Dr Bruce Harris honoured with Order of Australia

“A World War II veteran, history professor and valued Sydney evangelical has been honoured with an AM in the Queen’s birthday honours list. Dr Bruce Harris was made a Member of the Order of Australia ‘for significant service to higher education, to veterans and to the community’…”

– Good news from SydneyAnglicans.net.

All Things to All People? The Gospel is the Issue

“I think most of us with any sense of awareness can recognize that we are living in one of those great transitional moments in human history. But there is one thing that must not change: the Christian task of bearing faithful witness to the glory of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some would disagree and argue that the Christian witness, to be faithful, must change anything and everything to fit the culture as it changes over time and across locations. They might quote the apostle Paul: ‘I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some’ (1 Cor 9:22).

I propose, however, that far from a mandate to accommodate all things, Paul’s words here are a manifesto for ministry that puts the gospel above all things. …”

– Encouraging words in dark times, from Albert Mohler.

Lennox

“The name Lennox means ‘From the field of elm trees’. It is Gaelic in origin and both the name of a character in Macbeth and the name given to my newly born grandchild.

He will not simply be a character in a play, he will be a life lived across a moment of time, a time that the more pessimistic of grandparents may consider concerning.

Who would think that a child born into an educated and materialistic western society would arrive at a time of such civil unrest, where historical divides and the anarchist heart of humanity remains and the atheistic humanist’s dream lies dead?…”

– Bishop of Armidale Rick Lewers writes this article for his local paper.

Numbers

Glen Scrivener at SpeakLife has released a powerful and provocative video.

Watch here.

“Inclusive” ECUSA: “Love Never Ends” — but +Love Must Go

“In a theological dispute that ECUSA’s Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has now personally allowed to become a travesty, the Episcopal Church in the USA… held a formal hearing whose object was to remove the Rt. Rev. William H. Love, Bishop of Albany, from the post to which his diocese long ago elected him.

His sin… that requires his deposition? It was his faithfulness to the “doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church (USA)” — exactly as he vowed when he took Episcopal orders, and again when he was consecrated one of that organization’s bishops…”

– A. S. Haley (Christian lawyer and The Anglican Curmudgeon) responds to TEC’s actions against Bishop William Love (pictured).

Restrictions ease quickly but July is key

“The Head of the COVID-19 Task Force for the Sydney Diocese, Bishop Gary Koo, says churches should continue to be ‘good citizens’ during the return to in-person services, which he says is happening quicker than most people expected. …

‘While we are delighted by the lifting of restrictions, things are moving so fast that I wonder if churches should just pause for a moment, analyse where we are at and wait for a couple of more weeks to see what happens as we approach July 1. We can then make more meaningful plans when we get to that point.’ Bishop Koo cautioned.”

– Russell Powell has the latest at SydneyAnglicans.net.

(Emphasis added.)

Check-ins, singing, 4 square metres and the way out of COVID-19


“The Australian Prime Minister says in stage three of the Post Covid-19 reopening, groups will be able to meet with no upper limit on numbers from July, but there will be a blanket rule of 4 square meters per person.

However, all visitors to buildings will be required to checkin and provide contact details.”

– The latest episode of The Pastor’s Heart tackles these questions in the latest episode.

The One Thing Needful

“Whenever the four horsemen have been riding – pestilence, sword, famine, and death – they should lead finite creatures like us to ponder the shortness of our earthly stay.

Threats of dislocation and death do not change the human condition; they merely run a highlighter through it.

As Dr Johnson famously commented: ‘Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’ At least it ought to. …”

– Dr Peter Barnes, Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, draws us back to what is most important.

(Photo: Dr. Barnes at a Banner of Truth conference.)

Why you should ditch your digital Bible

“When I started working in university ministry, I thought I knew the issues facing Christian students: money, church attendance, dating unbelievers, overseas holidays, grades. What I didn’t expect was a run-in with the digital Bible. …”

– Matt Smith makes a clear argument at The Australian Church Record.

The biblical meaning of righteousness and justification Parts 2 @ 3, with Chris Thomson

Lionel Windsor at Forget the Channel continues his interviews with Chris Thomson, lecturer in Old Testament at Moore College:

In the first part, we saw that “righteousness” is essentially a moral quality: it’s about being “right” or “good” rather than “wrong” or “bad”. We also saw that this moral righteousness can be “credited” to someone by God.

In the second part, we saw that “justification” is about finding in a person’s favour, on the basis of their moral quality of righteousness. Justification can happen either because a person is actually righteous, or because they have been “credited” as righteous even though they aren’t.

In this third part, we talk about how getting the meaning of the words right helps us to understand what the apostle Paul is talking about in Romans. What is the “righteousness of God” in Romans 1:17? Is Christ’s righteousness is “imputed” to us? And why is this so important for our assurance of God’s love and salvation?

The Monotony of the Wilderness: Are you just marking time?


“I’m reading through the Pentateuch. There’s much that happens in these books, especially during the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land.

The trip is action-packed, especially at the beginning. Consider the many memorable events: the crossing of the Red Sea, the miracle of manna, water from the rock, the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai, and the Golden Calf incident.

We tend to remember the high and low points, but for most of the forty years it took for the Israelites to reach Canaan, the days were probably pretty monotonous. …”

– At the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation, Mike Emlet writes to encourage a heavenly perspective on these times.

God’s concern for greater Sydney

“If you were to look for one sentence that summarises the teaching of the Bible, it would be hard to find a more succinct candidate than the final words of the prophet Jonah’s prayer: ‘Salvation belongs to the Lord!’ (Jonah 2:9).

Jonah is a remarkable book for many reasons. One example is that it contains, in the Hebrew text, only five words of prophecy (3:4), whereas both the minor and major prophets of the Old Testament contain hundreds and thousands of words of prophecy addressed to Israel or the nations.…”

— Archbishop Glenn Davies points us to the message of Jonah and God’s concern for the city.

Francis I. Andersen, Scholar who used computers to study the Bible

“Francis I. Andersen, an Australian scholar who spent more than 35 years analyzing the syntax of the Hebrew Bible and created a powerful computer dictionary of the Scriptures’ clauses, phrases, and text segments, died last month at the age of 94. …”

– Christianity Today has this obituary for Frank Anderson, former Vice Principal of Ridley College, Melbourne.

Photo: The Andersen-Forbes website.

Freedom of Religion and the impact of COVID-19 on Christian life and worship

“It was always clear that measures designed to lessen the impact of, and prevent the spread of, COVID-19, would have an impact on the usual patterns of church life.

Church meetings on Sundays are one of the places where many people regularly gather together physically- indeed, in an increasingly isolated and fragmented society, we may say one of the ‘few’ places.

So, the arrival of a disease which spreads through droplets that are exhaled naturally meant that large gatherings had to be put on hold temporarily in the interests of public health. …”

– At Law and Religion Australia, Assoc Prof. Neil Foster shares a paper he is presenting on the subject., “Freedom of Religion and the impact of COVID-19 on Christian life and worship”.

Leading change in the number and/or size of congregations post COVID-19 with Peter Mayrick

“We are talking Kotter’s principles of change managment and how they apply to church leadership in this post COVID-19 season where the immediate steps forward may not be clear.

We need to lead to change. But for some of us senior pastors (as things keep changing) it’s not obvious where we want to go!  And yet we need to take everyone with us. …”

– Peter Mayrick from the Center for Ministry Development is back to speak with Dominic Steele at The Pastor’s Heart.

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