Moore College Online Open Night – Monday 31 August 2020
Monday night.
Claire Smith interviewed on The Lydia Project
On the latest edition of The Lydia Project podcast, Tori Walker speaks with Claire Smith.
In the 30 minute conversation, Claire shares how she came to Christ.
She also speaks about how important it is for Bible-believing Christians to serve on committees, about the Gospel Coalition Australia, culture wars, and – most encouragingly – how good it is to know Christ.
Update on COVID-19 rules for churches, weddings and services
“Following my previous comments on COVID-19 rules applying to churches in NSW, the NSW Minister for Health issued an ‘exemption’ which eases some of the restrictions on Thursday 27 August. The exemption relates to weddings and ‘places of public worship’ where there are more than one building on the premises. …”
– Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia has the latest on COVID-19 rules and churches.
ACT’s conversion therapy ban puts practitioners at risk
“The Sexuality and Gender Identity Conversion Practices Bill, introduced into the ACT Assembly a couple of weeks ago, has become embroiled in controversy. It arises out of lobbying by members of the LGBT community to ban ‘conversion therapy’, in the context of past practices seeking to change people’s sexual orientation. However, the main controversy about the bill concerns its prohibition of what it describes as ‘gender identity conversion practices’…”
– This story from The Canberra Times highlights concerns – others have been raised by The Australian Christian Lobby.
From Generation to Generation: Societas 2020
The 2020 edition of Societas, the annual magazine produced by the students at Moore Theological College, is now available for download or to read online.
Much encouragement.
Do share the link.
Church Society to unveil new name and vision for Churchman
“Church Society is relaunching its theological journal with a new name and a new vision for the global Anglican church in the 21st century.
Join us for a LIVE event on the Church Society Facebook page at 11am on September 1st [i.e. 8:00pm AEST Tuesday 1st September] when the new name and new vision for the journal will be announced.
The conversation will include the journal’s editor, Peter Jensen, as well as Bishops Alfred Olwa and Samuel Morrison from Uganda and Chile, respectively. There will be chance to pray for the global Anglican communion, participate in the Q&A, and even win a year’s subscription to the journal.”
– Once the relaunched journal is made public, the first edition will be available as a free download.
Stem Cells, COVID-19 and the Archbishops – with Chase Kuhn & Megan Best
From The Pastor’s Heart:
“In a special edition today, we address a key issue :- Should you personally choose to use a COVID-19 vaccine candidate that makes use of a cell line cultured from an electively aborted human fetus?
To put it super bluntly: If I get vaccinated for covid-19 am I complicit in an abortion?”
Related: The ‘Must Read’ book in its field.
When nothing will stand still #5: Reflections on Hebrews 12
“Over the last months, Emma shared how she was feeling when life suddenly changed with Covid-19, and her plan to go back to a familiar passage.
Here is the next episode…”
– Emma Newling continues her encouraging reflections on Hebrews 12 at The Australian Church Record.
Call for ‘ethically uncontroversial’ COVID vaccine
“Archbishop Glenn Davies has released the text of a letter, signed by the Archbishops of the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches, calling for ethical research on COVID-19 vaccines. …”
– Story from SydneyAnglicans.net.
Freedom for Faith Submission on the Anti-Discrimination Amendment (Religious Freedoms and Equality Bill) 2020
Freedom for Faith has published their Submission on the NSW Anti-Discrimination Amendment (Religious Freedoms and Equality Bill) 2020.
Read it here. (Link via Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia.)
See also the submission from David Ould at St. John’s Parramatta.
Sydney Church History
“In 1965 John Stott, the Rector of All Souls Langham Place in London, visited Sydney to preach on 2 Corinthians at the CMS Summer School.
‘I heard only one of those Bible studies but I was so taken by the way he stuck to the text and stayed with it. He could show you the logic of the argument in the Scriptures, prior to that I had tended to get an idea from the passage and to leap all over the Bible supporting the idea from other parts, so that the people I taught knew the ‘idea’ but not the passage from which it came or how that passage fitted into some overall argument from the Scriptures. It is to John Stott I owe what ability I have to expound the Bible.’
