I could not attribute any rational meaning to a single act, let alone to my whole life. I simply felt astonished that I had failed to realize this from the beginning. It has all been common knowledge for such a long time. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (and they had already arrived) to those dear to me, and to myself, and nothing will remain other than the stench and the worms. Sooner or later my deeds, whatever they may have been, will be forgotten and will no longer exist. What is all the fuss about then? How can a person carry on living and fail to perceive this? That is what is so astonishing! It is only possible to go on living while you are intoxicated with life; once sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere trick, and a stupid trick! That is exactly what it is: there is nothing either witty or amusing, it is only cruel and stupid (Tolstoy).

Tim Keller, A Reason for Living:
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You might decide simply to have as good a time as possible. The universe is a universe of nonsense, but since you are here, grab what you can. Unfortunately, however, there is, on these terms, so very little left to grab — only the coarsest sensual pleasures. You can’t except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behaviour of your genes. You can’t go on getting any very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. You may still, in the lowest sense, have a “good time”; but just in so far as it becomes very good, just in so far as it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into real warmth and enthusiasm and joy, so afar you will be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between your own emotions and the universe in which you really live (CS Lewis).

I have forgotten. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face.
‘Is it?… Is it?’ I whispered to my guide.
‘Not at all,’ said he. ‘It’s someone ye’ll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders green.’
‘She seems to be … well, a person of particular importance?’
‘Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on earth are two quite different things.’ . . .
‘And who are all these young men and women on each side?’
‘They are her sons and daughters.’
‘She must have had a very large family, Sir.’
‘Every young man or boy that met her became her son–even if it is was only the boy that brought meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.
‘Isn’t that a bit hard on their own parents?’
‘No. There are those that steal other people’s children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives’ (CS Lewis).

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The Gospel Coalition Conference starts today at 2:00 PM (CDT) and will be streaming live. The schedule for the conference is as follows:

Tuesday 21 April 2009
2:00 pm | Session 1: Tim Keller, “The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry” (Acts 19:21-41)
4:00 pm | Session 2: John Piper, “Feed the Flame of God’s Gift: Unashamed Courage in the Gospel” (2 Timothy 1:1-12)
7:00 pm | Session 3: Phil Ryken, “The Pattern of Sound Words” (2 Timothy 1:13-2:13)
8:00 pm | Session 4: Mark Driscoll, “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth” (2 Timothy 2:14-26)

Wednesday 22 April 2009
9:30 am | Session 5: K Edward Copeland, “Shadowlands: Pitfalls and Parodies of Gospel-Centered Ministry” (2 Timothy 3:1-9)
11:00 am | Session 6: Bryan Chapell, “Preach the Word!” (2 Timothy 3:10-4:5)
7:00 pm | Session 7: Ajith Fernando, “Gospel-Faithful Mission in the New Christendom”
8:00 pm | Session 8: Panel Discussion: Tim Keller, John Piper, Ligon Duncan and Crawford Loritts

Thursday 23 April 2009
9:30 am | Session 9: Ligon Duncan, “Finishing Well” (2 Timothy 4:6-22)
11:00 am | Session 10: DA Carson, “‘That By All Means I Might Win Some’: Faithfulness and Flexibility in Gospel Proclamation” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

I’m excited Dr. Duncan is in the panel discussion, but I’m bummed DA Carson isn’t in it.

Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)

Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21-22).

If God commands us to forgive seventy times seven sins, how much more will he forgive us when we ask him?  In fact, in the parable following the above verses, Jesus bases his command on the fact that God does forgive us much more than this!

Tim Keller: Does God forgive sins you continue to repeat?
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Check out more Q&A with Tim Keller at the Redeemer website »

You cannot be born again unless you’re exposed, not just to glass and to metal and to stone, but to the truth. And the life-bearing truth is in the bible.

Am I saying, You’ve got to believe the bible is the infallible word of God? Let me ask you a question:  Do you have to be absolutely certain medicine will heal you?  Do you have to know all about what’s in this medicine for it to heal you?  No, you just have to take it.  Do you have to believe the bible is the infallible word of God? Do you have to have all of your doubts gone? Of course not, you just have to be exposed to it.  There’s life in it.  There’s power in it.  You cannot be born again unless you are exposed to the truth. . . .

On the one hand, it’s a definite event.  You either are a Christian or you’re not.  Christianity is not a function of your moral attainment.  You must not think of Christianity as always trying to be more and more like Jesus.  We’re told here that what makes you a Christian is if you have the divine life in you.  You either have it or you don’t.

On the other hand, many times it’s not a conscious moment.  You can look back and say, It must have come in somewhere in there, but you don’t know where.  If you feel the need to make your new birth fit the mold of someone who had a dramatic experience, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble.  Cheer up.  If you’re saying, I wish I could believe: I really want to believe; I don’t know how to do it, you’re already being watered.  Maybe, you’ve already been planted.  Go to him (Tim Keller, edited transcript).

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Jonathan Edwards said that there is nothing clearer in the bible than our duty for care and involvement with the poor. . . .

Jesus’ famous sermon is obviously something he preached very often. Matthew says it was the sermon on the mount, Luke says it was the sermon on the plain, but Matthew’s is much, much more popular. Matthew says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3).  You say “poor in spirit”, yes it metaphorical.  The reason Luke is not anywhere near as popular is because it’s scary. “Blessed are the poor . . . woe to the rich” (Luke 6:20,24).  There’s no way to spiritualize this away; there’s no way to allegorize it away. The gospel is an agent in us knowing the poor, becoming the poor, and loving the poor (Tim Keller, download).

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When: Tue Apr 21 – Thu Apr 23, 2009
Where: Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL
Speakers: Bryan Chapell, DA Carson, John Piper, K Edward Copeland, Ligon Duncan, Mark Dricoll, Phil Ryken, Tim Keller, Ajith Fernando
Website: Entrusted with the Gospel: Living the Vision of Second Timothy

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