New Attitude 2008 Review - Mark Dever & Al Mohler

I'm combining Dever and Mohler together in an effort to actually get through my review of NA messages before NA rolls around again. Also, they both provide a lot of the framework for analyzing for some of the intellectual issues that define how we interact with Scripture. I don't actually have any notes to break down for Mohler's Q&A session but I would recommend you listen to it and think about some of the questions he covers. If nothing else, it challenged me to want to know the Bible better.

Mark Dever delivered the second message of the conference which dealt primarily with the authority of Scripture. He started by saying that faith in Christ can only occur where the truth about Him is known. So the question then became, how can we have confidence in the Bible?

Before he started, he suggested three books that might prove helpful in wrestling with this issue (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable by F.F. Bruce, Fundamentalism and the Word of God by J.I. Packer, Christ and the Bible by John Wenham). His message was broken down into two main points, the reliability of the Bible and the authority of Scripture.

He began by addressing the reliablility of the Bible. There were four main questions/objections that he addressed. First, how can we know the Bible if there are so many translations available? He responded by saying that this is first an evidence that translation is possible. He then went on to emphasize that decades of work are put into a committee translation so they are reliable.

Second, is what we have what was written down originally? We can be very confident because there is a vast body of ancient manuscripts. Also, there is a stronger body of historical evidence for the Bible than any other ancient work.

Thirdly, is what was written down accurate? Dever first touched on the fact that some of what was written down was originally passed on orally, but memorization is a reliable way of transferring knowledge. Also, people did not have to write it down immediately for it to be accurate. Many writers, such as Paul and Luke were very concerned with historically accuracy. Also, facts are relayed in the Bible which would not be fabricated if someone was making it up. For example, a crucified savior or women being recorded as the first witnesses to the resurrection. Also, early attacks on Christianity did not challenge the resurrection, which lends credence because people would have still been alive who were there.

Lastly, is it true? For this Dever noted that the disciples reaction is a key factor in looking at this. Why would the disciples willingly die for something that they knew was a lie. Obviously, there is a lot more that could be said on the reliability of the Bible, but you could check out some of the resources Dever suggested for more information.

Next, he started to talk about the authority of Scripture in our lives. I don't have quite as good notes for this part as he was rattling off quite a lot of scripture references. I plan to listen to this message again and you might want to snag it off the NA website and do the same. However, Dever did mention that though we can't know God or the Bible fully, we can know them truly. Just because I don't know everything, doesn't mean that I don't know anything. God is the one who is revealing himself to us so it is possible to know him.

He mentioned that studying the Bible is one of the main ways we can be encouraged. Also, the Scriptures are presented as having the attributes of God (There are a ton of scripture references after this point, download the message for the full effect). Also, Jesus did not reject the jewish view of Scripture. Mark said something to the effect of "To follow Christ, we must treat Scripture as Jesus treated Scripture". That's certainly very challenging considering how well Christ knew Scripture and how often he quoted it.

He ended with a couple challenges. God's Word must be applied. We need to ask ourselves if we are building our lives on the Word of God? Also, do we treasure the privlege of reading and hearing God's Word? Finally, what part of the Word am I not putting into practice?

New Attitude 2008 Review - Josh Harris

Ok, so I am finally taking a bit of time to review the messages from NA 2008. We'll be starting out by taking a look at Josh Harris' opening message for the conference on Friday night.

Josh started from Jeremiah 15:16, which was the theme verse for the conference.

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts.

Even without a message, meditating on this verse was challenging to my heart, but Josh helped to direct that and establish the direction for the rest of the conference. He reaffirmed the concept of "humble orthodoxy", that there is indeed truth but that we have received it by God's mercy, not because we are more deserving or smarter than others.

One of the questions he asked was, what is our attitude towards God's Word? Does it shape us? Do we love and obey it? It really struck me when he asked if our living matched our confession. I know I will say that I believe the Bible is the true Word of God, but does my behavior affirm that belief? My belief in the Bible should be testified to not just by my words but by the place it occupies in my life.

