TruthVoice 2007 turned out to be another success and I was humbled by the large turnout, the positive comments and the mind-blowing presentations by the speakers. Every year I keep hearing "this is the best conference so far" and I am thinking "when is this going to stop?" It's humbling to be able to organize those conferences; it's ridiculous that I never get a lot of time to get to know visitors and speakers who are interested in getting to know me better.
If you want to see pictures before continuing, you can click here.
The conference really started Thursday evening when a few of us gathered around at the pool and/or bar talking about everything from theology to Don Preston's Mustang.
On the first day, Fred DeFalco kicked off the conference with a fascinating message regarding living in God's presence and looking forward to a future that we can create. Fred labels himself a "futurist" and does so proudly, readily admitting that he is using all means to make a positive impact on the world around us.
Tim Martin presented a very good introduction to his position on Noah's Flood and Jason Bradfield filled in for Sam Frost with a very good presentation of a framework for understanding the beginning and end.
Abe Miller presented a really good overview of Hebrews after which Terry Hall presented his understanding of "dwelling righteousness" while Jared Coleman had a fascinating introduction of "emerging eschatology" and its relevance in today's Christianity.
David Curtis spoke on identifying one's neighbor within the context of the parable of the good Samaritan and Jack Scott had the best presentation on the resurrection I have seen. We closed the first day with a conversation between Jack and Virgil, with many in the audience participating, and when we proposed to end it, the question asked was "why do we have to?"
On the second day, Terry Hall and Abe Miller had a conversation about the resurrection and the relevance of fulfilled eschatology today. Fred talked about "living large in the Kingdom" which is a very encouraging approach and answer to the "what now?" question.
Next Jeremy Lile had an excellent presentation on the historical aspects of "hell" or "hades" and how the contemporary understanding is largely based on "cultural diffusion" instead of the Bible. Tim Martin followed with his second presentation on the flood, which was fantastic. At the end, Tim unveiled a beautiful painting done by Jim Kessler, depicting Noah's Ark crashing into the Temple court, with Sodom burning in the background; an amazing picture of the typological relevance of the three stories.
Dale Robinson also had a very good introductory presentation on Preterism after which Jack Scott closed the conference with the second one of his presentations on the "constituent elements of the law and the prophets."
After the conference, many of us headed over to Lone Star for the traditional post-conference dinner where we spent a couple of hours talking, sharing and building new friendships.
I want to thank to:
- all the speakers who never asked to be paid for their time and do all this for free
- all the volunteers helping with pictures, books, chairs and organizing
- all of you who donated to cover expenses
- Fred DeFalco for being a model, and an icon to learn from about how to live in the Kingdom
- everyone else for teaching me new things every single year
If you want to see pictures from TruthVoice 2007, you can click here to see them and even leave comments!