New Series- “Gospel-Centered” Pitfalls

I’ll be starting a new series this week revolving around the whole topic of “Gospel centrality.” The phrase “Gospel-centered” (or -driven or -powered) has sort of blown up over the last few years, apparently 1/2 of new Christian books are required to have some form of it in the title. (Your Best Gospel-Centered Life Now!)

I happen to think the basic principles of Gospel-centrality are good and sound, even (and sometimes more so) when such terminology isn’t used. One of the better books I’ve read in the last few months, “Spirituality according to Paul: Imitating the Apostle of Christ” by my former new Testament professor Dr. Rodney Reeves, would be an example of what I consider a “Gospel-centered” work, though you wouldn’t find the term there. And like another recent Christian buzzword “missional”, “Gospel-centered” has become its own animal, where people have pumped a variety of different meanings into the terminology, as well as the usual 2nd-generation folly of misapplying the original intent of crafting such terms.

In the next few posts, we’ll examine several “Gospel-centered Pitfalls”, ways in which such terminology could go (or has gone) awry.

The first post discusses the “J” word.