T4G 2008 Recap

This year I had the priv­i­lege of attend­ing Together for the Gospel 2008. It was an out­stand­ing and edi­fy­ing expe­ri­ence. I left a lit­tle spoiled after lis­ten­ing to incred­i­ble talks on aspects of the gospel min­istry. I would like to share a syn­op­sis of the talks with you and what I took from them. The audio is cur­rently avail­able online for your con­sump­tion. If you are only going to lis­ten to one than lis­ten to R.C.‘s talk fol­lowed by Dever’s.

Ligon Dun­can On Sound Doctrine

Ligon gave the intro­duc­tory talk to the con­fer­ence, and it was a fit­ting way to start. His talk focused on those in the pas­toral min­istry who down­grade or even elim­i­nate the impor­tance of sys­tem­atic the­ol­ogy in their mes­sages. It was def­i­nitely good to be encour­aged in remind­ing us that sys­tem­atic the­ol­ogy has a very impor­tant role in preach­ing espe­cially in a post­mod­ern world. What was inter­est­ing is how he almost seemed to jux­ta­pose the role of bib­li­cal and sys­tem­atic the­ol­ogy. I had a con­ver­sa­tion recently on the impor­tance of bib­li­cal the­ol­ogy in preach­ing and teach­ing over sys­tem­atic the­ol­ogy, and it was good to hear his thoughts on the issue. Mohler did a good job in the panel dis­cus­sion about bal­anc­ing the impor­tance of both to run along­side one another even though there seems to be many who impose a ten­sion between the two.

Thabiti Anyab­wile On Our Unity

Thabiti is a “new­comer” if you will on the scene, and it was a most encour­ag­ing talk. Thabiti spoke on the un-biblical nature of race and racism from a his­tor­i­cal and the­o­log­i­cal per­spec­tive. He spoke of our unity as sin­ners “in Adam,” he spoke of our unity “in Christ,” and finally our unity in the church. He spoke about the fact that God “hath man of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath deter­mined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habi­ta­tion” (Acts 17:26 KJV). The truth is that we shouldn’t be dis­crim­i­na­tory against any­one else, because we all have the same father inher­it­ing the same curse. This goes even far­ther as Chris­tians are one “in Christ” in the same church, and we have even less of an excuse to find our­selves engaged in racism.

John MacArthur On Total Inability

John MacArthur started the sec­ond day of remind­ing us of the impor­tance of under­stand­ing total deprav­ity. It is this doc­trine that the world hates so much, and it is imper­a­tive that it be an under­stand­ing we have to engage the world with the gospel. Even though you had the feel­ing that he was “preach­ing to the choir” it was a good reminder of the neces­sity of a bib­li­cal under­stand­ing of sin and anthro­pol­ogy in par­tak­ing in the gospel ministry.

Mark Dever On Gospel Fundamentals

I thor­oughly enjoyed Dever’s talk, and for the rea­son that it focused on the gospel essen­tials. He talked about efforts to “improve” the gospel through un-biblical empha­sis. I espe­cially appre­ci­ated how he pointed out the ten­dency of Chris­tians to mix the impli­ca­tions of the gospel with the gospel itself. One such instance is how we can con­fuse the world­view impli­ca­tions of the gospel with the gospel. Is being pro-life part of the gospel? No, and it was this very point that Mark was try­ing to make to be sure that when the gospel is pro­claimed we don’t attempt to con­fuse on gospel fundamentals.

R.C. Sproul On the Curse Endured By Jesus

By far the best talk was done by R.C. Sproul. He spoke of the often left out truth that Jesus was cursed by God while endur­ing the cross from Gala­tians 3. How often we for­get that Jesus was cursed of and by his father for the sake of his peo­ple. R.C. lead us through the his­tor­i­cal and the­o­log­i­cal mean­ing and impor­tance of what it meant for Christ to become a curse so that we might become sons of God. In typ­i­cal redemptive-historical fash­ion by R.C. he illu­mi­nated and clar­i­fied this glo­ri­ous truth. You could sense how much every­one in the room was effected, and the panel after­wards showed how other great men of the faith were left speech­less after such a talk.

Al Mohler On Chris­t­ian Hatred of Penal Substitution

It’s amaz­ing how glo­ri­ous truths are so hated by so many that pro­fess to be evan­gel­i­cals. Only Al could’ve deliv­ered the talk the way he did weav­ing his­tor­i­cal, prac­ti­cal, and cul­tural the­ol­ogy into an expose of mod­ern hatred of penal sub­sti­tu­tion. He sur­veys mod­ern writ­ings that openly deny that Jesus died a sub­sti­tu­tion­ary death and was pun­ished (penal) by God on our behalf. It was amaz­ing to hear what some so called “evan­gel­i­cals” were say­ing about the glo­ri­ous truth of penal sub­sti­tu­tion. It is quite obvi­ous that a gospel with­out penal sub­sti­tu­tion is in fact no gospel at all.

John Piper On Chris­t­ian Sacrifice

Only John Piper can talk about Chris­t­ian sac­ri­fice in a way that con­victs you in such a deep and pro­found way. He talked pri­mar­ily from var­i­ous texts in Hebrews that speak of the promise of Chris­t­ian suf­fer­ing. It is amaz­ing to hear the gift­ing that God has given that man to con­vict believ­ers through his preach­ing. In dra­matic fash­ion he talked about how we as Amer­i­cans live com­fort­ably with­out much suf­fer­ing. It’s so encour­ag­ing to be called to faith­ful Chris­t­ian wit­ness, not just in spite of, but because of suf­fer­ing. John con­victs in a way that very few can.

C.J. Mahaney On the Pastor’s Soul

It is very appar­ent how much C.J. cares about other pas­tors, and it was reit­er­ated in his final talk on car­ing for the pastor’s soul. What was espe­cially encour­ag­ing was how he chal­lenged the pas­tors in the audi­ence to check whether they are joy­ful doing what they do. He chal­lenged them specif­i­cally to ask our fam­ily and fel­low labor­ers if they give off a sense of joy and antic­i­pa­tion in their work of min­is­ter­ing the gospel. The thing that struck me was how prac­ti­cal the words were that came from C.J. He con­sis­tently felt it nec­es­sary to describe him­self as the “aver­age pas­tor” com­pared to the other men speak­ing, but he surely spoke in a way that was more per­sonal than the oth­ers. His demeanor and atti­tude were well received and appre­ci­ated in such a diverse group.

In Review

It was an encour­ag­ing time to be there with my brother, father, and many friends. To be encour­aged to faith­fully wit­ness and teach the gospel is always a wel­come admo­ni­tion, and it is reas­sur­ing that God is pulling me in the direc­tion of pas­toral work.

The men that spoke had dif­fer­ent per­sonal and the­o­log­i­cal back­grounds. All had dif­fer­ing opin­ions on issues of ecclessi­ol­ogy, escha­tol­ogy, and so on; but what was so encour­ag­ing was their shared devo­tion to the Gospel of Christ Jesus our Lord. They truly came together for the sake of the gospel.