(Author: Jeff Lacine)
Mark your calendars and plan to join us for the next DG LIVE event on Wednesday, August 25th. Scott Anderson will be interviewing Tullian Tchividjian live streaming from 7-9pm CST. Even now you can tweet the questions you would like Scott to ask Tullian, using the hashtag #dglive.
You may remember that last month we introduced Tullian on the blog in preparation for the seminar he will be leading at this year's National Conference.
To give you a taste of what to expect on the 25th, here are some quotes I transcribed from interviews he did on YouTube.
What Tullian's ministry is all about.
What my life and ministry is all about is to demonstrate that the gospel does not simply ignite the Christian life—it is the fuel that keeps it going. Christian people, converted people, are to be making a B-line for the finished work of Christ every day, looking back at what Christ accomplished for sinners by his life, in his death, with his resurrection, and applying that secured reality to every area of life today, to every part of our experience today, believing that it is the answer to the greatest human problems and dilemmas that we face.
Tullian on repentance.
Theologians for centuries have distinguished between attrition and contrition when it comes to repentance. Attrition is simply acknowledging wrongdoing for fear of the consequences you might experience. In that sense it is external only. Contrition, on the other hand, is not primarily concerned with the consequences I might face for my wrong doing. It is primarily concerned with the fact that I have sinned against God. Like David expresses in Psalm 51, "Against you and you only I have sinned, Oh God."
Tullian on being wrestled to the ground by the hound of heaven.
I was born and raised into a remarkable Christian home, the middle of 7 children. I ended up being the black sheep of the family. Because I was the middle child I had two older brothers and an older sister, and two younger brothers and a younger sister. I wasn't sure if I was the oldest of the younger three or the youngest of the older three, and since I couldn't figure out where I fit inside the home and I was longing for belonging, I decided to set out to try and figure out where I fit outside the home.
And of course that led to some pretty unwise choices, and I started hanging out with people I shouldn't be hanging out with and doing things I shouldn't have been doing. That culminated at the ripe young age of 16 when I dropped out of high school and got kicked out of my home. My parents had tried everything and were left with no other recourse but to say, "If you're going to live this way then you can't live under our roof."
And so for about six years I pursued pleasure with all of my might. And everything the world told me would bring about the contentment, the satisfaction, the security, the approval, the acceptance that I longed for I tried. And at 21 years old God graciously tracked me down. The hound of heaven wrestled me to the ground and raised me from death to life.
The gospel liberated me in the sense that all of the security, all of the acceptance, all of the approval, all of the protection, all of the affection that I was longing for—and that I was looking to things smaller than Jesus for—became mine in Christ. It freed me from all of my idols, all of those lesser things that I was looking to be for me what only Christ could be.
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