Ray Ortlund: Gospel Doctrine + Gospel Culture = Power of God

For Ray Ortlund, there are two necessary ingredients for the power of God to be unleashed in the Church: gospel doctrine and gospel culture. For those more mathematically inclined, you could think of it like this:

Gospel doctrine + gospel culture = power of God at work in the Church

Conversely...

Gospel doctrine – gospel culture = hypocrisy

...and...

Gospel culture – gospel doctrine = fragility

These two ingredients (gospel culture and gospel doctrine) are essential to the church's vitality. Where one of these ingredients (or both) are absent, you have a failing church. Another way to say it: When the gospel message (doctrine) works its way into the hearts of a congregation, it will begin working itself out of that congregation (culture). This is because the Gospel doesn't stay put – it is on the move!

If you’ve been burned by a church, chances are one of these two pieces were missing. Of course, it takes a work of the Spirit to empower a congregation to fire on both gospel cylinders. By God’s grace, churches strike the balance: having good, beautifully presented Gospel doctrine that yields a decidedly Gospel culture.

For more on this, see Ray Ortlund’s The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014).