T4G Session 3 - John MacArthur

(Photo by Tim Challies)

John MacArthur led the third session of the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference. His message, The Sinner Neither Able Nor Willing: The Doctrine of Absolute Inability, was exactly what its title suggested — a defense of the doctrine of human depravity.

MacArthur began by stating flatly that people hate the doctrine of total depravity. In fact, he said, it may be the most despised and attacked doctrine of all, and as a result it is the most distinctively Christian doctrine. All other systems of belief hold that man has some good in them and can work their way towards salvation. In other words, we think we are basically good and can contribute in our own salvation if not outright save ourselves. We can earn salvation by doing good works, attempting to live good lives, etc. We can “bribe” God into letting us into heaven by our actions.

The problem with this is that we are self-deceived. Sinners like you and me are unwilling to see ourselves as we really are. We do not see the evil in our “good” and the evil in our “religion.” We don’t really believe what Romans 3 says: none of us are righteous, none of us seek God, all of us have gone astray and are deserving of nothing but hell. Instead, we have blinded ourselves to the truth by telling ourselves we are “basically good” and that we can do something to merit salvation.

Many evangelicals (maybe even your pastor and you yourself) hate this truth and as such seem to hate the God of Scripture. Instead of telling the biblical truth, they deceive their people by preaching and teaching a God that has been tamed, a God that says you are good and must only act like it. This is a false God that has been made up and must be rejected. In contrast, the doctrine of total depravity is the most God-honoring doctrine because it teaches all of the good, all of the work that is done to merit salvation, belongs to God alone. This is not some newfangled invention of current times or even the Reformation, it was believed and taught from the earliest days of the church.

MacArthur then took us on a short historical survey of the errors that have sought to combat this doctrine. There is Pelagius (whom St. Augustine opposed), who taught the heresy that we are created without original sin. This means we are created good and must simply stop sinning in order to get to heaven. No need for Christ when we can do it ourselves. There is also its child, semi-Pelagianism, which came into force after Augustine and has prevailed up to this day. Semi-Pelagianism affirms that human depravity is real but not total; that is, we are definitely born with original sin, but there is a “core of goodness” within us that has not been touched which can respond to God. Those who hold to forms of this heresy teach that God gives something called “prevenient grace” which allows that core to respond freely without the corruption of sin preventing a response.

As such, most evangelicals preach as if our job is simply to “introduce God and people,” and then get out of the way. One of the most common ways this is done (of which I am guilty) is the “Try Jesus” exhortation. This is a false view! The Bible is clear that people don’t want God. They will reject him every time. Exhortations that invite people to “meet God and give him a chance” are quite simply unbiblical and unfaithful to the true Gospel proclamation.

Instead, we must understand that God not only commands people to believe in him, but he also gives life that people might believe. The command to believe, by itself, does not save; God must give life to those he commands if they are to obey! This is in contrast to semi-Pelagianism which teaches that God merely opens the door and it is up to us to walk through it. God actively brings us through the door. He briefly outlined several Scriptures to underscore this point. I will here address three of them.

John 3:8 tells us clearly that salvation depends on the will of God, not man. Remember, the Holy Spirit is like the wind — he goes wherever he wants, whenever he wants, and is not constrained by human action. Salvation works in this way; that is, God saves whomever he wants, whenever he wants, regardless of human merit. I could not help but think of countless sermons I’ve heard throughout my life that stressed that even the most “Christian” person one could ever meet could end up in hell, while great and evil sinners like Hitler, Jeff Dahmer, and others could be sitting at the right hand of Christ at the heavenly feast. Unwittingly, those speakers clearly preached an aspect of the doctrine of total depravity — there is nothing in us that guarantees salvation nor anything that makes salvation more likely.

John 6:44 also clearly shows that salvation belongs to God alone and nothing man could do can affect his decision to save. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” To be saved, you must be pulled by God; you cannot come to God on your own. This is the only way great sinners could ever be saved.

