Dick France came to church today and took four sessions on how the Old & New Testaments work together. He was great! We have never before done a day like this here - a day's Bible conference. And we certainly have never brought in anyone of Dick's standing to take such a day! The whole thing came about because Kirsty & Rhian have read a couple of Dick's commentaries and loved his work, and when we started to look at Hebrews in one of our groups, they recommended Dick's book. I said I'd organise for them to have tea with him if they were so keen, half as a joke - Dick was my principal at theological college, and is now retired in North Wales, and so I had his email somewhere. They replied - "Could we?" And I began to wonder if we could do a bit better than that...
I go to various conferences, and often hope that I'll be taught the Bible by someone who does a better job than I could. I often end up inspired & disappointed all at the same time - I hear great preachers who actually aren't great Bible teachers. But today I heard a great Bible teacher giving great Bible teaching.
(It's both the scope, the knowledge, the ease & the throwaway lines - Hebrews 11 verse 1 can be summed up as "look forwards & look up!")
I was hoping we'd get at least a dozen of our folk to give up a Saturday. Saturdays are precious, and I didn't know how exactly it would work. Two dozen came. Fantastic. And they loved it - at least, the ones who have emailed me so far!
Everyone pitched in - our catering team did a great job in keeping us well fed & watered through the day, and spiritually I feel totally energised. It was quite high powered; Dick holds no prisoners & makes no apologies for presuming his listeners are intelligent. His clarity and openness to questions, and the way he took us through an amazing amount of stuff - in a totally different way to how I would have done - were all fantastic.
We'll do it again. If you missed it - watch out, we'll hold more of these. This was a first try. Next time, we'll open our doors a little wider!
1 comment:
this was a really super day with clear and inspired teaching, a lovely delivery on any subject that was brought up. I look forward to many more Marcus thank you.You have been fortunate to have had Dick as a tutor.I would also mention his comment on exposition and hoping we had this with our vicar,we certainly do with you....this also must have been so pleasant for tutor and student to meet again.. thank you again. joyce.
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