Monday, March 13, 2006

I couldn't get Hello to upload my pictures to this blog, so I'll have to work out the problem and load them later. Here are the session topics, overviews, and my favorite quotes from the pre-conference (with summaries from the conference proper to follow later).

Bought With A Price: 2006 Ligonier National Conference
Pre-conference Seminar: The Intimate Marriage
Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr., Rev. Ken Jones, Dr. R.C. Sproul, Sr, speakers

The Biblical Foundations of Intimate Marriage
Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr.

This was not your typical, basic "why God instituted marriage" seminar. Instead, R.C. gave the basic a good twist, and instead of rehashing the old, old subject he turned it into a discourse on evil, our crafty enemy (the serpent), reflecting God's image and glory, and the role a husband plays in sanctifying his wife.
Good quote: "The redefining of the family in our age will be the defining character in our age."

The Nature and Function of Intimate Marriage
Rev. Kenneth Jones

Rev. Jones did a great job exploring the ways that the culture and commercialism has defined our views of intimacy, emotions and marital expectations. He suggests that couples need to "detox" from Biblically opposing views of marriage, and said that intimate marriage is a redundancy because marriage, by definition, is intimate.
Good quote: "It is at the point we recognize our deficiencies that we can embrace grace."

Challenges to Intimate Marriage
Dr. R.C. Sproul, Sr.

A fascinating talk on ness and it's instant link between sin and shame, and the attempt we make to cover our shame and hide who we are. Dr. Sproul covered a lot of ground in this seminar with his discourse on the correlation between physical ness (the only place where there is no shame and hiding is in marriage) and spiritual ness (people by nature don't want God looking at them but over them). He also explained that the Hebrew word for "knew" does not merely mean marital consummation, but also means an unveiling/disclosing of the mind as well as the body.
Good quote: "God loves you because He knows you" (emphasis mine; see Hebrew explanantion above).

More to follow soon...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Shelbi. Thanks for the Ligonier Conference posts and the great pictures. Our family had planned on attending the Ligonier Conference but we backed out because of our concerns over the RC Sproul Jr defrocking issue. Did anyone at the conference make any sort of announcements about that?

Shelbi said...

Hi Rachael,
There were not any announcements made nor was it ever discussed. I, too, was curious to see how Ligonier would handle the issue when I was there and was a little surprised that it was never mentioned. Even the staff with whom I worked seemed to be completely oblivious to the controversy, as did most of the conference attendees.

Shelbi said...

Oops, I meant as were the conference attendees. :-)