Romans 8:7-8 gives us the reason why salvation must be from God; and also the foundational concept of the doctrine of total depravity. “The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Lost people have minds that are set on the flesh and as such are enemies with God. Because they are his enemies, they cannot please him, nor do they want to. Do you want to make your enemy happy? No, you want to make your enemy miserable! There is no reason, especially in light of Scripture, to believe a person could ever come to God on his own. All people are at enmity with God and want nothing to do with him. Instead, all people want to find their own way. As such, it is impossible for a lost person, a mind set on the flesh, to please God.

Lastly, MacArthur asked what this doctrine should do for us as believers. His answer is one I have grown to use quite often when talking about salvation: the doctrine of total depravity means that those who preach the Gospel should be the most humble! We should be, first of all, staggered that God reached down and overcame our enmity with him to save us. He could have rightly consigned us to hell and been done with us. Knowing this, we should humble ourselves before him in thanksgiving and praise. Next, this doctrine should remind us that we can’t change people’s hearts, nor can we solve their problems. Only God is powerful enough to do that! I was reminded of a conversation I had with a good friend about secular counseling models — it seems that all psychology is able to do is offer behavior modification; it does not get at the heart change necessary to solve the problem. When we have a God who can save a person in their sins and from their sins, we should humble ourselves and look to him for the necessary change. We can take no credit for successes in our teaching and preaching; we can only take credit for the failures. God alone brings success.

In the final analysis, the doctrine of total depravity requires us to understand that the condition of a lost sinner is so desperate that no amount of manipulation on our part can fix the situation. Each heart is the same as the next one, and as such each heart needs the same message. Therefore, we cannot change the message of the Gospel, because the Gospel is what God uses to change sinners.

In the panel session that followed, MacArthur elaborated on these last two points a bit further. He said that this doctrine gives him great relief in his preaching, counseling, and evangelism; simply because it helps him remember that a person’s salvation is not up to him. His preaching and teaching is powerless to save. If it were his responsibility to save people, he would be so burdened, overwhelmed, and depressed by this that he would leave the ministry! But if it is God who saves and not John MacArthur, he is free to simply proclaim the message that God has commanded him to give. God will take care of the results. This makes evangelism easier, because one does not have to worry about the result of evangelism as much of evangelicalism today worries. Instead, one can get the Gospel to as many people as one can, and if some believe, God is more glorified!

I found this message to be just as freeing to me as MacArthur claimed. I have in the past year had to deal with certain people who have tried to cause trouble for me as a minister, as well as people who have tried to cause discord in the community between my church and other Deaf ministries in town; in fact we are still in the process of unraveling the web that was created. I probably sinned quite a few times during this season as I fought to protect my character and integrity, including a brief time when I was ready to simply pull up the stakes and shake the dust off my feet. Also, we are dealing with a church that is stagnating in many ways (quite like the majority of Southern Baptist churches); my senior pastor and I have become frustrated and disgusted about many things, and we have spent a lot of time in serious prayer over the church that we love. But as MacArthur talked about feeling freed from being responsible for another person’s salvation, I felt a similar burden lift from my own shoulders.

Neither I nor my senior pastor are responsible for the salvation and sanctification of our people. We are responsible instead to faithfully proclaim and live out the message and shepherd the people in that message. The Holy Spirit will do the rest. I am not responsible to defeat those who have borne false witness against me nor those who have acted against my church. Instead I am responsible to live out the Gospel by correcting their errors in love and forgiving them as Christ has forgiven me. God will take care of their hearts, not I. I cannot change a person’s heart; only the God who would take on human flesh and die on a cross for that person’s sins can do that. And knowing that, I can freely proclaim God’s forgiveness and forgive others in turn. It is truly all about God, not all about me!

T4G Session 2 - Thabiti Anyabwile (Race & Deafness)

Some of you looked at the title and thought, “What? Race and Deafness?” Bear with me through this one and all will be revealed.

Thabiti Anyabwile delivered perhaps the most provocative, thought-provoking, challenging, and convicting message of the conference. Thabiti, pastor of First Baptist Church – Grand Cayman, began his message by joking that his name means “Sure, invite the black guy to talk about race.” I’m sure the irony was lost on no one, and many of the blogs out there that are not as friendly to Christian conservatism and Reformed beliefs have taken it upon themselves to hammer away at this point.

