Vol. 5, No. 1
Registration is now open for the next Lamplighters Lecture, to be held on Saturday, October 11, 2008. Dr. Bruce Walkte, aptly described as “a master teacher with a pastoral heart,” will speak on the topic of “The Church's Covenants.”
Saturday, 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
Without a memory a person loses identity, and without a history to sustain it, a society and the world around it become virtually phantom realities. Moreover, some memories are more salient in determining a person’s identity and more foundational to sustaining a community. This is the case with Israel’s four covenants. They are foundational to understanding who we are as Christians and as a Church. And so, in this lecture series, I aim to interpret these foundation stones and to lay them firmly in our memory.
Since the last issue of BATL Cry!, we've had two excellent lecture series. In December 2007, we welcomed Dr. Tremper Longman of Westmont College, who taught on the topic of holy war. In May 2008, Dr. Dale Liid joined us for a fascinating look at the role pottery plays in Biblical archaeology and in our understanding of Biblical texts that employ ceramic terminology. If you missed these talks, you can still order CD audio, using this downloadable form.
In 2004, when we first began the Lamplighters Lectures, we invited N.T. Wright to come and speak. We were surprised and delighted when he agreed! Unfortunately, it later turned out that the dates proposed for his visit conflicted with his son's wedding and he was forced to cancel. We were never able to get back on his schedule, but apparently someone else did: “Socrates in San Francisco” will host a discussion between Tom Wright and Bart Ehrman entitled “A Good God! A Dialogue About the Problem of Suffering and Evil” on Thursday, October 16 at 5:30 p.m. Co-sponsoring the event is the C.S. Lewis Society of California.
If you are an Information Technology professional, you might be interested in the “Check IT Out” seminar, to be held September 19-20 at the American Chinese Evangelical Seminary in Sunnyvale. For more information about this event, which highlights the role IT can play in missions, follow this link.
For the past four years, it has been our pleasure to offer The Lamplighters Lectures. In that time, we've held fifteen events. This lecture series has been something of an experiment, intended to determine whether or not there is audience in the Bay Area for this type of theological education. Your response to the lectures through attendance, encouragement, and financial support have convinced us that the answer to that question is “Yes!”. We thank you for your enthusiastic response to and support of the Lectures.
We'd like to continue offering this lecture series—and perhaps others like it—indefinitely on into the future. But in order to turn four years into forty, we need to make some changes. To use a sports metaphor in this Olympic summer, we've been running sprints, but now we need to learn how to run a marathon. Sustaining a lecture series like this one for the long-term requires that we make some fundamental changes to the way it is managed, recruit some new faces to help run it, and cultivate funding sources that will assure its long-term financial stability. Hence, in order that the Board may explore and implement such changes, the Lamplighters Lectures will go on hiatus. We have no lectures scheduled after Bruce Waltke's and do not plan to offer any in 2009. We'll be gone for a while, but—God willing—we won't disappear forever!
If you have any feedback regarding the lectures that you'd like to provide, please feel free to contact one of our Board members, or send e-mail to events@batl.org.
Hello, and welcome to this installment of BATL Cry!, the official newsletter of the Bay Area Theological Library. BATL Cry! is published periodically throughout the year in order to inform our patrons of upcoming events and of the latest news concerning our efforts to establish an independent regional theological library and center for Bible study in Silicon Valley.
“The Church’s Covenants”
Dr. Bruce Waltke, Regent College and Reformed Theological Seminary
Registration is now open for the next Lamplighters Lecture, to be held on Saturday, October 11, 2008. Dr. Bruce Walkte, aptly described as “a master teacher with a pastoral heart,” will speak on the topic of “The Church's Covenants.”
Saturday, 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.
Without a memory a person loses identity, and without a history to sustain it, a society and the world around it become virtually phantom realities. Moreover, some memories are more salient in determining a person’s identity and more foundational to sustaining a community. This is the case with Israel’s four covenants. They are foundational to understanding who we are as Christians and as a Church. And so, in this lecture series, I aim to interpret these foundation stones and to lay them firmly in our memory.
- Lecture 1: “The Abrahamic Covenant”
- Lecture 2: “The Mosaic Covenant”
- Lecture 3: “The Davidic Covenant”
- Lecture 4: “The New Covenant”
More information can be found on our website. Register online now to reserve your place!
Dr. Waltke will also be preaching the next day, Sunday, October 12, in both services (8:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m.) at Peninsula Bible Church, Palo Alto.
Did You Miss These Lectures?
Since the last issue of BATL Cry!, we've had two excellent lecture series. In December 2007, we welcomed Dr. Tremper Longman of Westmont College, who taught on the topic of holy war. In May 2008, Dr. Dale Liid joined us for a fascinating look at the role pottery plays in Biblical archaeology and in our understanding of Biblical texts that employ ceramic terminology. If you missed these talks, you can still order CD audio, using this downloadable form.
In 2004, when we first began the Lamplighters Lectures, we invited N.T. Wright to come and speak. We were surprised and delighted when he agreed! Unfortunately, it later turned out that the dates proposed for his visit conflicted with his son's wedding and he was forced to cancel. We were never able to get back on his schedule, but apparently someone else did: “Socrates in San Francisco” will host a discussion between Tom Wright and Bart Ehrman entitled “A Good God! A Dialogue About the Problem of Suffering and Evil” on Thursday, October 16 at 5:30 p.m. Co-sponsoring the event is the C.S. Lewis Society of California.
If you are an Information Technology professional, you might be interested in the “Check IT Out” seminar, to be held September 19-20 at the American Chinese Evangelical Seminary in Sunnyvale. For more information about this event, which highlights the role IT can play in missions, follow this link.
For the past four years, it has been our pleasure to offer The Lamplighters Lectures. In that time, we've held fifteen events. This lecture series has been something of an experiment, intended to determine whether or not there is audience in the Bay Area for this type of theological education. Your response to the lectures through attendance, encouragement, and financial support have convinced us that the answer to that question is “Yes!”. We thank you for your enthusiastic response to and support of the Lectures.
We'd like to continue offering this lecture series—and perhaps others like it—indefinitely on into the future. But in order to turn four years into forty, we need to make some changes. To use a sports metaphor in this Olympic summer, we've been running sprints, but now we need to learn how to run a marathon. Sustaining a lecture series like this one for the long-term requires that we make some fundamental changes to the way it is managed, recruit some new faces to help run it, and cultivate funding sources that will assure its long-term financial stability. Hence, in order that the Board may explore and implement such changes, the Lamplighters Lectures will go on hiatus. We have no lectures scheduled after Bruce Waltke's and do not plan to offer any in 2009. We'll be gone for a while, but—God willing—we won't disappear forever!
If you have any feedback regarding the lectures that you'd like to provide, please feel free to contact one of our Board members, or send e-mail to events@batl.org.
