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I stayed up late the other night to watch some of the live webcast of the National Resurgence Conference. Specifically, I watched John Piper speak on How I Distinguish Between the Gospel and False Gospels. Piper used 1 Cor 15:1-5 to outline six "absolutely essential" elements of the Gospel, without one of which you have no true Gospel at all:

1. The Gospel is a plan
2. The Gospel involves historical events
3. The Gospel involves the accomplishment of something objectively
4. The Gospel involves an offer to all, to faith alone
5. The Gospel is an application to YOU of what was accomplished objectively
6. The Gospel is an eternal, infinitely happy future destiny for those who believe

With each point, he argued it from scripture, and then described some common distortions or denials of that point. I love listening to Piper, but it takes about 110% of my brain to fully absorb the richness of what he's saying. The other thing I like about his ministry is that they strive to put as many resources online as possible--and all of their online materials are FREE. His complete sermon notes are here, including material he wasn't able to cover in the time allowed at the conference. You can also watch or listen to the message.

The other cool feature about the event was that during his talk you could text message your questions. Anyone listening live or on the Internet could do it. Then, about 5 minutes after his talk, they had a panel Q&A session to answer them. That panel was a lot of fun--it was Mark Driscoll, John Piper and Matt Chandler. But I had to bail before it was over because it was getting late (the conference was on the West Coast).

The complete audio and video of the conference will be available on the Resurgence website soon--check it out for some great teaching!

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