Other than the plenary sessions of Grudem and Mohler, I listened to other papers presented over the weekend at the ETS regional meeting in Ft. Worth. Steve Smith, who teaches preaching at Southwestern, delivered a paper entitled: "A Christology of Preaching." Dr. Smith challenged me to allow the great christological passages of the New Testament to inform my preaching.
Dr. Daniel Wallace gave a detailed critique of Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus. I would agree that Ehrman "does not disappoint on the provocative scale. But it comes up short on genuine substance . . . " Another quote from the paper's conclusion is worth sharing: "Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on issues that they have little understanding of . . . Unfortunately, the average layperson will leave Misquoting Jesus with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain."
I also enjoyed Dr. Rex Butler's paper: "Sacramentalism: The Baptismal Practice and Theology of Tertullian and Cyprian." I thought at the paper's conclusion that I certainly would not want to advocate the theology of either Church Father on baptism, but I do wish that we would take baptism more seriously in our churches. The elaborate process that resulted in a new believer's baptism shared in the paper made me wish that we would do more than just "tack on" a baptism during a worship service, hurrying to finish it up so we can get to something else. I don't have the copy of Rex's paper in front of me, but I think I'll blog more on this subject later on.
By the way, Rex showed me a copy of his book [a reworking of his excellent dissertation]. Congratulations!!
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