So let’s not forget the awesome substance–that the 2002 Auburn Avenue Conference rocked.  To take a small sample from Steve Schlissel:

In Samuel it says, “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

“To do what is right and just,” says Solomon. “is more acceptable to the lord and sacrifice.”

The conclusion of Ecclesiastes in his ruminations about life is this, “All has been heard, here is the conclusion: Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man.”

And yet, if someone says that today, they are accused of legalism! This borders on apostasy, in and of itself, to make the charge. It’s a wholesale departure from the word of God in order to serve an abstract conception of what the word ought to teach, based upon what I want it to teach–which is how I can personally be saved. Which, again, puts God in the position of being the debtor to man because somehow we are going to bring to him something good enough. If it is not our works, then it the quality of our faith.

But what if we begin with the idea that we really need grace from God? And what if we begin with the radical idea that he has given it to us? And the even more radical idea that he has given it to our children? Then where do we begin? Teaching our children to doubt God afresh in every generation? Or to take what he has given us and to move it into action and into application in the world? “Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong; learn to do right; seek justice.” (Steve Schlissel, “Covenant Reading”).

It was a great conference.