Gospel Freedom: Ancient Words, Modern Wisdom

The conference theme is "Gospel Freedom: Ancient Words, Modern Wisdom."

 REGISTER HERE

All too often God has been misrepresented as suppressing rather than promoting freedom. He has been viewed as the heavenly despot who is the model and sanction for oppressive regimes on earth. It is clear that this is not the biblical God. His kingship liberates from all human lordship and enslavement. This is because the divine Master himself fulfills his lordship not in domination but in the service of a slave (Phil. 2:6-11). But what kind of freedom is it that the biblical God promotes? The Gospel definition of freedom, according to which the individual is most free not in self-fulfillment for his or her own sake but in self-giving for others, escapes the tension between freedom and social justice.

The first lecture, "Freedom to Live," will be delivered Friday evening, 7:30pm, on the Cornell University campus. Saturday there will be three sessions, as follows:

Freedom to Love (Exodus 20:13)

What is the power that will unlock our bitterness, indifference, and irresponsibility? Does the power come from within us? Is it a matter of just trying harder to be morally good? The resources are not in us, so where do we get this power? We are free to love when we recognize that God was the only one who rightfully should have harbored bitterness to those who were hostile to him, but that he refused to be indifferent by giving his life.

Freedom to Rest (Exodus 20:8)

We cycle between the two idols of comfort on the one hand and power/influence on the other. We are usually caught in the cycle of work in order for us to gain comfort. Life seems like a grind and we end up either being bored to death by our work, or choked to death by our work. We will be freed to rest when we look to the King of the Kingdom Cycle of work and rest.

Freedom to Worship (Exodus 25:8-30:20; 40)

The church is able to be utterly known by a holy God but not rejected. When the God-man, the True Temple (John 4:20-24), was crucified, his body was torn and blood shed in order to pay for our sin, and it was ‘at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom’ (Mt. 27:50-51a). The ultimate insider who had enjoyed fellowship within the Godhead came into a distant country in order to seek lost, marginalized outsiders by becoming an outsider (Cf. Heb 13:11-12) himself who was rejected, abandoned, consumed, crushed, and despised for the iniquities of the church. The church is utterly included and has been emancipated from bondage freely to enjoy our God, who is Spirit, in order to worship Him in Spirit and in the reality of the True Temple.

Biography:

Prior to coming to Boston in 2000, Dr. Um served as a pastor for several Presbyterian Churches in Connecticut, Rhode Island (at Brown University), and New York City. He is now the Senior Minister of Citylife Church in Boston, and the author of The Theme of Temple Christology in John's Gospel, The Library of New Testament Studies, T & T Clark. He received his Ph.D. in New Testament studies from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and for the last seven years has also been teaching New Testament studies as a faculty member of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, and Emerson College. Dr. Um is a member of the Board of Directors for The Gospel Coalition, for which he serves as the Secretary. Citylife Church in center city Boston is an ethnically diverse group of professional and creative urbanites. Dr. Um is married and has three children.