Creation & Re-Creation: Our 2013 Fall Conference at Reformation Bible College
The Ligonier campus has been full of activity over the past few days. During Reformation Bible College's Fall Preview Weekend, prospective students took classes, met with faculty and current students, toured the campus, and experienced the annual highlight of RBC's Convocation. In addition, Christians travelled far and wide to enjoy the teaching and fellowship at our 2013 Fall Conference. This year's theme was "Creation & Re-Creation: Reflecting the Creator's Glory" and focused on the role of beauty in the Christian life.
We began Friday afternoon with R.C. Sproul reminding us that as creatures made in the image of the working, laboring, and creating God, we are called to productivity—to useful labor. Despite our labor having been cursed by the fall, we are never to curse the labor which God has given us. Nathan Clark George then explained how musicians must work from the soil of the Word of God and the worship of God as they exercise their gifts.
Friday evening, Sinclair Ferguson preached the address at Reformation Bible College's third annual Convocation and encouraged the students to seek to grow in true wisdom—wisdom that is found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Saturday morning, Sinclair Ferguson considering the relationship between the Holy Spirit and beauty in its four-fold state—through creation, the wilderness, it's restoration in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the consummation of beauty by the Spirit in the new heavens and new earth.
Andrew Peterson then called us to tell our stories (and to tell them well) as he shared with us the significant influence stories and literature have had on his own life. "Our own stories," he said, are "a means of grace to us and to those around us."
After a Questions and Answers session with Sinclair Ferguson, Nathan Clark George, Andrew Peterson, and R.C. Sproul Jr., the conference's final message, by R.C. Sproul Jr., explained God's purpose in making this vast universe to proclaim His glory and establish a story—a victorious story of the Son of Man in the exercise of dominion, for the love of His bride, and the glory of God.
An event open to the public, we were grateful to be able to close the conference with a concert by Andrew Peterson.
Twitter Highlights
Though our labor has been cursed by the fall, we are never to curse the labor that God has given to us. —RC Sproul #lmfc
— Ligonier Ministries (@Ligonier) September 27, 2013
Sanctification is Jesus turning our lives into the likeness of His own beauty, that we might shine with His own glory. —Ferguson #lmfc
— RefBibleCollege (@RefBibleCollege) September 28, 2013
We tell our stories with life and truth and beauty as the main character. —@AndrewPeterson #lmfc
— Ligonier Ministries (@Ligonier) September 28, 2013
All of the Bible is the love story of Jesus and His bride. —@RCSproulJr #lmfc
— Ligonier Ministries (@Ligonier) September 28, 2013
As our 2013 Fall Conference at Reformation Bible College comes to a close, our prayer is that those who attended will consider more fully God's call to work for beauty in all of life and to reflect the glory of the Lord, who "has made everything beautiful in its time" (Eccl. 3:11).
All of the messages from this conference are available either to purchase or stream for free.