Josh then went on to use examples of three Old Testament figures and their reactions to God's Word. First he mentioned King Josiah, in 2 Kings 22, who was following God despite a family tree that disobeyed. When the scroll of the law was discovered, Josiah reacted by tearing his clothes and repenting. Even though he was being faithful, Josiah saw that God's Word applied to his own life and admitted his own personal guilt as well as admitting the guilt of the nation. Josh noted that while emotions are not always there, we should be concerned if are hearts are never affected by God's Word. We should examine what it is that moves our hearts if it isn't God.

Second, Josh directed us to the story of King Jehoiakim in Jeremiah 36. He is the son of Josiah, but does not follow in his father's way. The prophet Jeremiah's words predicting judgement on Israel are written on a scroll and read to Jehoiakim, who cuts columns off the scroll as they are read and tosses them into the fire. Josh cautioned that while we may never have burned God's Word, the way we treat and approach Scripture can be similar in regards to how we apply it to our lives. He asked if we obey God's Word and whether we take the Bible as a complete revelation or if we pick and choose the parts we like. Also, he challenged us to listen and be humbled by God's Word when it is preached rather than be more about the person preaching than the Word preached.

Lastly, Josh came back to the example of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 15:16. Jeremiah ate the words of God and if you eat something you trust, it becomes a part of you. Josh asked whether there was anticipation and excitement when opening God's Word. He also noted that this statement about delighting in God's Word came in the midst of Jeremiah's complaint. From this we can learn that God's Word meets us right where we are, delight in God's Word is something we have to fight for and we don't love God's Word so we can earn our standing before him but we love God's Word because Jesus established our standing before him.

I was definitely challenged by my own approach to God's Word. I want to be more aware of the gift that it is and I want to fight hard to delight in God's Word. I need to strive to give the Bible a place in my life that reflects my conviction that it is God's word. And I need to seek to apply it in my day to day life.

Counting Down The Days

Well, it's almost here. New Attitude 2008.

I'm certainly ready to go. The road trip will be fun (if somewhat long). Plenty of friends will be there to spend time with. The teaching and worship promises to be fantastic as always and I'm excited to learn more about studying God's Word. And it will be nice to have some time away from work.

I'm curious to see what God will do while we are there and how He will use what He shows us to help us to better serve in our local churches. God has been faithful even in the midst of my current busy season to provide grace (i.e. I only got paged once last week when I was on-call, amongst other displays of grace). Things are very busy again this week but I am hoping to get some time to read and pray in preparation for going to NA2008 this weekend. It definitely helps me to get the most out of my time at a conference like New Attitude when I am spending time with God in preparation.

So, hopefully I will get to spend some time preparing. Particularly, please pray that God would refresh me so that I might be able to serve well in helping to lead one of the small discussion groups that the larger community groups break out into. I know at the end of the week I am going to be tired and I'll need God's grace and strength to serve well.

If you are considering how to get the most out of your time at NA2008. The NA blog has some good tips to consider before, during and after the conference.

Idea 1

Ideas 2 & 3

Ideas 4 & 5

If you are going to the conference, hopefully we'll get to see each other. There will be time to hang out. Also, a thought that just came to me was that in the midst of these world class teachers that we will be hearing, let's take time to pray for and thank the pastors who so faithfully serve us by bringing the Word every week in our local churches.

HT: NA Blog

PCRT 2008 - Day Two & Wrapup

Better late than never, it's the quick wrapup from PCRT this year. The sheer volume of teaching was a little overwhelming. I'm definitely planning to review my notes and listen to the messages again to gain a greater understanding of everything that was said. However, even what little I did manage to take out of it initially, really helped to flesh out my understanding of the different aspects of Christ's work on the cross.

1. Robert Godfrey - Redeeming Blood: Preached a sermon on redemption from Psalm 49, which is a text I hadn't heard tied into the atonement. He talked about the certainty of death for the wise and the foolish, rich and poor alike and the helplessness before God which is articulated by the psalmist. He noted that the language of redemption is throughout the law that God gives to Israel. Also, provided an excellent reminder about the power of Christ's blood. Our sins are not so great that they outweigh Christ's sacrifice for us.

