so we're at the 10-year Mark in the
Gospel Coalition and in our foundation
documents we had we have this
written we are a fellowship of
Evangelical churches in the reformed
tradition deeply committed to renewing
our faith in the gospel of Christ and to
reforming our ministry practices to
conform fully to the
scriptures um assuming that we haven't
uh failed at that in the first 10 years
uh I do think in many ways we have
succeeded but let's not look back at
this point let's ask this question uh
the next few years what will it look
like for us to uh make good on that that
ex that statement uh should we be doing
something different have things changed
in the culture or in the church so that
really what for us to do that in the
future won't be quite what we did in the
past what do you think what do we think
I think it's worth
um stopping for a moment and asking what
kind of overtones were connected with
the word reformed in the 16th century as
opposed to now for a lot of people 16th
century means or reformed means
oldfashioned um died in the wool out ofd
um antiquarian whereas reformed for them
was closer to me being renewed it it was
um people being reformed by the word of
God uh I remember Jim paor says
somewhere that his the book uh Richard
Baxter's the reformed Pastor today to
have an accurate translation would be
titled the renewed pastor and and that's
really important to to for for us we're
looking on the word is antiquarian yeah
it's opposed to traditional actually
that's right taking the Bible and using
it to renew our our that's that's
exactly right so if we're going to be
faithful to the reformed tradition in
that sense then it seems to me what we
should always be asking is in the light
of whatever is going on in the culture
are we constantly checking things back
with scripture and reforming ourselves
in the light of Holy scripture in the
light of all the antecedent Christians
who have gone before us who have
listened to the word of God and and and
and and so on and in that frame of
reference then then there is a way of
thinking that is deeply rooted in the
past but is all always always asking
what should we be modifying and practice
or in some small ways to to get a closer
approximation to faithfulness to Christ
so a way to remain faithful to a
doctrinal or
confessional statement is not to
prioritize that statement but to always
preach scripture look at scripture study
scripture and as I look at the last how
many conferences have we done or
whatever we do Exposition here we we've
never I don't think built a conference
around on the paragraphs of the
affirmation of Faith to try to help
people prioritize now make sure you get
this in your churches and we it's sort a
quiet behind the scenes unifying thing
while we all are looking at the Bible so
so if you answer if you ask for the
future what will we do to be always
reforming the answer is we'll go over
our affirmation of Faith to the Bible
over and over again and that will have
the chance not only if we've gotten
something wrong in the affirmation to
bring Unity around that correction but
the the fresh applications of it for for
every new day so that's right ironic
that that going backwards to the sources
will will make the reforming more more
likely ad Fontes as the Renaissance
people back to the sources yes back to
the sources Yes actually I do think
inside the conferences Exposition is
still it's the plenaries and it's the
it's the heart very often um in the uh
workshops and actually in the sometimes
in the after conferences or even
sometimes a pre-conference you might
concentrate on uh World missions or you
might concentrate on um what do we how
do we do evangelism today in in the you
know obviously evangelism has constantly
got to be shifting as the the you know
one of the reasons evangelism has to
shift which I think a lot of people say
well that shouldn't be you should always
well um
the alternatives to the gospel are
always changing because they're always
going out of date our our enemies are
always uh you know 50 years later 100
years later the enemies of the Gospel 50
years ago everybody's laughing at them
they're fools they're idiots I can't
believe people believe that now the new
enemy is uh you know another philosophy
and they go at a date very very quickly
partly because of that because uh all
that is not Eternal is eternally out of
date your evangelism does have to change
are you because you what are the
question questions that are coming now
what are the objections you know how do
you bring the gospel to bear on the on
this new philosophy this new false
philosophy so actually we do have to we
have to ask ourselves how do you build
community um how do you disciple people
how do you evangelize as the culture
changes you are going to have to in a
sense reform your ministry practices but
from from the sources which is uh from
the scripture you're right that the
heart we're not going to have a cold
conference on angelism the 21st century
we're going to do Bible Exposition and
we're going to do all the other changes
after that even the missions
pre-conference that we had a couple of
years ago um the plenaries were all
devoted to particular passages of
scripture we a couple of chapters in
Corinthians and uh likewise in the
Reformation celebration 500 years and so
on the heart of it was the exposition of
Galatians there is an interesting um
principle behind evangelism and missions
to the Nations as far as fresh
discoveries of Truth I've been reading
Andrew walls recently whose whole
program is that the unique thing about
Christianity say over against Islam is
that it moves out and it goes from
culture to culture in Translation it
incarnates itself in a culture Islam
always has to have that Arabic book it
doesn't get translated whereas
Christianity incarnates itself culture
and he says what happens is not just you
find a new word or a New Concept to say
this but you discover new things about
your God as that culture so one of the
ways to stay fresh and reform me is to
push into new context of evangelism new
people groups the the multi-ethnicity
efforts of the the group and the
myological for the Nations efforts of
the group is is a strategy of ever
reforming because it's always being
discovered so obviously missions flows
out of Rich the theology but you're
saying that rich theology then flows out
of missions that when enes it right you
move into a new place where people from
a different culture that God's calling
to himself read the scripture and see
some things that were there but the rest
of us didn't see they're not they're not
they're not creating new truths they're
discovering new richness we didn't see
before the example he he he gives is is
the gospel moving from Jerusalem to
Antioch with curios and being called
Christians and then of course the the
the christological debates of the first
three centuries where you get Hamed out
chelon and NAA and like where did I mean
that sounds strange that sounds really
different from the book of Acts or
Matthew or or John is it contrary no
it's just so
helenistic hammered out wonderful and so
there you have a a a dis an insight into
Christ that would not have existed had
there not been a pressure into
helenistic culture and he and he says
the same thing about you know going to
the Barbarians in the north and going
into Africa so um I think one answer to
our question what will the The Gospel
Coalition do to be ever reforming is we
will be ever evangelizing and ever
missionizing the world because it it it
it flows back for our good and the
counterveiling pressure on that side I
think is the fact that we will discover
again and again and again how much Unity
we have um I remember reading the
African Christian commentary the one
volume yep Bible commentary when it
first came out and all of the
advertising was was how Innovative this
was because um it's it's it's it's
looking at things now for the first time
from an African side and and and so on
and yet and yet and yet there was there
was a lot of stuff in there that you
wouldn't find in a western commentary
stuff on exorcism and stuff on family
and ancestor worship and things like
that that that wouldn't be easily
addressed in the west but 90 or 95 % of
it was saying exactly the sort of thing
that any really good Bible commentary in
the west would say too and that also
shouldn't surprise us because we still
at the end of the day have one testt one
text we're still coming to to the same
share of scripture one Lord One Faith
one baptism and at the end of the day we
really want to um keep those sorts of
things intention so that we we listen to
one another but but although there's a a
holy joy in the diversity of men and
women from every tongue and tribe and
nation which is celebrated in scripture
the same scripture is equally
celebrating the great Unity we have in
Christ and we want to keep those things
together amen
amen