The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians

by D.A. Carson

First published by Baker Books in 1993, The Cross and Christian Ministry presents a comprehensive view of what the death of Christ means in preaching and pastoring God's people. It sets forth workable principles for dynamic, cross-centered leadership. Now available in paperback.

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Paperback, 137 pages

Published February 1st 2004 by Baker Books (first published 1993)

tags: theology, nonfiction, reference, christianity, church, religion, leadership, new testament, christian living, discipleship, christian

Book Quotes

“The only thing of transcendent importance to human beings is the knowledge of God. This knowledge does not belong to those who endlessly focus on themselves. Those who truly come to know God delight just to know him. He becomes their center. They think of him, delight in him, boast of him.”

― D.A. Carson

“The heart of our lostness is our profound self-focus. We do not want to know him, if knowing him is on his terms. We are happy to have a god we can more or less manipulate; we do not want a god to whom we admit that we are rebels in heart and mind, that we do not deserve his favor, and that our only hope is in his pardoning and transforming grace.”

― D.A. Carson

“It is the truth and power of the gospel that must change people’s lives, not the glamour of our oratory or the emotional power of our stories.”

― D.A. Carson

“At heart, therefore, they really have grasped the message of Christ crucified, even if they have not brought their lives into conformity with this message.”

― D.A. Carson

“The gospel of the crucified Messiah must transform not only our beliefs but our behavior.”

― D.A. Carson

“In the first place, Paul says, the utter bankruptcy of all the world’s efforts to know God was part of God’s wise design. It was “in the wisdom of God” that “the world through its wisdom did not know him” (1:21). Not only did the wise and the scholars and the philosophers fail to understand, God in his all-wise providence actually worked it out that way. Their failures are thoroughly blameworthy; their ignorance of God and their endless, self-centered preoccupation are culpable. Nevertheless, no evil, certainly not theirs, can escape the bounds of God’s sovereign providence—and it is God himself who ensures that the world in its wisdom does not know him.”

― D.A. Carson

“Focus on Christ crucified. That is what Paul did: “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (2:2). This does not mean that this was a new departure for Paul, still less that Paul was devoted to blissful ignorance of anything and everything other than the cross. No, what he means is that all he does and teaches is tied to the cross. He cannot long talk about Christian joy, or Christian ethics, or Christian fellowship, or the Christian doctrine of God, or anything else, without finally tying it to the cross. Paul is gospel-centered; he is cross-centered. That”

― D.A. Carson

“For the better we know God, the more we will want all of our existence to revolve around him,”

― D.A. Carson

“The cross not only establishes what we are to preach, but how we are to preach. It prescribes what Christian leaders must be and how Christians must view Christian leaders. It tells us how to serve and draws us onward in discipleship until we understand what it means to be world Christians. The”

― D.A. Carson

“Faithful Christian leaders must make the connections between creed and conduct, between the cross and how to live. And they must exemplify this union in their own lives. In”

― D.A. Carson

“O mundo antigo empregava várias polaridades para descrever a humanidade: romanos e bárbaros, judeus e gentios, escravos e livres. Todavia, nesta passagem, Paulo apresentou a única polaridade que tem importância crucial; ele distinguiu os que perecem e os que são salvos. A linha divisória entre os dois grupos é a mensagem da cru: ‘A palavra da cruz é loucura para os que se perdem, mas para nós, que somos salvos, poder de Deus’ (1Co 1. 18).”

― D.A. Carson

topics: Cross

“Paulo não desejava que os cristãos de Corinto pensassem que o evangelho é apenas um sistema filosófico, um sistema altamente sábio que supera a tolice dos outros sistemas. Ele queria dizer muito mais onde a sabedoria humana falha completamente em lidar com as necessidades dos homens, Deus mesmo entra em ação.”

― D.A. Carson

“O evangelho não é apenas um conjunto de bons conselhos também não é boas notícias a respeito do poder de Deus. O evangelho é o poder de Deus para aqueles que creem. A cruz é o lugar em que Deus destruiu completamente toda a arrogância e pretensão dos homens.”

― D.A. Carson

topics: Cross

“O argumento de Paulo é que nenhuma filosofia popular, nenhuma ‘sabedoria’ aceita por todos, pode ter importância duradoura, se o seu âmago não é a cruz. Não importa quais sejam os méritos ou os deméritos desses vários sistemas, eles exaurem seus recursos em níveis superficiais. Não reconciliam os homens e mulheres com o Deus vivo. E nada é mais importante do que isso. Esses sistemas não podem desvendar a sabedoria de Deus na cruz. E, se a cruz está oculta, todas as outras sabedorias são tolice. Onde está o sábio?”

― D.A. Carson

topics: Cross

“How wonderful! The King of the universe, the Sovereign who has endured our endless rebellion and sought us out at the cost of his Son’s death, climaxes our redemption by praising us!”

― D.A. Carson

“Modern Western evangelicalism is deeply infected with the virus of triumphalism, and the resulting illness destroys humility, minimizes grace, and offers far too much homage to the money and influence and “wisdom” of our day.”

― D.A. Carson

“These questions miss the point. There is a kind of longing for a display of Jesus’s power that is entirely godly, submissive, perhaps even desperate. There is another kind that puts the person making the request into the driver’s seat. Some want to see Jesus perform a sign so that they can evaluate him, assess his claims, test his credentials.”

― D.A. Carson

“By contrast, Paul says, “we preach Christ crucified” (1:23). That is our content, and to those who do not know Christ it is an astonishingly odd message. In the first century, it must have sounded like a contradiction in terms, like frozen steam or hateful love or upward decline or godly rapist—only far more shocking. For many Jews, the long-expected Messiah2 had to come in splendor and glory; he had to begin his reign with uncontested power. “Crucified Messiah”: this juxtaposition of words is only a whisker away from blasphemy,”

― D.A. Carson

“democracy is the best form of government where the populace is reasonably literate”

― D.A. Carson

“The heart of our wretched rebellion is that each of us wants to be number one. We make ourselves the center of all our thoughts and hopes and imaginings. This”

― D.A. Carson

D.A. Carson

Donald Arthur Carson is a Canadian-born evangelical theologian and professor of New Testament.

Carson served as pastor of Richmond Baptist Church in Richmond, British Columbia from 1970 to 1972. Following his doctoral studies, he served for three years at Northwest Baptist Theological College (Vancouver) and in 1976 was the founding dean of the seminary. In 1978, Carson joined the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he is currently serving as research professor.

Carson has written or edited 57 books, many of which have been translated into Chinese.
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