* Students learn only a small part of what you teach them. They learn what teachers are excited about, what they talk about all the time.

* If you merely assume the gospel while being excited about implications of the gospel, then the next generation may not even assume the gospel. Keep central what is central.

Many today who are becoming interested in the interrelationship of the gospel to broader doing-mercy-type deeds tend to run the stereotypes like this: “The previous generation came down either on the social-transformation side or on the gospel-fidelity side, and we want to put together both.” These stereotypes don’t work. Do not get yourself in the place where you are thinking self-righteously about those who have come before you. It’s so easy for any generation to start saying, “They did it this way wrong and this way wrong, but we’ve got it right.” Avoid casting what you’re trying to do on the background of a stereotype in which everybody else has got it wrong. It’s not good for you spiritually, and it’s not fair historically.
DA Carson on the Gospel & Social Action.