Thabiti was actually mentored by Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church for several years before becoming pastor at FBC Grand Cayman and they consider each other to be great friends and brothers. It was made known during the panel session that followed that C. J. Mahaney also developed a deep and abiding friendship with Thabiti during his years at CHBC. For these reasons alone I would like to invite my readers to throw out this silly and quite frankly stupid prejudice, especially in light of the message Thabiti gave us.

Thabiti began with an assertion that at first left many of us slightly confused. We must, he said, throw out our concept of race. Race is not a “black/white” type of issue. Instead, we must have a biblical view of race if we are to address this issue correctly.

Race, he continued, is a biological term. It talks about our inherited genetics from the human family that passed these genetic traits down to us. In contrast, we have many ethnicities – many cultural divisions among humanity. We are familiar with many of these: black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, etc. However, the world’s view of race is to conflate biology with ethnicity. Thus we have many “races” that follow these ethnic lines.

The biblical view of race is that there is one race, descended from Noah, who in turn is descended from Adam. The biology of every human being is derived directly from Adam through Noah. Every “race” is descended from one man, and as such it is wrong, biblically, to think that there are “many races.” This would mean that there is another person out there, not descended from Adam, who created a certain “race.” As such skin color, the world’s criteria for “race,” cannot be the correct criteria in determining “race.” Instead, it is biblically correct to think of one race but many ethnicities as humanity spread throughout the earth in obedience to God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, as well as a result of the Tower of Babel.

Thabiti then gave six reasons why our modern concept of “race” is wrong:

1. It causes abuse of people and Scripture
2. It makes racism possible
3. Cooperation and fellowship becomes impossible, because “race” causes separation.
4. It removes the authority of the Bible, since the world’s concept of “race” denies that we are one in Adam, as the Bible says.
5. It causes us to resist the Holy Spirit – instead of being united, we are divided by “race.”
6. It destroys the Gospel.

This last point is likely the most serious, though it is the result of the five that precede it. The world’s concept of “race” destroys the Gospel because it makes Jesus’ death contentious. It forces us to look at Jesus’ death as not for all people, but only for the Adamic race. Because of this, we will spend the rest of existence arguing about which “race” is truly “in Adam.” Is it the blacks? The whites? The Asians? The Native Americans?

The world’s concept of “race” further destroys the Gospel because it gives us no motivation for missions. We are already experiencing this today – we don’t do missions because other “races” are not like us. We want to do missions in a comfortable setting. We don’t want to go out of our comfort zone. That’s why we send missionaries – “You do it for me. I’m not comfortable doing it myself!”

Thabiti then called us to think and act biblically on the issue of race. We must see each other as “in Adam.” In John 17:20-21 Jesus prayed that we who believe would be one just as he and the Father are one, and by doing so the world would believe in him. Again, in 2 Corinthians 5:14-18 exhorts us to have a spiritual perspective on this issue, not a fleshly view, a worldly view. We are to regard no one according to the flesh, and in terms of race, not by the color of their skin. Christ has died for all – biblically all “in Adam.” If we allow the world’s view of race to dictate our view, rather than being led by a spiritual view, we have capitulated to the flesh.

As such, when we look at a person, we cannot look at their skin. Instead we must think, “He is created in the image of God, just like me. He is descended from Adam, he is ‘in Adam,’ just like me. He is a sinner, just like me. Therefore I can fellowship with him as a brother in Adam.” With believers, we are to take that one step further: “He is a sinner saved by grace, just like me. Therefore I can fellowship with him as a brother in Christ!”

This is why unity in Christ is far more important than “race.” Ethnicity – which is what the world is really talking about when it talks about “race” – is not permanent. Rather, our identity in Christ is permanent. Therefore, our churches must be a reflection of this reality until we get to heaven.

This was a jaw-dropping, deeply applicational message for me. I and many of the Deaf pastors there constantly looked at each other knowingly all throughout this message. We were furiously nodding our heads and “amen”-ing many of the things Thabiti imparted to us.

You see, our Deaf community is fractured along the same worldly “lines” as race. There are great divisions in Deaf culture that have caused much friction. Deaf people divide along lines of deafness (deaf/hard-of-hearing), language (ASL vs. Signed English or PSE), culture (culturally Deaf vs. mainstreamed/Oral), and psychological makeup (high function vs. low function), just to name a few. The ouster of Jane Fernandes from the presidency of Gallaudet University is a glaring example of this.

