A lot has happened since the last post. One of the biggest things was a trip to Louisville, Kentucky for the Together for the Gospel Conference. About thirty pastors and TBI students from Bethlehem left at 6:00 AM on Tuesday, April 25, for Louisville. We took the church bus and van, and made the trip in about fourteen hours. While it was long, it was also filled with good conversation and a chance to rest and read.
On Wednesday morning, we had breakfast with Tom Schreiner, professor of New Testament Studies at Southern Seminary, and then went to chapel at the seminary, where R.C. Sproul gave the address. After chapel we had lunch with a bunch of TBI alumni and Pastor John Piper who flew in from his sabbatical in Cambridge, England to speak at the conference. It was good to see Pastor again and hear about his studies. A new book will come out from these studies, I am sure.
After a stroll around the Southern Seminary campus, we headed to the conference in downtown Louisville. The conference was put together by four friends from different denominations who are "Together for the Gospel." They are Mark Dever, pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC; Al Mohler, president of Southern Seminary; C.J. Mahaney, pastor of Covenant Life Church in Maryland; and Ligon Duncan III, pastor of First Presbyterion Church in Jackson, Mississippi. For the conference, they invited three guests, John Piper, R.C. Sproul, and John MacArthur. It was a delightful three days of fantastic sermons, worship, and encouragement for pastors. While these men differed on certain issues (like the mode of baptism), they certainly agree on the gospel. It was a joy.
Click on the title to this post for a link to the T4G website. You can download each man's talk for a small fee. I think the two best talks were John Piper's and Ligon Duncan's. Pastor Piper spoke on why expositional preaching is particularly glorifying to God. Duncan spoke on preaching from the Old Testament. Please download these and listen to them. Even if you never preach, they are worth hearing.
I arrived back early on Saturday, April 29, and spent the rest of the weekend catching up with Wendy and the kids. What a joy it is to come home.
Showing posts with label Conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conferences. Show all posts
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Update: Jason
This last Monday through Wednesday was the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors. Over 1,200 pastors from around the world came to Minneapolis for this conference. The TBI guys all went as well. The theme of the conference was "How Must a Pastor Die." The point was that a pastor should be willing to die for the gospel of Jesus Christ. The various speakers fleshed that out with visions of missionary martyrs to local racially harmonized churches. It was a good and challenging time.
Pastor Piper, who was not the keynote speaker, did his usual biographical sketch of a hero from church history. He has done 19 or twenty of these biographies now. They are very powerful, as this one was. It was on William Tyndale. All of them are available in manuscript form at this site at Desiring God.
Tomorrow I am going to Iowa City with Pastor Tom Steller. He is doing a Perspectives on World Missions lecture and asked me to ride shotgun with him. He is my mentor during this school year. I am very blessed to have him spending time in my life right now. It is a five-hour drive each way. However, it will be fun to add another mid-west state to the growing list of states I have visited.
As for school, TBI is overwhelming. I am spending all my time on two books: The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle to the Romans. We are translating our way through the entire book of Hebrews this year, but in Romans we are only focusing on chapters 9-11 this semester. The theology in both is rich, but I worry that my time is so constrained that I am only grazing the surface.
God is good, and I am not complaining. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to study deeply. My hope is that my mind will kick into gear and begin to really understand what I am studying. I pray that my affections will also stay strong.
Tomorrow comes early. Off to bed.
Pastor Piper, who was not the keynote speaker, did his usual biographical sketch of a hero from church history. He has done 19 or twenty of these biographies now. They are very powerful, as this one was. It was on William Tyndale. All of them are available in manuscript form at this site at Desiring God.
Tomorrow I am going to Iowa City with Pastor Tom Steller. He is doing a Perspectives on World Missions lecture and asked me to ride shotgun with him. He is my mentor during this school year. I am very blessed to have him spending time in my life right now. It is a five-hour drive each way. However, it will be fun to add another mid-west state to the growing list of states I have visited.
As for school, TBI is overwhelming. I am spending all my time on two books: The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle to the Romans. We are translating our way through the entire book of Hebrews this year, but in Romans we are only focusing on chapters 9-11 this semester. The theology in both is rich, but I worry that my time is so constrained that I am only grazing the surface.
God is good, and I am not complaining. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to study deeply. My hope is that my mind will kick into gear and begin to really understand what I am studying. I pray that my affections will also stay strong.
Tomorrow comes early. Off to bed.
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