First Things First

It seems that every year at the PCRT, something is said that focuses the entire conference.  Last year it was Sinclair Ferguson's insistence that our goal is not merely "to know the truth of God's Word, but to know the power of the truth of God's Word."  This last weekend it was a statement made several times by Don Carson.  He pointed out that there is a way to be biblical that is not, in fact, biblical.  This is to place the peripheral things of God's Word at the center, and to place the central things on the periphery.  He argued that if we are to be people of God's Word, then our greatest excitement must be for those things that are most central to God's Word: such as the atoning work of Christ and the glorious grace of God in salvation.  The bane of our day, he asserted, is that topics like the atonement, justification, the attributes of God, etc. are considered passe by so many Christians, and especially among scholars.  Let us be excited about the whole range of Christian truth and experience.  But let God and His saving work always be that which most animates our hearts and minds.