The Wisdom of the Cross (1)

“Hardly a weekend goes by without a conference being held somewhere in Sydney at which Christians can gather together to hear the wisdom of the great and the good on various subjects – everything from how to be a leader, entrepreneur, evangelist, preacher, parent or spouse right through to the finer aspects of tasting a beer, dissecting a side of beef or cooking your way to the kingdom of God!

Sydney culture in general is extremely pragmatic as we all as individuals get about the business of constructing the good life for ourselves and/or for our families …

It is in this context that the Scriptures have some sobering questions about wisdom for us to consider and the first one to consider comes from Paul’s first letter to Corinth: Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? (1 Cor.1:20)…”

– Dr David Höhne at Moore College writes on the Faculty blog.

Thinking Christianly about singing and music

Rob Smith, Sydney singer / songwriter (among other things) has recorded a number of videos to help us think Christianly about singing and music and their place in what we do in church. Helpful and encouraging.

Each segment is 2 to 4 minutes in length.

1. Introduction
2. Christian music
3. The importance of singing
4. Singing and praise
5. Honouring God in song
6. Singing and the Holy Spirit
7. Singing and emotion
8. Singing and prayer
9. Singing and proclamation

Also, check out Rob’s invitation to the concert coming up on Saturday 21st July at St. Barnabas’ Broadway (tickets).

John Stott — classic messages from Ephesians

In 1975 and 1976, John Stott, the Rector of All Soul’s Langham Place, expounded Paul’s letter to the Ephesians at major Christian gatherings in the UK, US, Mexico, Canada, India, Nepal – and at the CMS Summer School at Katoomba. One result of his labours was his volume in The Bible Speaks Today series, “God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians”.

CMS has made available the audio recordings from five talks given at Katoomba on their Facebook page. Grab them while you can.

(And that’s also a good reminder to support the CMS Annual Appeal.)

Moore College lectures 2012

“The Point of the Sword: Applying the Bible to applying the Bible” is the topic for this year’s Moore College Lectures, coming up in August.

Chris Green, Vice Principal of Oak Hill College in London, is the speaker. Details from Moore College. (While you are there, check out info on the Moore College School of Theology in September.)

Chappo unplugged

Richard Chin, National Director of AFES, recently interviewed much loved evangelist John Chapman. As Sandy Grant says at The Briefing, “Younger generations of ministers in Sydney and Australian evangelicalism should hear this for personal edification but also to understand something of our heritage.”

You will be greatly encouraged and helped by investing 86 minutes of your time in watching Chappo. Classic. And give thanks for our dear brother.

Heavenly tours?

“Travelling to heaven and back is where it’s at today. Don Piper spent ninety minutes there and sold four million copies of his account. Colton Burpo doesn’t know how long he was there, but his travel diary has surpassed 6 million copies sold …  There have been others as well, and together they have established afterlife travel journals as a whole new genre in Christian publishing…”

– Tim Challies has serious misgivings about popular books you’ll find at some Christian bookshops.

Baptist statement reaffirms marriage

“[O]n Friday the President of the Baptist Association of NSW & ACT released the following statement to all our churches, affirming our understanding of the nature of marriage…”

– Baptist minister Rod Benson (who is also Public Affairs Director for the NSW Council of Churches) points out that NSW Baptists have not changed their position. He also comments on statements made to the media by a Sydney Baptist.

Related: Baptists overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage.

‘Redefining Marriage’ — Archbishop Peter Jensen’s letter to Sydney Anglicans

In the light of the forthcoming vote in Federal Parliament, Archbishop Peter Jensen has written to all parishioners in Sydney Diocese on the subject of same-sex marriage.

“However hard it may be and whatever pressure we may face, we do not love our fellow Australians if, knowing God’s grace and his written will, we do not speak up and point them to God’s plan for the flourishing of human relationships.”

In his accompanying e-mail to Rectors, he said, “The whole controversy gives us an opportunity to teach on the subject of marriage and to commend the Biblical way of life in our churches and to the community.”

The Archbishop made it clear that he respected the decision of Rectors as to how and if they would pass his letter on to parishioners. The text of his letter follows:

Redefining Marriage

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is likely that sometime in the near future our parliamentary representatives will be asked to vote on a proposal to change the legal definition of marriage in order to allow for same-sex unions to be dignified by this name. I am writing to you to urge you to oppose this move as out of keeping both with the word of God and also of the best interests of our community.  Read more

Archbishop Peter Jensen in the Sydney Morning Herald on same-sex marriage

The Sydney Morning Herald has published this opinion-piece by Archbishop Peter Jensen –

“We are in the midst of a sustained and brilliantly orchestrated campaign to radically alter the marriage laws of this country to allow same-sex marriage.

