Two more sessions and this years Shepherds Conference will be a thing of history. I have really enjoyed this years conference, not only because of the good speakers, excellent music and refreshing atmosphere, but also because of the stimulating conversations that I’ve been able to have with the friend who accompanied me to this years conference. In addition to good messages from John MacArthur, Todd Pennington and Rick Holland, we’ve also heard an excellent message on the authority of Scripture by Dr. Al Mohler and Phil Johnson gave a call for dignity in the pulpit from Titus 2. This afternoon we’ll be attending a session with Steve Lawson before wrapping the conference up tonight with a final word of exhortation by John MacArthur. Until I get back to my home computer you can find some conference reviews over at the pyromaniacs blog (see the links on the right).
I would however like to leave you with this quote found in the daily “newspaper” they give us here at the conference. In the midst of a growing “environmentalism” within the church it’s important to remember:
Saving the world, for Christians, should be first and foremost about saving the lost. Instead of being distracted by attempts to save our broken planet, Christians should focus on what God has actually commissioned the church to do – proclaiming the good news of salvation while looking forward to a new earth which will last forever (cf. Rev. 21-22).
I just read a summary of Phil Johnson’s comments on dignity in the pulpit. Of course I am a big fan of Phil Johnson and his ministry, ever since his talk on Fundamentalism in 2005.
Yet I think he is letting an aversion to Mark Driscoll and his methods get the best of him here. I saw nowhere where he addressed the points made by Driscoll at the DG conference this last year. Perhaps he addressed them in the message and they didn’t make the summary.
While Driscoll does not do everything the way I would, he also ministers to a very different crowd. We don’t need to give him a pass, but we do need to give him credit where it is due.
Interesting that Johnson and Driscoll are both huge fans of Spurgeon.
As I recall, he mentioned Driscoll by name once but alluded to him 3 or 4 other times when he would talk about Seattle. I thought it was a bit humorous because I told Nathan on the way to that session that I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnson took a shot at
Driscoll…and sure enough, within the first 5-10 minutes. Over all however, it was a very good session.
“We don’t need to give him a pass, but we do need to give him credit where it is due.”
Grace comes to mind. I believe that one reaction that Emerging movement had was against the lack of grace within the evangelical community (where we love to shoot our own). While the emergents took this and other things and went the wrong way, we would do well to learn some lessons as to why.