Last night I finished watching the Good News Tour Conference that was broadcast over the Loma Linda Broadcasting Network this past weekend. The audio and videos from the conference, I imagine, will be available on the Good News Tour web site in the coming days. A set of videos from the Friday evening program is available from this Spectrum page.
Many of the thoughts about God shared by the speakers covered ground that was already familiar to me. But there were a few concepts that were new and/or were better ways of explaining certain positions.
I found Tim Jenning's "The Law of Liberty" a useful way of explaining how liberty/freedom is the primary manifestation of love. I also found his position, that physical death is not really God's definition "death," worthwhile for consideration, as I've been struggling for the past few years trying to reconcile Jesus' statements regarding "death" in the Gospel of John with the dictionary definition of "death."
Randy Roberts' sermon, "Down the Up Escalator," on the servanthood of Christ, while, for me, not shedding any new light on the subject, was an affirmation of the radical nature of the way of life in the kingdom of God that we are to seek to live.
I found Brad Cole's "Biblical Inspiration: God's Pen or God's Penman?" a worthwhile examination of the nature of biblical inspiration and the purpose of the Bible. His talk showed a way to reconcile taking the Bible seriously while at the same time not seeing it as a rigid authority for all times and all peoples in all circumstances. Alden Thompson's "Old Testament: Serious Illness, Strong Medicine" also brings light to the question of the primary purpose of the Bible.
Finally, I found Herb Montgomery's "Love's Eternal Flame" talk the most intriguing. He proposes that the "flame" or "fire" that is associated with God's judgment and wrath are not literal flames, but actually is God's love, and that any punishment for sin is simply consequences intrinsic to sin itself. Herb said that this talk was a abridgment of several of his full-length talks: "Intrinsic or Imposed?" (in 2 parts) and "Light on the Dark Side of God" (sermons and handouts with scriptural references at the Renewed Heart Ministries site.)
The panel discussion was interesting, but the recording stopped before the end of the discussion. One of the more heated discussions was in regards to the meaning and nature of Christ's atonement on the cross. Although all seemed to affirm the forensic/substitutionary atonement model, the actual explanations given sounded much closer to the Christus Victor model. I've mentioned this model in the past, but for ease of reference, I'll post links to a couple of sites the describe and explain this model:
Next quarter's (Oct-Dec 2008) Sabbath School Study is on the topic of Christ's Atonement. It may prove interesting to do a comparison study of the different models of the atonement and see what bubbles up.
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