REFORMATION RESURRECTION 2011 - Friday Update

We are now into the last day of the conference and it has been a tumultuous experience for many of us. In a culture awash with feminist ideology, therapeutic psychology, and a Darwinian view of man, it is inevitable that an uncompromising biblical worldview will pose a vicious assault on those long held ideologies. And to say that Voddie Baucham's preaching is uncompromising would be to understate the obvious. Scandinavians tend to be people not prone to open outbursts of emotion and as such it can be difficult to discern the effect of the teaching at this conference on many of the attendees. But it has been definitely provocative to see these people exposed to an unyielding, uncompromised, and well developed biblical worldview on subjects like biblical manhood, biblical womanhood, male headship, and the discipline of children.

The challenge here is that this proclamation will lead to penetration and application (and no, I did not go to the Rick Warren School of Alliteration). When a Scandinavian person comes to saving faith or a proper understanding of the Gospel, there still remains the quantum leap of developing a biblical worldview and then applying it. It is for this reason that I am so pleased that I invited Dr Baucham to come and confront these idealogical strongholds.

The last two days of this conference have swept us through Ephesians chapters five and six. It is here that we are brought face to face with the realities of God's call on husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and on wives to submit to their husbands as unto Christ. To not only preach these truths, but to preach them forcefully and unflinchingly had a provocative impact on many people. And provocation was very necessary. Equally, if not more, bold was Voddie Baucham's unyielding call on all parents to disciple their children instead of the state, and to discipline them with biblical means (yes, including spanking) instead of psychological methods.

In all of this, the reality is that these truths all stem from the Gospel and flow back into it. Psychology, at it's core, is a denial of human depravity and thus does violence to the Gospel. Undermining male headship in marriage ultimately undermines the Gospel because it horribly mars the beautiful picture of Christ's sacrificial love for His Church, and the Church's devotion to Christ. These things all matter because they are all so vitally connected to the precious once for all delved Gospel.

And since I don't have a notebook, I will make a note here on my blog to take Voddie's advice and get the following book from the middle eighteen hundreds called "Thoughts on Family Worship" by James Alexander for the discipleship of my children. Gotta run . . .

Oh, one more thing, we recorded everything, so we hope to post some of the meetings online as soon as possible.