Theology Matters Conference 2021 – Opening Worship & Sermon
The opening worship service of the 2021 Theology Matters conference. Richard Gibbons preaches the welcome sermon, setting the theological frame for the gathering and inviting attendees into the conversation that follows.
Listen to this essay
ElevenLabs Audio Native player will render here once the embed is wired up.
Read by an AI voice generated by ElevenLabs

In this essay
Continue Reading
More Articles
" alt="">A Firm Foundation
A sermon on Matthew 16, where Peter recognizes Jesus as the Christ. Small preaches against the language of dying churches, hearing in Christ's promise to Peter the foundation that no rate of decline can shake: the gates of hell will not prevail against the church Christ is building.
" alt="">Lands of Promise and Conflict: The Middle East in Biblical Understanding
Anyone trying to understand the Middle East has to reckon with the fact that the events of the Bible took place there. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all claim spiritual descent from the same patch of ground. Wisdom unfolds what that overlapping inheritance has produced, and how Christians might think about it.
" alt="">The Catechized Prodigal: When Covenant Children Lose Their Way
Proverbs uses contrast to teach: life or death, wisdom or folly, no comfortable middle. Hering brings the Proverbs' grammar of formation to bear on the painful experience of catechized children who walk away anyway, and finds the tradition has more to say than parents often imagine.
" alt="">The Call to Reformation
Luther was supposed to become a lawyer; his ambitious father had a plan. A thunderstorm changed the plan. Barnes follows the personal story of how an unlikely candidate became the central figure of European Christianity in the 1500s, and what we still learn from his unexpected calling.
" alt="">Invitation to a Pillar Fight
Partee opens with the wry observation that doctrine unites and reason divides, then surveys the rubble Reformed Christians have made of their own family identity. The piece is part lament, part invitation: an honest reckoning with what's been neglected and what still might be retrieved.
" alt="">Gender, Sex, and the Kingdom
The Standing Theological Committee of ECO presents an eschatological account of gender and sexuality: not a backward-looking standard, but the new creation Christ is making. Rooted in Revelation 21, the document calls women and men forward into the kingdom rather than into longing or regret.
" alt="">