Welcome to the Gospel Coalition podcast, equipping the next generation of believers,

pastors, and church leaders to shape life and ministry around the gospel.

As we celebrate the Gospel Coalition's 20th anniversary and 10th national conference, we want to look back to TGC's first event, a 2007 conference called Tethered to the Center.

The following is a keynote address from TGC's co-founder, Don Carson.

It's an enormous privilege for me to be with you today, and I would like to invite you to turn in your

Bibles to 1 Corinthians 15. First Corinthians 15, and in a moment, I shall read the first 19 verses.

Many have commented on the fact that the church in the Western world is going through a time of

remarkable fragmentation.

This fragmentation extends to our understanding of the gospel itself.

For some Christians, the gospel, is a narrow set of teachings about Jesus and his death and

resurrection, which rightly believed tip tipped people into the kingdom.

And then after that, all the real training and life transformation and discipleship and

maturity take place. This is a far cry from the emphases in the Bible, which understands

the gospel to be the embracing category that holds much

of the whole Bible together and takes Christians from lostness, condemnation, alienation from God

all the way through conversion and discipleship to the consummation, to resurrection bodies,

and a new heaven and a new earth. Other voices identify the gospel with the first and second commandments,

to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength,

and your neighbor as yourself.

Well, these commandments are so central that Jesus himself insists

that all the prophets and the law hang on them,

but they're not the gospel.

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