Our text this morning is about one of the greatest spiritual and theological events in the history of the Christian church. Interestingly enough, it was not a dramatic martyrdom, nor a mass miracle, or even a crusade. It was not a worship service, a great sermon preached, or a crowd conversion. It was a church convention - a convention held about fifty years after the death of our Lord.

For those of you who have ever attended a convention of the church, it may sound unbelievable that it could be a spiritual or a theological event. In many cases, for the neophyte minister or the layperson, one's first attendance at a church convention can be a shocking and even a faith-shaking experience. As one newly-ordained young minister was heard to say after his first day at convention, "If the Devil w…