A Conversation with D.A. Carson, John Piper and Tim Keller

This past week I came across a series of video conversations between Carson, Piper and Keller on the Gospel Coalition website (I’m not sure when they originally were posted). There are ten “chapters” in all:

Chapter 1: Gospel Centered Mercy Ministry vs. The Social Gospel

Chapter 2: What do you look for in a pastoral candidate?

Chapter 3: The importance of continuing mentorship of the pastoral staff?

Chapter 4: What is Gospel-centered and why do you preach against legalism to evangelize libertines?

Chapter 5: How does the gospel and gospel centeredness work to sanctify believers?

Chapter 6: How does the gospel-centered approach work to help a guy conquer the sin of pornography?

Chapter 7: How does Gospel-Centered relate to God-Centered and Cross-Centered especially in conquering sin?

Chapter 8: Why does God appear so stuck on himself? Does this reflect moral weakness in God?

Chapter 9: John Piper and Tim Keller confess they have learned that God-centered and Gospel-centered need each other to be more biblical

Chapter 10: John Piper’s Closing Prayer

Of these ten, I found chapters 1, 5, 7, and 9 to be most helpful. But if you can only watch one, I would recommend chapter 9, where Piper and Keller interact on how “God-centered” and “gospel-centered” connect. In the course of this interaction, Piper admits that his language of being “God-centered” at times has not been “Christ-centered” enough. But Keller also admits that in his emphasis on being “gospel-centered” that his language could be misunderstood to be strictly cognitive rather than penetrating to the affections. To whet your appetite, here is a snippet of Piper that captures it well:

“The apex of the glory of God is seen in Christ, and the apex of His glory is seen in the cross, and therefore to be God-centered leads to Christ-centered leads to cross-centered.”

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