Interview with Gary Millar

This year’s NSW & ACT CMS Summer School at Katoomba has just concluded.

Attendees were blessed by expositions on Jeremiah by Gary Millar, Principal of Queensland Theological College.

During the week, David Ould sat down with Gary and you can hear the 30 minute conversation at this link.

(The first two talks are available here as free downloads, and the rest of the Summer School material will be available for purchase in due course.)

Conversations with John Anderson — Featuring Os Guinness

Former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson has been publishing some fascinating Conversations on his website.

Recently, he spoke with Christian author and social critic Os Guinness. Watch the video of his 38-minute conversation here. (Direct link to the video here.)

And see the other conversations already published.

Why I Walked: Sometimes loving a denomination requires you to fight

“In June 2002, the synod of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster authorized its bishop to produce a service for blessing same-sex unions, to be used in any parish of the diocese that requests it.

A number of synod members walked out to protest the decision. They declared themselves out of communion with the bishop and the synod, and they appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglican primates and bishops for help.

J. I. Packer, an executive editor of Christianity Today, was one of those who walked out. Many people have asked him why.”

In 2003, Christianity Today publishing this article by J I Packer.

In 2017, with permission, it was republished by GAFCON. Well worth reading.

The Bible’s guide to time travel

“Time is a funny thing. It goes too fast. Then too slow. We want it to stand still and then wish it didn’t. We love losing track of it but incessantly strive to find it. There are few things more frustrating and difficult than running out of time or wasting it. We just can’t seem to get it right! Why does time so often feel out of joint? ”

– The Australian Church Record has published the first two parts of a series by Annabel Nixey.

Part 1. Trusting the original Time Lord.

Part 2. Accepting that time is broken.

“The bus pulls away just before you reach it. The priceless opportunity disappears just before you can grab it. Just when that person finally gets back on their feet, something else goes wrong. Bad, broken timing.”

Rich and Getting Richer

“They used to call them financial advisers or even simply bank officers; now they are wealth managers. Having adequate money is so yesterday. We want to have wealth. We think of ourselves managing our resources to become first, rich, and then even richer. There are no votes for the party that promises that under its leadership citizens will become poorer!

Yet that is exactly what Jesus did! His milieu was opulence, glory, splendour and supreme power over everything that exists. The whole universe was under his thumb, yet he chose to make himself nothing and become the lackey of humanity. …”

– Written and published in time for Christmas, this reflection by Bishop Trevor Edwards in the diocese of Canberra & Goulburn should turn our hearts to thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

“On September 28th 1863 Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States of America, asking for an Annual Day of Thanksgiving. …

I had a deep sense of sadness when I read this, reflecting on our own nation that appears so confused and divisive. We live in a nation with a myriad number of commemoration days set aside and sometimes even a whole a week to remember certain things, but do we stop as a nation to offer thanksgiving? Someone has said ‘The worst moment for the atheist is when he/she is really thankful and has no-one to thank.’…”

–  At the Diocese of Armidale website, Bishop Rick Lewers reflects on what Australia needs as we enter a new year.

The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures

ACL Council member Mike Taylor tells us the Kindle version of The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures – edited by Don Carson – is on special at a (currently) very good price.

Check it out here.

GAFCON Chairman’s Pastoral Letter for Epiphany 2019

From Archbishop Nicholas Okoh’s Letter for Epiphany 2019:

“The choice before us as a global communion is between this revealed wisdom of God and the wisdom claimed by secular ideologies.

For a while the reality of this fork in the road can be obscured by an insistence on dialogue in its various guises such as ‘indaba’, ‘good disagreement’ and ‘walking together’, but in the absence of godly discipline, false teaching will continue to spread.

In the Church of England, just before Christmas, this process reached the point where its bishops took the unprecedented step of giving official guidance for what they described as ‘services to help transgender people mark their transition’ and it will be incorporated into ‘Common Worship’ (a range of services authorised by General Synod). …

So, much as we thank God for the rich history represented by the See of Canterbury, we cannot avoid the sad truth that insistence on full communion with Canterbury as an essential mark of belonging to the Anglican Communion now risks jeopardising the apostolic faith itself.”

– Read it all at the GAFCON website.

An Unexpected Friendship

“A few weeks ago, after the funeral for President George H.W. Bush, it was reported in the news that the President had sponsored a child through Compassion International.

During a Christmas concert many years ago, when the Ministry of Compassion International was presented and the audience was asked to consider sponsoring an impoverished child, Bush raised his hand and volunteered to sponsor a 7-year-old boy in the Philippines.

Out of concern for the boy’s safety, it was decided that the president’s identity as his sponsor should be kept secret. But the president and the boy became regular pen pals for more than a decade. …”

– Of course, there are some great sermon illustrations in this story, but – more than that – it’s a story to turn our hearts to the Lord. From Reformation21. Photo: Compassion International.

Morning and Evening by C H Spurgeon free audiobook

The free Audiobook from Christian Audio for January 2019 is C H Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening.

Available here.

Free digital downloads from Credo House

Credo House in Oklahoma City has made available (for a limited time – we’re not sure how long), free downloads of some of their audio courses. You’ll need to create a free account.

“The mission of Credo Courses is to produce the best courses using the best teachers in the world. With courses produced by scholars such as Gary Habermas, Doug Groothuis, Daniel Wallace, and Darrel Bock, Credo Courses has distributed millions of course downloads for people all over the world.”

Well worth checking out.

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