Image: Clevenger, Savastio, Blackburn, Riddle
Video: Couldn't make it to this year's conference? Watch this "You Were There" video to get a feel for the Friday evening fellowship.
Note: Each year at the Keach Conference, I provide an "orientation" to our meeting. Below are my notes for the 2014 Keach Conference Orientation (look here for orientations to the 2009, 2012 and 2013 meetings).
Let me extend to you warm and friendly greetings in the name
of him who was dead and is alive, even our Lord Jesus Christ, the one Mediator
between God and men.
This is now the thirteenth consecutive fall season that a
group of believers, including ministers and laymen, young and old, men and
women, have gathered to listen to encouraging teaching, to enjoy fellowship,
and to renew bonds of friendship in a theology and ministry conference in the
Commonwealth of Virginia.
Over those years we have met on various days of the week and,
in the beginning, we met just for a single day.
Finding that that was not enough time to spend together, since 2007 we
have met over two days, the last Friday evening of September and the Saturday
morning following.
We originally called our meeting “The Evangelical Forum,” but
in 2010 we changed the name to the Keach Conference, in honor of the Puritan
Baptist pastor, Benjamin Keach, who was publically pilloried for his writings
on believers’ baptism and who was one of the original adopters of the 1689
Confession.
This is now the eighth consecutive year that we have taken as
our Conference Theme one of the successive chapters in that venerable 1689 Confession, this year reflecting on
the subject, “Of Christ, the Mediator.”
As one of the speakers told me on the phone when we spoke of his coming,
“What a chore! You mean I get to come
and preach about Christ!” One of the
constants of these past 13 years has indeed been the high quality of the men
who have come and shared with us, not only in the plenary messages but also in
private and small group conversations.
We are especially thankful for Pastors Blackburn and Savastio for taking
time from their schedules and families to be here with us for these meetings.
Though he was not a Baptist, the Congregationalist “Prince of
the Puritans” John Owen was highly esteemed by our Particular Baptist
forebears. Some have even suggested that
if the Lord had given him more time on earth, he might well have become a
Baptist. In their writings on various
topics a position often seemed to be settled if it could be shown that this was
also the opinion of Owen.
In his classic work, The
True Nature of a Gospel Church and its Government, Owen includes a chapter
titled “Of the communion of the churches.”
In that chapter he lists five ways in which churches might have
communion or fellowship with each other.
Now our conference is not a church synod or official council but Owen’s
list can be loosely applied to the fellowship we have in a conference like this
as individual believers who are local church members. Here is a summary of his
five points describing the basis of Christian communion (as taken from the 2012
simplification and abridgement Gospel
Church Government):
First: In
general, they believe the same doctrine of truth. They hold the same articles
of faith and make the same public profession.
Second: They
also believe in the church itself. This fellowship requires the belief that the
Lord Christ has had in all ages a church on the earth that cannot be confined
to particular places or human organizations. This church is redeemed, called
and sanctified by him. It is his kingdom, his interest, his concern in the
world.
Third: They
pray. The fellowship of churches in faith consists to a large extent in the
principal fruit of that faith, namely, prayer.... They
have a blessed fellowship in prayer continually. This fellowship is more
evident in that the prayers of all are for all. There is not a single
particular church or a single member of any of them that does not have the
prayer support of all the churches in the world and all the members of them
every day. Although this fellowship is invisible to the eyes of flesh, it is
glorious to the eye of faith. It is a part of the glory of Christ, the mediator
in heaven. This fellowship in prayer gives to all churches a communion far more
glorious than any outward rite or plan of men’s devising.
Fourth: They
administer the same sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Fifth: They
profess that they are subject to the authority of Christ in all things. This
means that they are under obligation to do and observe all that Christ has
commanded.
May this 2014 Keach Conference be part of the communion we
share with Christian brothers and sisters and of the communion that our
churches share with each other through us.
JTR
