Conference Photos

                                                                                              Photo # 1 -- Ken Jones (from the White Horse Inn), chatting with Dr. Dennis Johnson of Westminster Seminary California.

Photo # 2 -- Dr. Kim Riddlebarger

Photo # 3 -- Dr. Kim Riddlebarger again (hey, it's my blog)

Photo # 4 -- Wideshot of packed-out sanctuary.  Who says amillers don't go to prophecy conferences?

Photo # 5 -- Dr. Steve Baugh from Westminster Seminary California.

Photo # 6 -- Dr. Greg Beale, author of a stellar commentary on The Book of Revelation (Eerdmans)

Photo # 7 -- Drs. Beale and Johnson spar over the mic during the Q & A.

(BTW--thanks to Mike Dees for the photos!)   

Comments

[Alan Kurschner]

Kim,

You guys are a good looking bunch of scholars.

Contrast those pictures with the bunch of sorry looking fellows here at a prophecy conference:

http://www.raptureready.com/photo/dallas/ptsg2.html


Alan ;-)

[Wayne Rohde]

Thanks for the good laugh, Alan!

Just for fun, as well as for a lot more laughs, I took some time to explore the "Rapture Ready" site.

One of my favorite sections was at "Who's Who of Prophecy" (which is broken down into "Positive Reviews," "Bad Apples" and "Prophetically Confused"). {ASIDE: I think they're all prophetically confused!}

I especially liked the following:

-Tim LaHaye -- "one of the greats of Christian fiction"

(And I'd always assumed he really existed!)

-Chuck Missler -- "a man gifted in business and now in prophecy"

(Ah, that's a great mix. Just ask Dave Hunt, the expert on Calvinism and amillennialism.)

-Donald Perkins -- "a man with the best prophetic charts"

(Yip, let's all believe those charts! Provided we can understand those charts!)

-David Reagan -- "a dependable source of reliable information"

(Makes me wonder what an undependable source of reliable information, or a dependable source of unreliable information, would look like. Then again, aren't all pretrib, premils undependable sources of unreliable information?)

There are other gems as well, such as a description of Perry Stone as being one of the America's foremost experts of Bible prophecy, followed by the note that his endorsement of Benny Hinn is a disappointment. Grant Jeffrey is said to have "spent way too much time and effort speculating and focusing on the so-called Y2K disaster," with the concluding comment being, "Jeffrey explained how the Y2K crisis was to be the most damaging and expensive crisis in history and how it could certainly set the stage for the antichrist and the tribulation" followed by "these beliefs ... while they held hints of paranoia ... were not inherently wrong [!], just a waste of time."

And I love this quote from a woman who sat under Missler's ministry: "I have no idea what Chuck is talking about, but he must be right."

I guess if we take the word rapture to refer to some kind of emotional ecstasy, then I'm ready for such rapture. These folks, great fashion aside, clearly give me the jollies.

Still laughing,
Wayne

[Alan Kurschner]

Wayne,

Thanks for those ironic quotes. The quote from the woman who sat under Missler reminded me how there are Protestant Popes in certain Christian circles.

Pretrib teachers disagreeing with each other about prophecy charts is like arguing whether Rick Warren wears boxers or briefs: I don't care to picture it.

Alan

[Andrew C]

SO JEALOUS - SO VERY JEALOUS!!!

The confrence looks like it was a great success. . . I look forward to listening to my CD's. . .

Oh well, while you folks were off listening to dull, boring lectures on Amillenialism, I was sitting in on the excitement of Akkadian, Syriac, and Qumran Aramaic lectures. . . oh wait!!!

<grin!>

[Wayne Rohde]

Just one more from the "Who's Who of Prophecy" portion of the "Rapture Ready" site: the entry about Daymond Duck.

1) He graduated from high school as vice-president of his class.

2) He's written a series of books, three of which share this portion of their titles: "God's Word for the Biblically-Inept."

3) (And this is my favorite...) He is currently working with Joan Hake Robie on a book to be released in September 2002 called End Time Survival Handbook. (All I can say is that if he's still working on this book, I hope he finishes it soon, so that it can be released by 2002. Yikes, by that time there may be nothing left to survive! Jesus did return in 1988 or 1994 or 2000 or 2001, didn't He?)

Really, if you need to a good laugh to brighten your day, I can think of no better source than "Rapture Ready" and it's comments and pictures of those in the Pre-Trib Study Group!

[Robin]

Missing the conference, rumors of Dr. Beale's "kung-fu fighting" animations in his lecture, leaked. I got the CD's.

His self-reference to his teaching style being like a rodeo "mechincal bull" -- challenging for students to "stay onboard," was hilarious. At one point, speeding along describing the exhilarating meaning of the Temple, he softly mumbles "is everyone keeping-up? (dead silence in the room, then)...probably not.....don't disappoint me!"

Plus, having read his magnum opus for years; imagining him to be a dry, stoic Cambridge sort of genius, it was a complete hoot to hear how much he enjoys theology! Either that, or his wife IS right: he has been studying weird things in the Bible too much, and like Paul, his great learning has made him nuts!

The CD's are too fun.

Thank you, Dr. Beale for being such a great example of what it means to love God's Word with wisdom AND hilarity!