T4G Refections and Day 1

at 6:30am, Tuesday, April 15th, myself, two good friends and my adviser departed for the together for the gospel conference in Louisville, Kentucky. It was my first time to a major conference of any nature and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I walked away with over 15 free books, courtesy of many publishers and the T4G speakers, and encouragement from the fabulous sessions. The first talk was Ligon Duncan, who spoke on the importance of systematic theology in pastoral ministry. His talk, in my mind, set the tone for the whole conference. Each in its own way dealt with aspects of the emergent church movement and criticized it heavily. To this end Lig's focused on how systematic theology is above, not equal to, biblical theology. Rather pertinent at this time with the happenings at Westminster East with Enns.

Next up was Thabiti on "bearing the image." His was the most intriguing and I am still thinking about what was said. His general thesis was that we view this world with a misconception that hinders ministry - the idea of race. Race is unbiblical, he said, and suggested a new framework for looking at people - ethnicity. In my mind his gave the foundation for not ministering to a select group of "racial" people, as we are all united in Adam with the image of God and sin. Instead we should view people in terms of ethnicity which is much broader and can include whites with black.

more posts to follow.
If you want to check out the liveblogging see Tim Challies
Also the sessions are free here