Yet we Deaf people, of every stripe, are all “in Adam.” We are all created in the image of God. We are all sinners under the wrath of a holy God in need of a Savior. As such, the Deaf community, in order to survive, must throw out its concept of “Deaf.” We cannot afford to accept the world’s concept of “Deaf.” We cannot afford to accept the division we have created through accepting the world’s concept of “race.” We must accept a biblical view of “Deaf” if our community is to thrive in the 21st century and beyond. And ultimately, Deaf believers must strive to bring these fellow sinners into Christ, just like us.

This message was the capstone of a major shift in my thinking on Deaf issues that has slowly been taking place. I had begun to move away from the rigid categories many Deaf had created for the different types of Deaf people, in order to emphasize that we are one Deaf community, not many. With this message, all the pieces came together with a resounding click and thud that can be both heard and felt. It is my prayer this click and thud reverberates through the hearing and Deaf world for ages to come.

T4G Session 1 - Ligon Duncan

Ligon Duncan kicked off the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference in such a way that one was left with no doubt this would be a hard-hitting conference. No punches were pulled by “Lig” in his message, Sound Doctrine – Essential to Faithful Pastoral Ministry. I was at once wowed and deeply encouraged by this message.

In recent days I have struggled in getting the importance of doctrine across to certain friends and fellow ministers. In fact, one went so far as to leave a comment here that Jesus cared about people first, not information. I was so shocked at this statement, especially given the content of the Gospels, that I was left unable to draft a response that was worthy to publish. Ligon Duncan gave the exact response that is needed to such false views of Jesus and doctrine in his message.

The reason Lig gave this presentation is because there seems to be a deep suspicion of theology today. The quote I gave above from one commenter of this blog is a great example. But especially in the emerging and Emergent movements, as well as some moderate and most liberal movements, disdain for doctrine has led to much false teaching. Therefore we need to recover the study and teaching of doctrine in our ministries and in our churches.

Lig used as his foundational text John 17:13-17:

But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

Why this passage? Because, Lig explained, joy comes from the word of God. If we keep God’s word, Christ’s joy is in us and we will grow in sanctification. Indeed, we grow by learning everything that Jesus taught, as commanded by Matthew 28:19-20. Jesus didn’t say in this passage, “teach them some of what I taught you,” nor did he say, “teach them only what you think they need out of what I taught you.” No, Jesus said, “teach them to observe everything I have commanded you!” This means that doctrine, especially sound doctrine, is the most important thing we can study or teach. Indeed, the study of doctrine is not optional, but mandatory.

Without sound doctrine, false doctrine will creep into our teaching and our churches. False doctrine will seriously hurt not only ourselves, but our churches; therefore we cannot teach it (1 Timothy 1:3-7). We must strive to teach only correct doctrine; this means we must study.

Perhaps the greatest point of this message was this: If we teach right doctrine, and the Holy Spirit is in us, love pours out! The only true way to put people first is to put Jesus first, and unless we study him and his Word, we will never have a right understanding of him nor a right understanding of how to relate to people. The book of 1 John gives the clearest example and exhortation of this point.

As such, if your doctrine is bad, your actions will be bad, too (1 Tim. 6:3-5). False doctrine, according to this passage, leads to ungodliness. Egotistical attitudes, airheadedness, love of controversy and useless quarrels, envy, dissension, slander, gossip, grudges, and constant strife are marks of those who have evil minds and do not have the truth. Further, this passage teaches that such people see godliness as a means of profit. We see this all the time in televangelists such as Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, and others — their false godliness and false doctrine is a smokescreen to swindle money from gullible believers who either won’t study doctrine or have been taught not to. Lig used Hitler as an ultimate human example of what bad theology can do.

By contrast, knowledge of God’s word leads to godliness (Titus 1:1). For this reason theology must be celebrated and preached in our churches!