2. Philip Ryken - Atoning Blood: Used to self-examination questions from a puritan writer to remind us how we can often have a light view of sin. Discussed the atonement in terms of redemption, justification and propitiation. Redemption is a picture of the atonement that comes from the marketplace, the procurement of a release by the payment of a price. Justification is a picture from a legal standpoint. It's not a making righteous but a declaring righteous. Propitiation is a picture of the atonement that comes from the Old Testament temple. It refers to the turning away of God's anger towards us. The application was to call us to be willing to sacrifice in every of our Christian lives.

3. Richard Phillips - Cleansing Blood: Preached on Hebrews 9:11-14. The message focused on expiation, the cleansing or removal of our sin. He mentioned the Old Testament laws regarding cleaness and noted that the priests did not have the power to make someone clean. However, Christ does not merely declare us pure but actually makes us clean from the stains of sin. He then went on to say that since Christ has cleansed us, we must be sure to accept ourselves as cleansed. Finally, in light of those facts, he encouraged us to draw near to God with confidence and that we would remember the cleansing of Christ's blood when our guility conscience is hesitant to draw near to God.

4. Carl Trueman - Seminar: I guess I should have known from reading his book, "The Wages of Spin", but Carl Trueman is fairly brilliant and essentially gave a seminary level lecture on a section of church history regarding the challenges to the atonement after the Reformation. I took some notes, but had a hard time following. I mostly understood what he was saying but keeping up with notes and side references was another thing entirely. I fully intend to listen to the recording to get more out of it, but what I most took away from being there was a good sense of humility in how far my knowledge really extends. I don't know very much at all, others out there are much smarter and more knowledgable and I still have a lot to learn.

5. Saturday Evening and Sunday Morning - I left the conference after the seminar on Saturday so I did not get to hear either Robert Godfrey's message on Saturday night or R.C. Sproul's message on Sunday morning. I plan to listen to them as soon as Julian lets me borrow the recordings.

Other highlights...

1. Qdoba - Peter and I stopped in for lunch. The shredded beef nachos were as delicious as always.

2. Book Purchases - Despite major temptation (and thanks to the help of friends), I refrained from buying any new books over the weekend. I guess that four volume set of "The Christian's Reasonable Service" will have to wait till next time.

3. Unity - It was great to interact and worship with people who are not from the same church family as I am. It is a joy to worship together with brothers and sisters in mutual gratitude and praise of God for saving us by sending his Son to die on the cross for our sins. Also, I become more aware of how much we have to learn from each other, despite our differences on some things outside the core beliefs of the gospel.

4. Expelled - I left the conference to see this movie. We had a lot of fun and the movie was very interesting. Ben Stein makes some good points about intellectual freedom, particularly in academia. However, I was actually more affected by some of the parts of the movie that reminded me of our sinful nature as humans and also how hard we can try to surpress the truth. This stuck out at me more than the whole Intelligent Design aspect of the movie, but overall it does make you think and if you bring someone along to see it, you're sure to have plenty to talk about afterwards.

PCRT 2008 - Day One

So, the sun sets on the first day of PCRT 2008. Here are the highlights...

1. God blessed the day with excellent weather. It was a joy to spend the day in the city.

2. It was fun to hang around with Julian all day and to get to know him a bit more.

3. Got to say hi to Steve Burlew at the Banner of Truth table.

4. A delightfully refreshing lunch. :)

5. Plenty of friends are attending so I'll get to spend some more time with them for the rest of the conference.

6. (With help) refrained from buying any books (including a particular sweet set, The Christian's Reasonable Service).

As for the teaching, it was excellent.

Joel Beeke presented several great messages and certainly did not disappoint. In particular, I appreciated the message on persevering in joyful humility and prayer. He made several good points in noting that we pray far less than we should and that we should be seeking to grow in our prayer. Also, he made an excellent point regarding keeping ourselves humble. While noting that we need to labor under the conviction that we are servants, he noted that we need to remember Christ's love for the church. He said that we can be too open in our criticisms of the church and that it can come out of a prideful heart. Not that we should refrain from criticism of the church, but that we should not be unable to criticize the church with dry eyes. In other words, we should be crying out to God that our church would reflect the character of Christ. Not out of a hard heart but out of a heart that desires to see souls conformed to the image of the Son.

