Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ

by D.A. Carson

Christian Liberty: The Freedom to Discipline Yourself to Be Flexible for the Gospel First Corinthians 9:19–23 presents two general categories of people: (1) people like Paul who become all things to all men for the sake of the gospel and (2) people for whom those like Paul flex. The question for those committed to gospel living is this: how do I go from being the ethnocentric person for whom Paul must flex to being the person like Paul who is doing this amazing flexing while flowing from culture to culture? It’s not easy. It requires years of carefully tending the garden of your conscience. Or to use our original metaphor, it requires years of calibrating and recalibrating your conscience. It requires spiritual maturity, theological conviction, Christian love, personal discipline, and an unswerving commitment to the gospel. It should come as no surprise, then, that the paragraphs before and after 1 Corinthians 9:19–23 are all about self-denial and self-discipline for the sake of the gospel and the sake of the lost. That’s what Christian liberty really is: the freedom to discipline yourself to be flexible for the sake of the gospel.