Saturday, October 11, 2008

gospel-conversation-izing

So, I ran into this series of clips posted by the Gospel Coalition peeps (http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/10/conversation-tim-keller-john-piper-da.html)

After peeking over these guys shoulder into a conversation I’d die to be a part of, I get all stirred up, and then sometimes its hard to end well. I find that sometimes I can pursue the ends of these thoughts as if the goal were justification by right thinking or good sorting. As if, the intellectual work of having a deeper grasp of the gospel is something other than existentially beholding Christ and being fundamentally changed by the breathtaking sight.

Perhaps someone close enough to these gentlemen can suggest a panel discussion that gives an exploded view of the last part (5 & 6 of 6) specifically. Many of us who were ambushed by Keller in May of 2006 at Resurgence are still trying to reconcile the missional and practical ecclesiological implications of gospel-centeredness like Keller and the Glory-centeredness of Piper. This has created dichotomous discussions regarding rhetorical priorities that pit the subject of the gospel against the subject of glory of God. The difficulty comes in that the accompanying errors which Piper and Keller confessed they are prone to don't tell us how to go past this. In the same way that Edwards contrasted common and true virtue, is there a difference between common glory and true glory? Can God’s glory really be known apart from the gospel? Does the fact that God glories even in my futility apart from him escape the scope of the gospel? All this, much less how to begin to address (as Carson came oh-so-close to) how to preach the gospel twice a week to a backslidden high schooler.

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