What is Good?

There are a couple of issues with which I have been struggling for the past several months.  I have been praying through them but I do not have resolution on them as yet.  Concurrently, I have been reading D. A. Carson’s book on Philippians.

In the first part of the book he has been identifying principles with which Paul lived his life and made his choices…  One was to put the needs of those whom he was privileged to serve first.  Carson’s comments bear repeating:

The lesson to be learned is startlingly clear: Put the converts of the gospel at the center of your principled self-denial. Paul’s deepest hopes for his own immediate future turn neither on the bliss of immediately gaining heaven’s portals nor on returning to a fulfilling ministry and escaping the pangs of death, but on what is best for his converts. Often we are tempted to evaluate alternatives by thinking through what seems best for us. How often do we raise as a first principle what is best for the church? When faced with, say, a job offer that would take us to another city or with mortal illness that calls forth our diligent intercession, how quickly do we employ Paul’s criterion here established: What would be best for the church? What would be best for my brothers and sisters in Christ?

Don’t know about you but that criterion is not what I usually apply.  His encouragement has made the decisions I need to make more daunting.