Keller on the Gospel

Earlier this month, another Seed contributor, Andrew,  and I attended Chapter Camp with Intervarsity. It was an awesome time for many reasons, but really it was all about the bible study. That consumed our time and minds and energy. We studied the first half of Mark, aka “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” We’ll study the second half next summer.  It’s not that I’ve never studied any  Mark before, but this time I saw God as huge and mysterious, the way he really is. I had so many questions, and so did everyone else. I am so glad that we weren’t satisfied leaving the pieces of Mark at what we’d heard that this or that was supposed to mean for us but  kept digging.  The great thing is that we prayerfully approached what we didn’t understand, began to understand, and were moved by it. We all came to the table leaving behind what we thought we already knew and just read what Mark had to say. God worked in that. I saw Jesus as love and a man and I was moved to tears when he cured Legion.  We let Jesus be Jesus and he met me there. Too often, I don’t experience the reality and magnitude of Jesus when approaching  the bible. This time was entirely refreshing.

Just today, thinking about all of this,  I found an article by Tim Keller, “Preaching in a Post Modern City.” He gives an interesting perspective on how we live and fail to live gospel centered lives. He talks about how we become the  changed people that we desire to be and are supposed to be. Speaking about virtue he says,” it particularly grows by a faith-sight of the glory of Christ and his salvation.” I believe that to be true, that seeing Jesus is powerful and causes us to move. He also says, “Is [the gospel] basically about what I must do, or basically about what he has done?”