Staying Near the Center

D.A. Carson, from his talk at the 2007 Gospel Coalition conference:

[There is a tendency today] to assume the Gospel, while devoting creative energy and passion to other issues: marriage, happiness, prosperity, evangelism, the poor, bioethics. The list is endless. But this overlooks the fact that our hearers inevitably are drawn toward that which we are most passionate. My students are unlikely to learn all that I teach them. They're most likely to learn what I am excited about. If the Gospel is merely assumed, while relatively peripheral issues ignite our passion, we'll train a new generation to downplay the Gospel and focus on the periphery. It is easy to sound prophetic from the margins; what is urgently needed is to be prophetic from the center.

You can download the whole talk here.