Those were the words of the esteemed Sydney evangelist and preacher, the late John Chapman…”
– David Cook writes to remind us of our history, and how God works. At The Expository Preaching Trust.
(David Cook has served in parish ministry, as the Principal of SMBC, and as the Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia.)
Conversion Therapy laws and religious freedom
“Australia has seen two recent initiatives by local Parliaments aimed at what are often called ‘conversion therapy’ practices.
No-one supports coercive electro-shock or other oppressive practices imposed on someone without their consent, to change their sexual preferences or identity. But the problem with the recent legislative proposals is that the laws do not target these practices alone (as to which it is hard to find any evidence of them occurring in Australia in recent years), but seem to reach further and to prevent religious groups sharing the teaching of their faith. …”
– At Law and Religion Australia, Neil Foster looks at some of the implications of the recently-passed Queensland and ACT legislation.
Archbishop Glenn Davies shares his personal response to COVID-19
In this weekend’s online service for the Diocese of Bathurst, Bishop Mark Calder asks Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies about how COVID-19 has impacted him.
And Glenn shares a familiar, but wonderful, verse for your encouragement.
It’s also available here as a standalone video.
Locating Singleness in Genesis 2
“I would say we’re pretty well versed in what Genesis 2 says to the married person. But what does Genesis 2 say to the single person?…”
– At The Australian Church Record, Simon Flinders points out something you might not have noticed before.
Expository Preaching on the wane? — David Cook
I studied at Moore Theological College from 1973 to 1975, under the principalship of D.B.Knox.
Those who studied at Moore under Dr Knox always anticipated his Doctrine 1 lectures, held twice a week for the whole of first year.
Dr Knox would usually open the lecture making reference to our text, ‘In understanding be men’, by a former principal of Moore, T. C.Hammond.
These remarks would usually take about 10 minutes and then the rest of the lecture consisted of questions and answers.
Knox would occasionally correct Hammond, who wrote his book on an ocean liner, travelling from Ireland to take up his appointment in Sydney.
Dr Knox would say, ‘the archdeacon may have been seasick at this point’.
What impressed me was that Knox, who rarely corrected Hammond, did so on the basis not of the Anglican doctrinal standard, The 39 Articles, but on the basis of God‘s Word, the Bible.
That was Moore’s enduring legacy to me, through lecture room and chapel service, the Bible was taught and preached as the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.
I have recently been part of a committee discussing what it means to be ‘reformed’.
The 5 Solas have been referred to, but finally, I think we have come to the conclusion that the foundation of Reformed theology and conviction, is that the Bible is God’s breathed out word and is our final court of appeal.
We believe what we believe, because that is what the Bible says.
This was the core of Luther’s argument with the Roman church in the 16th Century.
When called upon to retract his writings, Luther said, ‘Unless I am convinced by the text of the Scriptures or clear reason, for I do not trust in the Pope or the Councils alone…I am bound to the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything…’
It is the influence of the Reformers and men like D.B.Knox, which have led me to seek to have the Scriptures at the centre of my life and preaching.
Calvin referred to the Bible as a pair of spectacles, ‘which dispel the darkness and give us a clear view of God’.
The point of these remarks for preaching is that we preach the way we do because of what we believe about the Bible and how God reveals himself. J.I.Packer said, ‘the text of the Bible is God preaching to us’.
The faithful preacher will be God’s mouthpiece, by explaining, expounding, declaring the Bible.
How foolish to have a word from the mouth of God and to displace it with our own thoughts and inclinations!
Does your preaching show your respect for God, your desire to honour him, by faithfully and engagingly proclaiming the Bible?
Is this consistently true, every time you take the pulpit?
My current screen saver is a quote from the late R.C.Sproul:
‘I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests his power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a programme, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it, His Word!’
David Cook.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…