Next, Lig sought to answer the question, “Why is theology important?” After briefly explaining the difference betweeen systematic theology and biblical theology, he used these to show that we can’t avoid doctrine. After all, the Bible is full of doctrine! Jesus did systematic theology after his resurrection on the road to Emmaus with two of the disciples. He frequently corrected his opponents’ theology. Even when exhorting people to follow him, he made theologically loaded statements. Paul and early believers taught it from the Old Testament. If Jesus and the disciples did theology, why do we say it is unimportant? This is why such platitudes as “people are more important than information” ring resoundingly hollow and are false.

Finally, Lig sought to answer the question, “What is theology good for?” In a word, everything! Theology affects how we live, how we think, how we act. It affects how we worship, how we counsel people, how we preach, how we teach. Theology affects every aspect of life! And, when rightly understood and taught, theology brings joy!

What an answer to the unfounded, unbiblical assertion that Jesus put people above information! Doctrine does not make people less important. Rather, as we develop a deeper and more correct understanding of God, we are better able to serve and love people. And as we serve and love our people through sound doctrine, we have the joy of Christ; and they grow to love the Lord and have the joy of Christ in them also.

I have a story that took place directly before and after the conference that illustrates this clearly. Due to time and space, I will share it when I get home from work in the morning. It deserves its own post since the incident is a direct testimony to the power of the Gospel in people’s lives. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Band of Bloggers Reflections

I’d like to share my reflections from Band of Bloggers 2008.

Now, since this gathering is really an informal gathering of bloggers, we don’t truly have a program. This gathering was conceived by my dear brother Timmy Brister as a way for all the bloggers who were attending the original Together for the Gospel conference in 2006 to come together for fellowship and networking. There is no budget, no formal structure, no mission statement beyond that. It is simply an opportunity for us to glorify God by putting faces with names and blogs, encouraging and praying for one another, and feeding each other spiritually during our time together. I am privileged to have participated in both the 2006 and 2008 meetings, and I deeply long for 2010. Since Timmy is moving to Florida in answer of a call to become an associate pastor, I have made myself available to him for as long as I am in Louisville to facilitate anything that needs doing should there be a third BoB in 2010.

This year we were graced to hear from Thabiti Anyabwile, Abraham Piper, Phil Johnson and Tim Challies, each speaking to the theme “The Gospel Trust.” Owen Strachan moderated the discussion. As I noted, BoB is more or less an informal gathering, hence I did not take it upon myself to diligently take notes of those who spoke. I’m sure there are others who did, and when I find them I will link to them. But I did make note of several things our presenters said which struck chords with me. I didn’t really keep track of who said what, so this will be a very general reflection.

One of the biggest helps I received dealt with blog content. As a general rule, we must let our salvation (i.e. the Gospel) shape everything we think about and write about. We must ask ourselves: “Does the Gospel clearly shine forth in what I have written? Does my writing point towards the Christ? Am I representing Christ correctly?” When writing, the Gospel must be our underlying foundation else we run the risk of becoming trivial. Even if the only reason we blog is to put up pictures of our kids for our family to see, our content must be Gospel-centered and Christ-honoring.

We need to have a focus for our blogs. What is the main thing we want to communicate through our blogs? Discover that focus and write about it, apply the Gospel to it, seek to educate, edify, and encourage others about it. For example, this blog began as a way to allow my family to keep up with me while I was in seminary. Some time ago I felt that I wanted the focus of my blog to be Deaf ministry. I wanted to share with my hearing friends just what it is I do, to make them aware of a quiet, hidden ministry taking place in their backyards; and also to provide a place for Deaf ministers to contribute to my own learning and growth as a Deaf minister. Yet I don’t blog about that as much as I ought! Instead this continued to be a forum to share with family and friends what I am learning through my studies, what I am preaching, what I am reading as I solidify my doctrinal foundations. I do strongly believe that Deaf people and Deaf ministers need this kind of communication from one of their own, but I have veered from the specific focus I attempted to set.

Not to downplay or criticize my current focus, Abraham Piper encouraged us to be willing to write about other things that interest you. As you might have gathered from reading this blog, I am deeply interested in books and theology. Therefore I write mainly about these things. The only real failure I have had is in not applying these interests to my primary focus, Deaf ministry. I also write about other things of interest, such as sports. Piper encouraged us to take frequent breaks from our primary focus and write about other things of interest to us. If we become a one-track blog we will probably not be very interesting to anyone but ourselves. Be willing to have variety around your center.

