaus? Did Jesus not say all of the Scriptures are about Him?" What is your response?
Secondly, my gut reaction to this concerns relegating the Gospel to just the "basics" of the Christian faith. I'm not sure that's what you mean, but I fear that reading of this. Against that, the Gospel is not the basics but rather the entirety of all of what we do, and in that sense, it *should* be the entirety of preaching. This does not mean we abuse the texts or avoid practical sermons; instead, we apply texts from the appropriate side of the cross and preach their application to those saved by grace through faith.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
For your second question:
I am basing the basics off of strictly biblical standards here.
[Heb 6:1-3 ESV] 1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.
So the foundation, or basics, are: repentance, faith, baptism, laying on hands (this one is tricky, but I think it refers to something about receiving the Holy Spirit), the resurrection, and eternal judgment.
Yes, that's what I figured you meant. My response to that is more of a reaction to how you could be read rather than what I think you meant.
Appreciate how measured and reasonable your comment is. And also, just want to say that it is very interesting to me that this topic in particular has generated as much response as it has, it seems like Christians, and especially pastors are re-considering and thinking through how to preach after Keller's death and the rise of new leaders.
To your first question:
If one of those men asked me about the road to Emmaus, I'm not sure how I would respond. They are my betters, so that certainly would make me want to respond humbly. But to you, I would say a few things.
1. Of course everything that we do as Christians flows out of our changed identity. Parenting, engineering, architecture, cooking, all of it is affected by the fact that we are Christians, and we are only Christians because of the gospel.
2. One mistake that many pastors make when seeing that everything is about Jesus, is thinking it is easy to tell how a story is about Jesus, or that every story is an illustration of the Jesus, and they make these leaps awkwardly and woodenly. Take my example in the article- would you agree with the application that the pastor used of the donkey, the prophet and the lion? Would not a far better way to approach that scene be to say that Jesus is the prophet that only spoke what His Father would have Him speak, and never sinned, and that we are far more like this disobedient prophet, but wonder of wonders, instead of me dying He does?
3. Every story in the old Testament could be said to be based on a few major themes, prophet, priest, King, kingdom, sin, covenant, grace, and certainly Jesus is the fulfillment of all these things.
3. But here is what I am really trying to say in the article- after giving thanks to Christ for dying for us, we must keep going. We must say, as pastors- now that Christ has bought you, obey Him. Many people love to preach Romans' 8. but very few people preach Romans 13. People love Ephesians 1-3 but few pastors preach 4-6 with as much zeal.
Let me share with you where I am personally coming from in all this. when 2020 hit, I was in a state of confusion. Should I support BLM? Should we stop having service for a bit? What is the role of the state? what is the role of the church?
Because I was raised on a steady diet of gospel centered preaching, I had no idea how to answer these questions. I could tell you 1000 illustrations of the atonement. but not when a Christian should practice civil disobedience. I could say that Jesus is Jacob's ladder and the snake in the wilderness, but I could not tell you why communism should be opposed in all of it's forms.
I couldn't turn to my gospel centered pastors for answers to those questions, I had to go to other pastors. Like Doug Wilson, or Voddie Baucham, and those guys are decidedly not what I understand gospel centered" to be.
This is a good response; thank you. Where you're coming from makes a lot of sense. Here is where I get to brag on my pastor: We have at my church what we would call "Gospel-centered preaching," and yet it is always highly applicational. It deals with current events and real-life situations while never failing to see Christ in every text (to show my cards, I do think this is how we ought to approach it, but more in the way you said so - more on this later).
I agree with you that Gospel-centered preaching is not an excuse for lazy preaching, but I disagree with you about abandoning the Gospel-centered label. I would instead reclaim Gospel-centered preaching as a label for preachers who genuinely do fall in line with the greats like Keller and Piper, and even on back through the Puritans and earlier, I would argue. Unfortunately, we have a very low standard for what we consider "good preaching," and lazy connections to Christ pass as following in this wonderful homiletical tradition. I'd rather have Christ-centered preaching that finds the text's original meaning and then translates it to Christ, rather than just lazily throwing in Christ at the first instance it makes sense. Your better example is, in fact, better, yet it still falls under what I would call genuine Gospel-centered preaching. In short, we would agree but prefer to use different words, haha.
Thank you for your thought-provoking article and responses. I appreciated this dialogue :)
I appreciated reading your article. I found myself nodding and thinking it’s both/and not either/or, but you covered this well. The theme of redemption goes throughout the full counsel of Scripture. But it’s true that we often don’t move on to maturity. The Life Model: Living From the Heart Jesus Gave You explores the need for maturity in a holistic way. The message of salvation and His grace is very important. But we are to grow into maturity. If we are given new life in Christ, we are also called to mature in Him. Good job.
“So, I love the gospel, and the gospel is our foundation. But I want to go on building the house.” That’s a great line. Thanks for writing and sharing this.
Great post, Jon. Many years ago, I wrote a song based on the book of Hebrews, that touched on this thought. Here is the first two verses and chorus.
1. Years I spent in sorrow ’round the cross,
Still repenting over sins and dross.
Then at last the river I did cross,
To touch the throne.
Chorus:
Mercy now is flowing, oh, the grace—
That I find of Him to run the race!
Boldly now I come again to taste
My glorious Lord.
