2005 Shepherd’s Conference in review
Adam Pawley
A significant blessing of the Shepherd’s conference was the fellowship of IBC brothers and other pastors from around the country and world that share a love for the gospel and commitment to the whole Word of God. To look around and see so many faces expectant on the teaching, drinking it all in was an encouragement even in the face of so many churches that have turned their backs on biblical Christianity. The voices raised high and loud in hymns was amazing! Puts the goosebumps on skin.
Messages by R.C. Sproul, Al Mohler and John MacArthur have already been excellently reviewed by my fellow ibc’ers so I’ll write on two seminars that I enjoyed.
The second half of the Creation seminar, “Monkey Business”, was amazing in that Dr. Steven Boyd basically modeled and PROVED statistically that Genesis 1:1-3 was narrative and not poetic. These same models could also be used to predict whether other portions of Scripture were prose or poetry. This then puts to rest the age old debate as to whether Genesis 1:1-3 was allegorical or metaphorical. Proof in the math! There was an amazing, truthful beauty to the models, a symmetry in the math that screamed wonder and design. The truth that the Word truly is not just a collection of men’s story but rather “God breathed” was made palpably more real for me.
The second seminar I enjoyed was on Choosing a Bible Version by Dr. Bill Barrick. Dr. Barrick dissected a few verses in Psalm 23 and Romans 6 to determine how true the ESV, NASB, NASU, NIV, Holman, KJV and NKJV were to the original Greek/Hebrew manuscripts. I had never been exposed to this kind of analysis before and found it fascinating, and it gave me a sense of wonder over the men who devote their lives to translating the Bible.
Immanuel Bible Church