Recent Conference Audio

T4G has the audio and video of the conference posted. I enjoyed Dever, Mahaney, and Chandler (and Shai Linne but he didn't get recorded).

During the same week, Wheaton College held a theology conference called "Jesus, Paul, and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N.T. Wright." The audio and video of that conference is now posted as well. I am still listening to these, but really enjoyed Vanhoozer (as usual).

Brad McCracken at CT wrote an article on both conferences called "Wrightians and the Neo-Reformed: 'All One in Christ Jesus'."

Good Lookin' Out: Your Church Is Too Small

The other day I picked up John Armstrong's new book, "Your Church is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ's Mission is Vital to the Future of the Church." I am real excited about reading it. John is a friend and I am always encouraged by his love for Christ and Christ's people. He takes Jesus' prayer that all may be one (John 17:21) more seriously than anyone I know. Here is the website, here is his blog, and here are the three main sections of the book (19 chapters):

Past: The Biblical and Historical Basis for Christian Unity

Present: Restoring Unity in the Church Today

Future: The Missional-Ecumenical Movement

J.I. Packer writes, "My friend John Armstrong is a church leader who has traveled the distance from the separatist, sectarian fixity of fundamentalism to embrace the kingdom-centered vision of the church and the call issued by a number of Bible-based theologians and missiologists during the past half century.
What vision is this? It is the one that views the visible church as a single worldwide, Spirit-sustained community within which ongoing doctrinal and denominational divisions, though important, are secondary rather than primary. In this vision, the primary thing is the missional-ecumenical vocation and trajectory crystallized for us by our Lord Jesus Christ in his teaching and prayer and illustrated in a normative way by the Acts narrative and much of the reasoning of the apostolic letters."

The NIV Story

I found this article about how the New International Version came to be very interesting. I was surprised at how Reformed its origins are. I also didn't know Ed Clowney was on the original Committee on Bible Translation. It was the Christian Reformed Church that got the project going. More specifically, it started with a zealous layperson named Howard Long who was having trouble evangelizing with the King James Version. Praise God for faithful Christians with a passion for communicating God's Word to contemporary people.

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others.

--1 Cor 15.19