Also, I was convicted regarding the lack of seriousness and priority I give to prayer. I desire to see prayer as something that is ingrained in my life. My action item for now is to seek to carve out more specific time around my morning devotionals so I am not so apt to finish my reading, do a quick prayer and get ready from work. I want to draw something out of Scripture and bring that to God in prayer.

It was cool to see R.C. Sproul preach. He has a good way of explaining things and yet, due most likely to fatigue, I haven't really processed his message too well yet. Hopefully tomorrow I can read over my notes and discuss it will some others who were there to get a firmer grasp on some of the ideas he presented in explaining why the cross was necessary.

PCRT... Yeah, I'm Excited

Coming up on this weekend is the Philadelphia Conference of Reformed Theology. This is my first time attending and I'll also be attending the pre-conference on Friday during the day. Here are some of the reasons I am excited (in no particular order)...

1. R.C. Sproul - Yep.

2. The City - I love walking around downtown Philly and it will be good to spend time there again. Plus, it's fun to ride the train into town.

3. 10th Pres. - 10th is awesome. I'm looking forward to great music.

4. Friends - Seems like a lot of familiar faces will be there (if you are coming, let me know in the comments so I can try and find you to say hi at some point). Julian and I are having breakfast on Friday, which should be fun. I'm sure there will be plenty of great opportunities for that never fail combination of food and fellowship. Plus I'll get to see some of my friends from 10th that I don't get to see as often.

5. The Atonement - This is the theme of the conference. I'm always eager to understand and gain a greater appreciation of Christ's work on the cross.

6. Joel Beeke - He doing most of the speaking at the pre-conference. I'm interested to hear from him since I appreciated his book, "Meet the Puritans".

7. Carl Trueman - He's teaching one of the seminars and is a professor of church history at Westminster. I've heard an interview with him on 9Marks, read some posts he's made and read his book "The Wages of Spin". I'm intrigued to hear more from him.

8. Differences & Unity - I'm always excited to join together to learn about and worship God with other Christians. It particularly affects me to join with others who have differences in some areas of thinking but are united in the foundational truths of the gospel.

9. Philip Ryken - I've interacted with some of Ryken's work and heard him preach once or twice but I am not too familiar with him. I'm excited to hear from this man who is doing the bulk of the teaching for all my friends at 10th Pres.

10. Books - While both my budget and my knowing friends are eyeing this reason warily, I am excited at the opportunity to pick up a new book or two (or three...) If you see me at the conference with more than 5 new books, please take my wallet.

11. Steve Burlew - Ok, this one isn't certain because I didn't ask him specifically if he would be there. However, Steve is the guy when it comes to Banner of Truth books in the US. And since he is often travelling around and attending conferences (particularly since this one isn't too far away from home), I wouldn't be surprised to see him there. And lest you think I am merely excited about the books he'll be bringing, the truth of the matter is that Steve is a godly man and a joy to talk to. I would definitely be excited to chat with him even if he wasn't dragging volumes and volumes of Christ exalting literature in tow. (If you want to find out more about Steve or Banner of Truth, check out Steve's blog Trophies of His Grace.)

12. The Day Off - Friday is the first full day I've taken off work this year. I'm looking forward to it.

13. Blogging - Blogging a conference seems like some obscure rite of passage for a Christian blogger. I don't necessarily intend to be your source for all things PCRT, but I will probably be posting some thoughts on what God teaches me during the conference. I've often found it helpful and encouraging when others post about conferences they've attended that I have not. But don't expect any live blogging, I've got a funny feeling that 10th Pres. doesn't have WiFi. Maybe I can post over lunch.

14. God's Faithfulness - Last and most importantly, I'm excited because God is faithful and he will meet those attending this conference and use it to grow us in our faith and help us in following him.

My prayer is that God would prepare my heart to receive this teaching even in the midst of a busy week and bless the opportunities I'll have to engage in fellowship with other believers.