Keywords: http://stilltruth.com/2006/works-bryan-format/
Tonight is the God is the Gospel conference, and at the encouragement of my wife and a couple of my readers I will be providing LiveBlog coverage of the conference beginning this evening. Check back tonight for more. Before the conference, however, I wanted to just put some of my thinking on conference attendance in writing. The question I basically am asking is, "Why attend conferences?" I'm shelling out $30 to go to drive a couple miles to listen to a bunch of messages that I will be able to download for free in a couple of days. Every year, my wife and I along with our small group attend Resolved! in Southern California: $125, plus travel expenses, plus room and board... all to listen to a bunch of sermons I could buy for a buck or two on their website a few weeks later and listen on my iPod in the comfort of my own home. God willing, I'll be going to Shepherd's Conference and the Sovereign Grace Leadership conference as well. Why am I doing this, taking days off work, traveling, sacrificing a lot of money, time, and opportunity to listen to sermons?
1. Conference Attendance is Life-Stopping
Receiving the preached Word at conferences is no better than doing so at a local church, in fact it is deficient as conference speakers are not offering the God-entrusted leadership that the teaching and shepherding of a local pastor/elder will at the Sunday gathering. Conferences, nevertheless, supplement well the teaching that is received on Sunday. I also commend to you downloading and listening regularly to sermons (CovLife, DesiringGod, EVBCTempe are especially good and certainly not exhaustive). But there is something that I believe conferences offer that neither of these other modes of delivery of the preached Word can offer: Life-stoppage. I listen to sermons on my iPod in the midst of a busy day, driving in the car or working out; but as soon as I'm done, there's life to deal with, offering little time for the message to percolate through my heart. Likewise, on Sunday, I hear one message isolated in the midst of life and ministry, similarly limiting the time and depth of the message to affect my heart. At a conference, because of the travel and the time involved, in a limited way, life is temporarily and artificially put on hold for a time. Messages build on each other. Fellowship is primarily with other believers who have been affected by the same message so discussion naturally drifts to what we have heard. As one message's affect is just beginning to find its way to the dark unsearched caverns of my evil heart, another well-prepared and perfectly time message shepherds my heart to God. Because life is put on hold, the Word is given time to work. Because life is put on hold, I can take in a series of messages at one time, each one building on the other without the heart-numbing effects of the real-world grind limiting the effectiveness of the preaching. Because life is put on hold, this same process can occur in multiple believers simultaneously under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, causing conversation to have a reinforcing effect on what has been heard and experienced.
2. Conference Attendance is a Declaration About My Desire to Know God Through His Word
People, including me will sacrifice a lot of time and money for entertainment, to go to a sports event, attend a concert, watch movies. When I go to a conference, I declare through my actions that I put a higher priority on knowing God through the preaching of His Word than I do on entertainment, than I do on seeking my own pleasure outside of God. Without much thought, I will unite myself with friends and family around the shared experience of a sporting event or a movie. I will pay a lot of money to share the experience of a vacation with site-seeing, relaxation, or theme park attendance. I make a declaration when I go on vacation with others with the express purpose of sitting underneath the teaching of His Word with the desired end to know Him more deeply, more accurately, and more intimately. By paying, sacrificing the opportunity of doing other things, and attending a conference with others, I make the declaration that my greatest desire is to know God and that I believe that God makes himself known through His Word and through the faithful, accurate teaching of that Word.
There is quite a bit more I would love to say on this topic but I have to leave for work now, to work a 12-hour shift as a nurse and quickly drive to the conference. I hope to see you all back on here tonight as I blog the first session.
I was privileged with another opportunity to preach at church. The text from the sermon can be found here or just read below for a less formatted version. Download the mp3 here. The message was from Galatians 5:25-6:3. You can download the note sheet here.
(read more...)Keywords: legalism
Our upbringing and whole atmosphere of the world we live in make it certain that our main temptation will be that of yielding to winds of doctrine, not that of ignoring them. We are not at all likely to be hidebound: we are very likely indeed to be the slaves of fashion. If one has to choose between reading the new books and the reading of the old, one must choose the old: not because they are necessarily better but because they contain precisely those truths of which our own age is neglectful. The standard of permanent Christianity must be kept clear in our minds and it is against that standard that we must test all contemporary thought. In fact, we must at all costs not move with the times. We serve One who said, "Heaven and Earth shall move with the times, but my words shall not move with the times" (Matt 24:25, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33...
(read more...)Keywords: books,reading
If I have a critique of expository preachers – some of them – it is that they think that once they have unpacked the truth of a text, they have done their work. And sometimes this is reinforced by the belief that the Holy Spirit will accomplish what they haven’t done. God in His grace undoubtedly does do that. But if simply reading the Bible was sufficient, why would God have given to the church teachers and preachers, or teaching preachers? Preachers need to do that additional step; and especially here in America as people are coming out of an increasingly paganized culture, where the Christian memory gets more and more distant, where the people in the pews…bring less and less of a Christian worldview with them, it becomes more and more imperative for preachers to make sure that the truth of their preaching intersects with what’s going on inside peoples’ minds so that the line is drawn so clearly that people in their own lives know whether they are being obedient or not and what they should do with that truth when they’ve heard it. That is contextualization. It goes all the way from people sitting in their pews in America to missionaries who are doing evangelizing in Hindu or Muslims contexts.
David Wells at DesiringGod 2006 Conference Q & A Session
On a related, but slightly different note on contextualization, look at contextualization of presentation at work with Mark Driscoll in this preview video from DesiringGod Conference '06.
[John Wesley's words to another preacher:] What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear, to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep: there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and the daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it; anymore than a thorough Christian. Oh begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not: what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or not, read and pray daily. It is for your life: there is no other way: else you will be a trifler all your days, and a pretty superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul: give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all the children of God rejoice [not grieve] over you.
A single word in [Romans 1:17], "In it the righteousness of God is revealed"...had stood in my way. For I hated that word "righteousness of God," which...I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding teh formal or active righteousness, as they called it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner...Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.
At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words...There I began to understand [that] the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely faith... "He who through faith is righteous shall live." Here I felt that i was altogether born again and had entered paradise iteself through open gates.
Martin Luther: Selections from His
Writings, 11-12
Cited in Piper, Pleasures of God,
294.
Keywords: Bible,Study
