Moving Ahead by Looking Back

I appreciated these words written by Douglas Moo long before we began to hear terms like “gospel-centered”:

Moving ahead in the Christian life often involves looking to the past…The foundation must be secure before the building can go up. We can never grow away from our roots; we can only grow through them. In the church today, there is an increasing flirtation with what is new. We want to hear what Christianity has to say about the latest fad or issue; we want to learn new things. But in our (legitimate) eagerness to push ahead, to stretch our understanding, to make the church relevant to a new age, we must always be careful to “secure our rear” as a general would put it. Solid understanding of Christian doctrine, the kind of understanding that changes heart and mind—this is something we never grow away from. (The NIV Application Commentary 2 Peter, Jude

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I love that: “We can never grow away from our roots; we can only grow through them.” We don’t grow by moving away from the gospel; we grow as we stay planted in that gospel.