Phil Johnson gave what I thought was the most sound, most practical suggestion of all. Be willing to walk away from your blog when necessary. It may be that you need rest. You may have other duties to address, such as family responsibilities, work responsibilities, etc. Never let your blog dominate your life to the point where it supersedes your pastoral duties, your duties as a believer, and your duties as a husband and father. Simply walk away. It is, after all, merely a blog. It is not your life!

It is this exhortation I found most helpful. I am the kind of person who, when reading, writing or doing sermon prep and research, can completely tune out the world around me. If I am distracted by someone or something I can easily become irritated. What I need most is to step back and realize that the blog (computer, etc.) is not my wife nor my daughter nor my chihuahua. I can’t hug and kiss it nor play with it. Besides, I could easily delete the blog today and it would be gone forever. I can’t delete my wife, daughter, and dog.

And on that note, I will close this reflection. My wife, daughter, and dog are awaiting my presence to watch “The Gameplan.”

Band of Bloggers & T4G: Initial Thoughts

Since this coming Friday, April 25 we are planning to make a trip down to Tennessee to visit my family, instead of our regular blogging fare I’m going to spend the next week deconstructing my thoughts on Band of Bloggers and Together for the Gospel. It would be good for me (and hopefully for you) to do this now while it is fresh in my mind and I am in an extremely meditative and applicational mood. Today I’d like to share my impressions in general and a few thoughts about the fellowship I experienced.

General Impressions
I entered this conference very excited. I knew that I would be in a conference consisting largely of people in my own age group; the majority of attendees were in the under-40 and under-30 age groups. I knew that I would be experiencing three days of intense teaching and exhortation from some of the finest preaching minds in America. Where else can you get to hear, almost as if in tag-team synchronicity, people such as Albert Mohler, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C. J. Mahaney, John MacArthur, John Piper, and R. C. Sproul? Where else would you get to see another “young” pastor, Thabiti Anyabwile (who is actually over 40, I think), spectacularly demonstrate the fruit of studying under men like these? Where else would you be able to pick the brains of writers (bloggers and authors) such as Thabiti, Abraham Piper, Phil Johnson, and Tim Challies? Where else would you get a glimpse into the type of fellowship men like “Al, Mark, Lig, and C. J.” regularly practice? Where else would you get to meet men, some of whom you only know through blogging, who might one day become that type of friend? Where else would you get to sing great and powerful songs about the Gospel with 5300 others and know beyond a shadow of doubt that you were in the presence of the Holiest One?

I had to caution myself early against expecting too much from mere men. I’m happy to report that my expectations were actually exceeded on all levels.

Band of Bloggers ministered deeply to me as a blogger. I was encouraged to keep a Gospel-centered mindset in my writing. Timely cautions were given that enabled me to think critically about my own blogging. Helpful suggestions for writing were presented that will help me to blog about the things that are important to me in the future. A solid exhortation was given to me to be willing to “walk away” from my blog before it becomes a dominant fixture of life. The Silent Holocron and its readers will greatly benefit from the learning given its author.

Together for the Gospel challenged me in ways I have never been challenged. It revealed to me areas of my life and ministry where I have failed — sometimes coming as an illumination of ignorance, other times coming as stinging rebuke from which I had no option but to bitterly repent in my seat as I choked back tears. It encouraged me to be a much better husband and father than I have been. It encouraged me to be a bolder pastor and a more effective evangelist.

True to the name of the conference, T4G revealed to me things I had never before considered or been confronted with about the Gospel, things that left me greatly humbled that I, a great sinner, have such a great Savior. Those things left me hungry to preach the Gospel to God’s church and to share the Gospel with the lost. Those same things left me utterly disgusted at the “dumbing-down” of Jesus, outright twisting of Jesus, or blatant misrepresentation of Jesus (all right, lying) that has taken place in our churches. Many of the things warned against were things I have heard all my life, things I had been taught in church and in college, and have even heard taught or had been taught by me in the nearly nearly 10 years I have been involved at my church here in Louisville. It left me utterly scared at how easily those things found their way into my theology and teaching and left me on my guard to defend the Gospel in all that I believe and teach. Indeed, it had never dawned on me that in my entire time at Southern Seminary, I had never heard any of these teachings on the Gospel promoted!

