Rightly Handling the Word

We claim to be people of the book (conservative Southern Baptists that is). Yet, I don't feel that we put the necessary work in when it comes to teaching and preaching that book. I recently read two messages that failed to refer to the context in which the passage was written. There was no grammatical-historical work done on the text at all. I fear that it is all too common in my denomination. When we fail to take into account the context and purpose for which a text was written, then we can make the text mean whatever we want to make it mean. That, to me, was one of the biggest reasons for Forum 121. My hope is that it shows a generation of younger leaders (and older ones as well) that we Baptists in Missouri can be vigorous handlers of the Scriptures and that we can bring first century meaning to bear here in the 21st century.
If you want more information on the conference, go to this link: www.121forum.com