The Ryan Center for Biblical Studies will be hosting their eighth Bible conference at the Grant Events Center on March 2-3. The conference will feature George Guthrie, the Benjamin W. Perry professor of Bible and senior fellow of the Ryan Center, who will speak at three main sessions on God’s “tabernacling presence” among his people.
The first plenary session will cover God’s presence in the beginning of the Bible, and it will begin at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 2. In this session, Guthrie will focus on the connections between what the presence of God looked like in the Garden of Eden with God walking beside Adam and Eve and what it looked like in the early tabernacle.
“The tabernacle is trying to recreate what was lost in the Garden where Adam and Eve failed,” said Guthrie. “The tabernacle itself then becomes the Garden planted in the world in a way where human beings can relate to God.”
Two more plenary sessions will be held on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Both sessions will continue the theme of God’s holy presence from the tabernacle to the temple of Solomon and Herod to the church we know today.
Throughout the conference on Saturday, four professors from the school of theology and missions at Union University will lead two parallel sessions at 9:45 a.m. and 11 a.m. that will be held in various classrooms in Jennings Hall.
“Those that come should expect to find good Bible teaching that’s also accessible,” said Ray Van Neste, professor of Biblical studies and director of the Ryan Center. “It’s not highbrow academic; it’s trying to reach the average person and try to help them understand the Bible better.”
Van Neste will be teaching one of the parallel sessions that will cover how the church we know today is connected to the temple from the Old Testament. Alongside Van Neste, professors of Biblical and theological studies, Mark Dubis, Kevin Chen and Brad Green, will be conducting parallel sessions that will also cover topics dedicated to helping others interpret and apply the Bible.
Guthrie will wrap up the conference with his final plenary session by explaining how the church of today’s world is God’s new “mobile tabernacle” and how today’s church is like the new temple that is spread across the world.
“It’s not about buildings,” said Guthrie. “It’s about people and God dwelling and manifesting His glory in people in all the different parts of the world, so the last session is going to ask the question, ‘What role does the church play in advancing human flourishing in the world?’”
