The blogging has been light because I have been in Minneapolis for the Desiring God conference, which has been wonderful. The other speakers were John Piper, Phil Ryken, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Randy Alcorn, all of them speaking on some aspect of C.S. Lewis’s contribution to our understanding of the faith. The talks have been superb.
Nate was here also and gave one of the early conference talks on Lewis and scientism, which was really good. You can find the audio of all the different talks here. I know they streamed the video live, but don’t know if and and when that will be available on their web site. In just a few minutes I will be heading over for the worship service/last conference talk. John Piper will be preaching this morning.
Whenever I am on the road on the Lord’s Day, my thoughts of course turn to our congregation back home, praying that God would bless them wonderfully through His Word. This morning Ben Merkle will be preaching.
I also find myself, like a turtle out of his shell, wanting to encourage the saints everywhere to love the shells God has given them. When you are with the same people week after week, it is sometimes easy to forget that in worship we are ascending into the heavenly places together with them. This is such a tremendous privilege — we ought not to take it for granted, thinking about it only when separated from them physically. The fellowship of the church is one of the greatest earthly blessings we have, and like all earthly blessings, it is rooted in the heavens.
Right on. And it mirrors the amillenial gnosticism you like to needle us’ns about over here with our robes all a flutter.
Desiring God had the videos available since at least yesterday evening. I was only able to catch about 15 minutes of Nate’s talk so far but it was good. I find myself thanking God regularly for Lewis. What a legacy of vigourous joy. I just finished reading through the Narnia series to my three oldest children (8, 7, 5) a few months ago (starting, of course, with LWW, which is the only way to read them) for the third time. We always struggle with what to follow them up with. We have read some pretty good other stories, but the… Read more »
Video of the talks may be found here:
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/national-conference-rebroadcast
Dan, I, for one, wouldn’t criticize you if you started again as soon as you finished. I pretty much did that all through junior high and part of high school. If I coulda gotten a Narnia IV to pump the stuff directly into my veins, I’da done that, too.
Recently read MacDonald’s Princess and the Goblin, which is very good (second time for me but first for the kids). They are now asking for the Hobbit (will be second time for them, not even sure how many for me – 7 maybe). Not ashamed to say we will likely start Narnia again within a year from finishing this last time. Some stories seem to wear out the more you read them. Narnia seems to wear in. The oftener you go there, the more familiar, comfortable, and at home you feel, but it never becomes ordinary. The magic doesn’t seem… Read more »