Thoughts on Fellowship
One of the great benefits of a conference like BoB and T4G (especially since they are connected) is that a massive opportunity for fellowship exists. As I mentioned above, 5300 attendees (I think that is the official “rounded-up/down” number from the attendance figure) were at T4G; Band of Bloggers had 150 registrants with a total attendance at or over 200. The only way you were not going to meet anyone was if you were an extreme introvert or had horrible B. O.!

At BoB, I got to work with several people to prepare the book giveaway, and it was a great time of fellowship for all of us. I sat next to Yogi Taylor and instantly gained a friend as we shared about ourselves and our ministries and prayed deeply for each other. I met Owen Strachan for the second time (I think we had a class or two somewhere as well). I met Alex Leung and several others whose names and blogs escape me at the moment. I also met the guys from Team Pyro — Phil Johnson, Dan Phillips, and Mr. Frank Turk and was able to thank Phil for his example to me and bemoan that I didn’t get to talk with Frank more deeply than “this is where I am right now” — something I fully intend to correct if I ever get to see him again. I got to meet Tom Ascol and thanked him for being a model of integrity, as well as telling him about the large unreached Deaf community sitting in his church’s backyard. I finally met fellow Tennesseean Tim Ellsworth; we instantly recognized each other on the first glance. I also got to meet representatives from publishers such as Banner of Truth and Reformation Heritage Books. Steve Burlew was the Banner of Truth rep; he profiled my bio of Richard Sibbes and The Bruised Reed on his blog. The great part was getting to catch up with guys I met from the first Band of Bloggers such as Scott Lamb and Alex Forrest.

At T4G, I got to see many friends I have not seen in a long time, as well as blogging friends that I had met but had not seen in a while either. Three of the supervisor guys I work with at UPS were there and we all had a blast together. I got to meet author Sam Storms and thank him for his book Chosen for Life, which is the clearest explanation of the doctrine of election I have ever read. I got to jaw for a few minutes with a representative from a Christian counseling organization about Deaf counseling and counseling literature and resources. I also finally met Joe Thorn, a guy I have come to really admire. I simply could not believe how short he was. I thought he was like William Wallace — “7 feet tall and they also say lightning shoots out his arse.” (Kudos to you if you’ve seen the fantastic movie that quote is from.)

The greatest fellowship I had outside of these was the fellowship I had with my Deaf brothers who attended T4G. There were people from Chicago, Indiana, California, Kentucky and Texas. We spent each day of the conference together, ate together, praised God together, shared our testimonies, asked ministry questions, encouraged one another, prayed for one another, applied the messages to our ministries together, and generally became the Body of Christ together. This fellowship alone was worth the price of admission. That the 10 of us were truly “together for the Gospel” even though some were Baptists, some were Presbyterians, some were Independents only made the fellowship sweeter. They all invited me to stay with them in their homes if I am ever in their areas. I believe that I gained friends for the rest of my ministry in them.

Most importantly, God was most glorified in me this week, simply because I was most satisfied in him. This week was like a cool drink of water, an empowering charge, a welcome adventure. This conference was an aspect of true Gospel satisfaction revealed to me this week. Oh that I could glorify him in this way in every aspect of my life!

If you are a pastor, you need to attend this conference in 2010. If you are a pastor’s wife, do everything necessary to make sure your husband attends; and if you can, leave the kids with Grandma and attend with him. If you are a church member, this would be the best thing about which to stir up a hornets’ nest in your church — demand that your pastor attend! Make the church vote on it if you have to! I guarantee your pastor will love you for it, and you will get him back better skilled and in better condition than that in which you sent him. And you will love your pastor even more as he, through the Gospel, loves you even more.

Well, those are my initial — if rather lengthy — thoughts on Band of Bloggers and Together for the Gospel 2008. I will have plenty to sustain me until 2010. Next time I’m making sure Steve Dye goes with me; he’s got 2 years to read the books I gave him before the next massive book giveaway at this thing!