Keeping the main thing the main thing

Thanks to my good blogging friend Bob for pointing me to this post by Mark Lauterbach at GospelDrivenLife:

Pastors: we are called to build a church and to preach a picture. What we do is much like painting a face. The eyes, ears, mouth, lips, nose, eyebrows, hairline, and shape of the face are in a certain proportion. That means we must emphasize what God emphasizes and make small what God makes small. The goal is a picture of Jesus and his truth for others so see. Otherise, when we exaggerate a particular feature of truth, we paint a cartoon.

The reality of Scripture is this -- read through your NT and note how often some subjects are repeated dozens of time and others are mentioned once or twice. Certainly the glory of Jesus and his accomplishment in his death and resurrection dominates. Alongside of that is the fruit of godliness he works in us as individuals, families, and the church. We have a great deal about how we relate to each other as well. . . .

I know this -- that the dominant theme of the NT is the glory of Christ -- not our duties, not morality, not ethics, not politics, not family, not gender -- but Jesus. He is the center of the NT in the way that the Sun is the center of the solar system -- he is over 95% of its mass. When I speak of Gospel centeredness, I am simply describing the apostolic emphases of the Scriptures.

Amen. Those are only highlights, by the way. I think you'll be blessed in reading the whole article.