Three slogans carry the message: ‘marriage equality’, ‘marriage won’t change’, ‘it’s inevitable’. Of course, the difficulty with slogans is that they are not arguments and, so, are hard to refute, except by slogans in return…”

– Read it all here, ‘Stylish same-sex campaign glosses over real issues’. Worth reading and passing on.

‘Christian leaders to unite against gay marriage’ — ABC News

“Some of Australia’s most prominent Christian leaders are expected to read out and distribute anti-gay marriage letters at their Sunday services tomorrow.

Statements from Anglican, Catholic and Greek Orthodox leaders have been coordinated ahead of further debate on gay marriage in Parliament next week.

Churchgoers will be urged to contact their Federal MPs to register their opposition to gay marriage…”

– Report from the ABC includes an interview with Archbishop Peter Jensen broadcast on AM.

St. George’s Tron, Glasgow, secedes from Church of Scotland

News from Scotland:

The Rev Dr William Philip, minister of the 500 strong congregation based in Buchanan St, Glasgow,  said:  “Our decision to separate from the Church of Scotland is the culmination of careful thought, sincere discussion and prayer for over 12 months… We believe the Church of Scotland is choosing to walk away from the biblical gospel, and to walk apart from the faith of the worldwide Christian Church.”

Full statement from St. George’s Tron below:  Read more

Church Society response to the Church of England Submission on Same-Sex Marriage

The Church Society media release below refers to this submission (PDF) from the Church of England.

“Church Society Response to the Church of England Submission on Same-Sex Marriage

Church Society welcomes the Church of England’s official submission to the government’s ‘consultation’ on sex-same marriage, which argues strongly in favour of retaining the current definition of marriage as “the voluntary union for life of one man with one woman to the exclusion of all others”.  Read more

‘Sexegesis’ book launch in Hobart

Bishop of Tasmania, John Harrower, reports –

“Today we launched Sexegesis – An Evangelical Response to Five Uneasy Pieces on Homosexuality at St David’s Cathedral, Hobart. I would like to express my thanks to the Revd Joel Kettleton and the Dean Richard Humphrey, for their work in putting together this event.

Here is the introduction which I gave at the book launch:

2012 marks the 50th Anniversary of the Anglican Church of Australia. At the recent Synod of our Diocese we gave thanks that our founding documents affirm that we are part of the apostolic and worldwide church, that we are biblically based and that we are Christ centered.

As Anglicans then as we deal with issues such as homosexuality we do so in this context.

We are part of a worldwide Anglican communion and need to listen to that body which has clearly stated in the Lambeth Resolutions (1.10 – Human Sexuality) that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Scriptures.

As that resolution makes clear and the constitution of our Church says we take the Scriptures “as being the ultimate and standard of faith given by inspiration of God.” The Church is not at liberty to “ordain anything contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” (Article XX of the Anglican Church’s 39 Articles of Religion).  We need to keep coming back to Scripture, to wrestle with it, understand and apply it, even when it corrects and challenges us and our culture. Read more

Sydney Anglicans II. The congregation as the centre

Mark Thompson writes about ecclesiology in the second post of his series on Sydney Anglicans –

“One of the most celebrated, most ridiculed and most misunderstood theological commitments shared by most Sydney Anglicans is the priority of the local congregation.”

Read it all here –

“One of the most celebrated, most ridiculed and most misunderstood theological commitments shared by most Sydney Anglicans is the priority of the local congregation. No doubt historical, cultural and sociological factors have contributed to what some see as a ‘distinctively Sydney’ approach to ‘church’.

The colony of New South Wales began in 1788 with a chaplain rather than a bishop (though notionally under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Calcutta). The Australian psyche has a large strain of anti-authoritarianism and individualism running through it. In addition, federalism (as opposed to centralism) has been an organising principle at a number of levels in Australian society (e.g. national-state government relations and the concern in the Australian Anglican constitution to shy away from a large central bureaucracy and rather to protect the integrity of each of the constituent dioceses). However, influential as these larger cultural factors have been, first and foremost this is a theological commitment arising from convictions about what the Bible teaches on the subject.  Read more

Walking in opposite directions

From St. George’s Tron in Glasgow:

“Download Walking Away from Jesus by Willie Philip and Walking with Jesus by Dr J.I. Packer.

Over a year ago, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland took the decisive step of walking away from the historic, orthodox Gospel. These reflections on that decision were written by Dr Philip for the Tron Times of May 2011.

By re-publishing them now, alongside the article by Dr Packer, we see clearly that the situation faced by our church family in recent days is shared by many in the world-wide confessing church today. There is great encouragement to know we don’t stand alone.”

– Download here. (PDF)

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