2009 National Gospel Coalition Conference Session 10 - Don Carson

Session 10 - Don Carson

Full Message
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/That-By-All-Means-I-Might-Win-Some-Faithfulness-and-Flexibility-in-Gospel-P

My convoluted notes

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

C1 - Traditional church, non indigenous language
C2 - Traditional church, indigenous language
C3 - Culturally adopting indigenous church
C4 - Contextualized, adopting many ingenious forms where not explicitly forbidden
C5 - Messianic indigenous religion
C6 - Small Christ centered underground community

Arguments for C5, are used in emerging churches as well as in the Muslim world to explain the watering down of the gospel story in order to present the ideas of Christianity without insisting on one way.

Should we seek to be flexible, in order to remain faithful to the text?
What are the limits?

Who are the weak, Paul became like to help them?
Those with a weak conscious, someone who thinks something is wrong even when it may not be, when their heart is guilty for that act.

You cannot jeopardize the exclusive sufficiency of salvation from Jesus.

In order to remain faithful, Paul has to flex because he doesn't fit the categories anymore. He becomes as the people he was trying to convert so that they could relate and be more familiar, without sacrificing the gospel, or the salvation.

To win Christians to have to flex, but then you have to bring them back to Christianity in the end, they must be brought back to Christ.

To be a leader, you must be a servant, while maintaining the authority based in Christ and the gospel, where our motivation for authority is to serve for Christ and the gospel for the sake of personal participation in the gospel.