Falling asleep Tuesday night after the first day of The Gospel Coalition’s national conference, I was overwhelmed by God’s blessing in my life. I had spent the day reconnecting with dear friends I had not seen for some time. I had listened to gifted preachers open God’s Word to glory in my Savior. And my bride of nearly 10 years and I had lingered over a delicious meal discussing the joys of raising our sons. I felt like Shoeless Joe Jackson from The Field of Dreams, so I asked my wife, “Is this heaven?” No, she responded, it wasn’t heaven or a cornfield in Iowa, it was The Gospel Coalition national conference.
Over the next few days, two more things reminded me that despite all the great things The Gospel Coalition national conference offered, I wasn’t in heaven but in a fallen world. The first was my own idolatrous heart, which has difficulty navigating the fine line between having heroes and having idols. That line is crossed when my joy rests in the one preaching the message rather than the One about whom the message is preached. This temptation is more pronounced for me with my living heroes than the dead ones. I’m never going to run into C. S. Lewis on this side of heaven. But if I run into Tim Keller (ironically the one who warns against the deadly lure of idols) in a men’s room at McCormick Place, I’m tempted to boastfully tweet about it.
The second reminder that TGC11 wasn’t heaven came after a brief connection with an acquaintance from college. Derek Taatjes and I both graduated from Taylor University a decade ago, both met our wives there, and both enjoyed basketball (he was far better than I). We had not seen each other much since graduating, and I didn’t know Derek that well, but it was nice to reconnect by simply saying hello as we passed on escalators going in opposite directions. Only two days later I sat in frozen disbelief when my wife wrote me that Derek had died with his infant son in a house fire. The suffering of Derek’s wife and daughters makes very real Matt Chandler’s reminder that “some of us wouldn’t be back” when the next TGC national conference convenes. It is impossible for me to comprehend the loss that they must be feeling, and I pray for God’s gracious mercy in their lives.
My passing reconnection with Derek not only reminded me of our commonalities from college but also evidenced our common affinity for the gospel. It was this gospel that was sung at McCormick Place. It was this gospel that was prayed. It was this gospel that was defended. It was this gospel that was preached from John, Exodus, Ruth, Psalms, Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes, and Zephaniah. It is this gospel that Derek preached to his students in Grand Rapids. And it is this gospel that is urgently needed by a fallen world.
And it is for this gospel that we must not ignore the temptations that lurk at conferences like TGC and Together for the Gospel. Temptations to glorify ourselves rather than Christ. Temptations to idolize for the listeners. Temptations to pride for the speakers. In both cases the disease is the same: We are stealing something that belongs only to God. But in both cases the cure is the very reason conferences like TGC and T4G exist: the gospel. The cure is realizing, by God’s grace, that all the glory of all my heroes is filthy rags compared to the glory of Christ. This is the same antidote for the temptation to pride that lurks for those who preach, whether it is to 5,000 or 50. We all, both speaker and listener, must boast only in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:31). And we all need to remember that the only perfect Gospel Coalition takes place in heaven.
Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?
In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
