Training and Admonition of the Lord Conference

This past weekend our church put on a Training and Admonition of the Lord Conference. The speakers were my father and Mr. Brown. The conference was designed specifically to help the people of our church, though others were invited.

The Lepore family from Massachusetts stayed with us for the week of the conference. We had a good time with them. I went with them to King's Mountain Battlefield on Thursday while my father was at a business meeting in Charlotte, and I will try to put up a post about that soon.

The conference started on Friday night with sessions for adults only, and the subject was chastening and the use of the rod, and religion in the home.

The conference went all day Saturday with the entire families attending. My father started with a message on Proverbs 4 speaking to the children about how they should be seeking wisdom and understanding while they are in their parents' house. The purpose of childhood is not to play, it is to have a time of learning without the responsibilities of providing for a family. Mr Brown came next with a message on Proverbs 31. He spoke on the qualifications and roles of godly women.

By this time we were already running late, so the session on preparing children for adulthood was merged with a Q and A time. After lunch, Mr Brown gave a message on how boys and girls should relate and then gave some time for questions. My father gave a message on how parents and children need to redeem the time. Last there came more time for questions.

One of the things my father mentioned in his speech on redeeming the time is that most people spend too much time and money going to collage to learn things that they will never use.

Here are some pictures that I took at the conference:

Mr. Brown speaking on Proverbs 31

My father speaking on redeeming the time

Conference Attendees

Blogging the Reformers: Pierre Olivetan

by Joshua Horn

Pierre Olivétan was born in France in 1506. He was three years older than his cousin and friend, John Calvin, the famous reformer in Geneva. He knew Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He was converted to Protestantism by Calvin. He was one of the first to bring the gospel to Geneva, and was expelled from the city along with William Feral and others. It was Feral who convinced him to translate the Bible into French. His translation was published in 1535, with a preface by Calvin. It was the first translation into French from the original languages. This translation was very influential in the Reformation. Olivétan died suddenly in 1538 at 32 years of age. Some said he died by poison, but this is probably not true. Calvin was very sad when he heard of his death. D'Aubigne said of Olivétan, “Pierre Robert Olivétan ... was gifted with a solid mind, great perseverance in the discharge of his duties, unshaken fidelity to his confections, and a holy boldness when it became necessary to combat error.” 1

1 J. H. Merle D'Aubigne, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2000) volume 1, book ii, p. 388

Blogging the Reformers: William Tyndale

William Tyndale

Read the introduction here.
This is from my reading in History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin by J. H. Merle D'Aubigne

William Tyndale was born around 1490 in England. He was ordained as a priest in 1521. His main desire was to translate the scriptures into English. He once said when debating a clergyman, “If God preserves my life, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than the pope himself.”1 The bishops in England rejected his translation because they did not want the people to be able to read the Bible. He fled to Germany and finished his translation of the New Testament there. By 1526 there were more than 20 editions of it in England. In 1535 he was betrayed in Antwerp, Belgium by someone who pretended to be a Christian. He was convicted of heresy for believing that Christians are saved by faith alone. After being defrocked from being a priest, he was martyred on October 6th, 1536 at less than 50 years of age by being strangled and then burnt. His last words were, “Lord, open the king of England's eyes!”2 Soon after these words were partially fulfilled, although Henry XIII was not saved. Soon after Tyndale's death Archbishop Cranmer presented Tyndale's translation of the Bible to Henry XIII to ask if he would allow it to be printed, though without Tyndale's name on it. King Henry agreed, and thus came the first legal Bible in English. William Tyndale had great effects on the Reformation because his translation had great influence on the English people and on the Geneva and King James Bible translations.

1 As quoted in J. H. Merle D'Aubigne, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 2000) volume 3, book vii, p. 214
2 As quoted in Ibid, p. 225

Tyndale's Martyrdom from Foxe's book of Martyrs