The Authority of Scripture | Preachers & Leaders Conference 2025

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In every age, there are attacks on the truth of the Bible. These often cause believers to doubt the authoritative role of the Scriptural message in our lives, the church, and the world. This conference aims to encourage Christian leaders toward greater confidence in the reliability and authority of God’s Word so that we might love it, be nourished by its life-giving power, and proclaim it faithfully for the health of our churches. We will seek to do this by providing a history of the Bible, demonstrating the reliability of the Bible both historically and theologically, and answering certain claims to the contrary. This year’s conference is a collaboration between Tyndale Theological Seminary, Geloofstoerusting, TGC Nederlands/Vlanderen, and Scribes & Scriptures.

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Speakers:

John D. Meade

John Meade will join the MBTS faculty this summer after having taught at Phoenix Seminary for thirteen years. He teaches courses in Hebrew Language and Exegesis, Old Testament Literature, Septuagint, and Biblical Theology. He has published articles and books on Origen’s Hexapla, Septuagint, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, the Canon of Scripture, and Biblical Theology. He has also presented papers at the Evangelical Theological Society, the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, and the Society of Biblical Literature. He and his wife, Annie, have four kids. When he is not teaching or researching, he enjoys reading,  personal fitness, and traveling with his family.

Peter J. Gurry 

Peter Gurry is Associate Professor of New Testament at Midwestern Theological Seminary. Before that he taught courses on the New Testament and Greek at Phoenix Seminary for eight years and was the director of the Text & Canon Institute. His academic interests range across the history and formation of the Bible, Greek grammar, and the history of New Testament scholarship. He has written for popular and academic outlets and written, cowritten, or coedited four books. He and his wife have six children and one cat, and was, until recently, an elder at Whitton Avenue Bible Church in central Phoenix.

Henk van den Belt

Henk van den Belt (1971) is professor of systematic theology at the Faculty of Religion and Theology of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He is also director of the Cornelis Graafland Centrum and coordinator of the Herman Bavinck Center for Reformed and Evangelical Theology. Van den Belt has served the Reformed congregations of Oud-Alblas, Delft and Nijkerk as a minister from 1995 to 2008. Since 2008 he has been appointed by the synod of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands as a minister with a special assignment for theological education and research. He is also book editor of the theological journal Theologia Reformata, member of the board of trustees of the Stipendium Bernardinum and mentor of the student association Voetius.

Derek Bass

Derek is Associate Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Badhoevedorp (NL). He has a passion for the least-reached and unreached areas of the globe, the gospel, and the Word of God. Coming to Tyndale was a dream come true, as these desires and passions coalesce beautifully in training future pastors, church planters, and professors from all over Europe, Asia, and Africa to preach and teach Christ rightly from the whole Bible (Lk 24:25-27, 44-49). Derek teaches Hebrew Exegesis courses, Old Testament Survey, Old Testament Theology, and Biblical Theology with this goal in mind. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have four teenage children and he serves as an Elder of Grace Church Amsterdam.

Mario Tafferner

Mario Tafferner is Assistant Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at Tyndale Theological Seminary in Badhoevedorp (NL). He studied Theology and Semitics in both Germany and the United States. He is an ordained minister with the Presbyterian Church in America. Currently he also serves as an elder in the Reformed Church of Broek op Langedijk (NL). Mario is married to Elsbeth and together they have four children.

Conference Schedule:

Schedule for 23 June

Schedule for 24 June

Talk Descriptions:

1. Old Testament Canon – John Meade

Learn what the “canon” is and how the canonical books were—and weren’t—recognized in this survey of the evidence from the time of Jesus to the Reformation.

2. Old Testament Text – John Meade

Learn how the Old Testament was copied over so many centuries, what makes the Dead Sea Scrolls important, and how scholars today resolve textual differences.

3. William Tyndale and his English New Testament: Reflections on the Authority of Scripture at the 500th Anniversary – Peter Gurry

William Tyndale is rightly considered the father of the English Bible. In this talk, we will consider Tyndale’s remarkable life and rich legacy as the foremost English Bible translator.

4. New Testament Text – Peter Gurry

Explore how the New Testament was copied, learn about its manuscripts and the scribes who made them, and gain needed perspective on the number of variants.

5. Ancient Israelite Scribal Culture – John Meade

This talk explores some of the earliest evidence for Hebrew writing and scribal culture in the late Bronze and early Iron Ages. Although the evidence is quite limited, it suggests that early Iron Age Israel had not only an alphabet with which to write its literature but also social mechanisms for passing down scribal culture from teacher to student thus ensuring writing and literacy in this important period for the history of the transmission of the Old Testament books.

6. Apocryphal Gospels – Peter Gurry

The Apocryphal Gospels like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas attract widespread attention today. This talk will address the relationship between the apocryphal gospels and the canonical Gospels. We will consider why the apocryphal gospels were written, who they served, and why they were (rightly) rejected from the Bible.

7. The Bible and the Myths – Mario Tafferner

20th-century skeptics have questioned the authority of the Bible from the perspective of archaeology, morality, and textual transmission. In recent years, however, an almost forgotten challenge to the Scriptures has reemerged: Mythicism. The argument that the Bible is merely a copy of pagan myths is widely used on social media today. In this talk, we want to engage two claims related to this challenge: First, do parallels between myths from the Ancient Near East and the Bible cast doubt on the truth of the Scriptures? Second, do such parallels undermine the ethical claims of the Scriptures? As we will see, a Christian worldview centering on the doctrine of the Incarnation has the power to explain how the Bible can be both an ancient and a life-giving book.

8. Holy God, Holy Word, & Holy Place: How God Creates, Rules, and Recreates through His Authoritative Word – Derek Bass 

This talk will provide a biblical theological perspective on the authority of Scripture, seeking to demonstrate ways in which the Bible itself unfolds its claims regarding its reliability and truthfulness throughout God’s redemptive history. Moreover, it will look at how the Word of God itself participates in bringing about this redemptive history by creating and recreating a people for God who will dwell in his presence. 

9. The Witness of the Holy Spirit – Henk van den Belt

In this lecture, Henk van den Belt will reflect on the work of the Spirit regarding the Bible as the infallible Word of God. It has its own authority and is self-convincing, in theology, we call this the autopistia of Scripture. It is also true, however, that we can only recognize this authority through the work or the witness of the Holy Spirit, theologians call this the Spirit’s testimonium. How was the Bible accepted as God’s Word by the first readers and how does the Spirit work that acceptance today? How can we know for sure that the Bible is what it claims to be? How does the inspiration of the text by the Spirit relate to its efficaciousness today? These and other questions will be answered from the history of theology and the reflection on some key verses from the Bible. 

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