Thoughts on Desiring god Conference Day 1

I’m still a bit groggy & not yet through my first cup of coffee, but I wanted to take a minute on jot down my thoughts on day 1 of the Desiring God 2008 Nation Conference.  There are over 3000 people in attendance this year.  There seemed to be a nice mix of folks from all of the U.S. and all over the world.  the book area has a decent selection of materials.  I noticed an illustrated book on Job by John Piper that looked pretty interesting.  I was happy to see Mark Driscoll’s Death by Love available as well, even though it doesn’t actually realease until Tuesday.  The highlight of last night was getting to listen to Sinclair Ferguson.  He spoke on James 3:1-12.  His talk was broken up into 3 parts:  1.  Walk-through / explanation of James 3:1-12, 2. James 3:1-12 in the context of the book of James, 3. James 3:1-12 in the context of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The most significant part of the talk focused on the difficulty of taming the tongue.  And just as Job made a convenant with his eyes, a similar covenant could be made with our own eyes, tongue, hands etc.  The talke finished with a call to saturate ourselves in the word of God as it is the key to transforming the tongue.  Following Ferguson’s talk they had a speaker panel hosted by Justin Taylor.  The speakers were sinclair Ferguson, John Piper & Mark Driscoll.  Many of you read Mark Driscoll’s post earlier in the week about whey he loves John Piper.  In that post, he noted that he though John Piper only had 1 coat, so in the context of answer a question about that post, he actually presented John Piper with a tweed jacket that has the Desiring God logo embroidered on it.  John Piper put it on and wore it for the remainder of the evening.  I’m looking forward to day 2 of the conference and will be hitting the road shortly.