2. In my Christian life I’d daily fall,
So I answered every altar-call,
Till I left the altar, left it all,
To touch the throne.
full hymn here: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/1208
This is well expressed and I agree with your assessment. I've found that in 'Gospel-centred churches' the sermons become like hearing music played in the same key over and over again. There's so much richness in the Scriptures that gets missed. It was so strange when I heard a pastor at a Gospel-centred church preach on Abraham fighting the four kings. He still found a way to make that story about the Gospel!
Excellent article. The historic moral and social teaching of the church allows us to, as you say:
"We make progress. We try to teach people what Christ commands of them in the workplace, in their families, in politics, in their habits, and in everything He has commanded us."
Our limited moral vocabulary shows our immaturity here, where a handful of generic adjectives serves for all of our discourse: "biblical", "Christian", "godly" etc. It also shows up when we use traditional moral virtues to baptize our views: reproductive justice, restorative justice, immigrant justice etc.
I really appreciate it this! I think we need to be careful about separating biblical themes from the explicit types of Christ.
Appreciate you taking the time to chime in. I will admit even that I am more comfortable than many with seeing types of Christ in the OT. The snake in the wilderness, Jacob's ladder etc... What's your process for separating general themes from typology? what guides you in that process?
Just a thought - it seems like you are confusing being “cross centered” with being gospel centered. Not everything is about the death and resurrection, nor needs a direct link to calvary. But gospel centrality is about being kingdom centered and christ centered. The “good news” is a proclamation of that kingdom come through the crucified and risen king. A good place to maybe sort of some of these thoughts would be Jared Wilson's new book, “Lest We Drift”. Jared was one of the first public authors to comment on the movement as being “gospel centered.”
The concern with the approach you outline is that it limits the very point of scripture and therefore preaching. God's word is not just instruction in apt living (not less than that), but a transformative meeting with the living God. A sermon that doesn't draw us to see God in the face of Christ is a lacking one.
Hey Drake, good thoughts here. I especially appreciate you distinguishing cross-centered vs gospel-centered. I am sympathetic to the gospel centered preaching that you lay out here, for sure all of our commands to obedience come from what God has already done. Romans 12-16 follows 1-11. Ephesians 4-6 follows 1-3, hearty amen! but I think you should judge that based on the entire body of a persons work, not necessarily every sermon. It is ok, and has always been ok to preach a singular message that doesn't mention the kingdom of God, or the cross, or the gospel.
To be honest, the word "centered" has even become a tiresome word for me that I try to avoid using. It seems like a lot of people are trying to be a center church that preaches in a gospel centered way rather than a cross centered way while trying to be somewhere center-left, but it all tends to feel like buzz words to declare to the world that a person is a Keller disciple.
Sure, all makes sense. Jargon is never super helpful. I still think every sermon must connect to Christ in some way, since the point of preaching is a distinctly Christian proclamation of God's word. But I'm not going to condemn anyone for a dud here or there, we've all had em!
I generally think the issue is that our Liturgy needs reformation more than our preaching, and that straight downhill preaching from every text to Christ serves the chur h by preparing them for the table! But I suppose that is a whole other point than you are making.
I.e. a Christ less sermon feels a little awkward when the next act of the church is to feast on Christ...
Yeah, I wouldn't want my sermons to always be welcome in a synagogue. but if some of my sermons would be welcomed there, especially preaching the old testament, I wouldn't be upset about it.
I literally spit my coffee back in my cup when I read this line I laughed so hard! "the main point of this passage was that Jesus rode on a donkey as our true prophet who was killed as the Lion of Judah." I think you're spot on, but I also would argue that "the gospel" is found everywhere in the Bible - from start to finish. As we fight a recurrence of modern Marcionism we should show how the gospel is seen in the atoning life and ministry of Christ, but it's even bigger - a continuation of everything God has ALWAYS been doing to bring us back to Himself and into communion with Him as His children and image bearers.
Would love to hear any comments about this sermon (link at bottom of comment) on 1 kings 13 :) (starts at min 37)
I agree with the comments here about the gospel being more than just justification. The scriptures point us to Jesus, pastor’s job is to point everyone to Jesus, regardless of whether they are preaching from the Old Testament or New. Gospel is the power of God to salvation for the unbeliever and to the believer for sanctification. May every sermon have milk and meat so all may eat and be satisfied- pastors should preach to both believers and non-believers in their sermons because the non-believers need to hear it and the believers need to learn how to do it skillfully and comfortably. The application of sermons for non- believers should be to believe the Gospel. There should also be specific applications to believers in sermons to help them mature/conform to the image of Christ in all areas of life - when the gospel is ‘assumed’ and not explicitly taught, legalism / moralism is often the takeaway (by both believers and non-believers) let’s not minimize the importance proclaiming the gospel, let’s not be unskilled in connecting the Old Testament to Christ, let’s not minimize the importance of helping believers mature, let’s have a both/and approach so regardless of who is in the audience, God speaks through us to all
https://www.youtube.com/live/hj75kevBUyA?si=M4sRgLY3IHPirZcI
Thank you for this. I totally agree with this. We are currently doing a series on the justice of God at our youth fellowship and we are walking through the scriptures seeing how they are informing and forming us towards justice. I happened to invite a friend of mine from a reformed church to come and preach on Ex 1. Somehow he managed to 'smuggle' Jesus in. I kept thinking to myself I don't think it was necessary. I believe Jesus is at the centre and at the heart of what we do. So I won't feel guilty for not 'smuggling' him in such a text. I think when we get to Jesus, it will be because the story has brought us there.