Back to the Word
“I’m just about ready to give up the rational conversational approach to social intercourse and to start quoting straight Bible to people.
The further we go, the more reason isn’t working anymore. In these sputtering last gasps of the Enlightenment, language itself is deconstructing before our eyes. …”
– At World Magazine Andrée Seu Peterson says we need to rethink our approach.
And Australia comes in for dishonourable mention.
Link via Tim Challies.
The End of Humanity Would Result in End of Meaning?
In his The Briefing for 21st October 2021, Albert Mohler begins by considering a recent statement by Professor Brian Cox (pictured) about humans and meaning.
Perhaps a good conversation-starter.
A Swiss Army knife for evangelism
Tony Payne writes about the forthcoming updated Two Ways to Live booklet:
“The new booklet has a number of … design changes that I think really improve its appeal as a give-away resource – a ‘modern classic’ look-and-feel, new versions of the drawings in badge form, a reworking of how text and graphics interact on the page, and a revision of all the explanatory text.
What of the updates to the 2WTL framework itself?
Apart from numerous small tweaks to the language here and there, these are the three main changes to the outline itself…”
Encouragement to use The Word One to One
John Mason, President and Chairman of Anglican Connection, is encouraging his North American readers to consider using The Word One to One as a very helpful tool in evangelism.
As part of that, he reminds us of this brief 2016 interview with the then Dean of Sydney, and now Archbishop, Kanishka Raffel.
The books are available locally from The Wandering Bookseller.
Jeff Bezos wants to live forever and I’d like to help him
“Jeff Bezos wants to live forever and I’d like to help him.”
– Here’s a short video from Not the Bee (the cousin of The Babylon Bee.)
Find Life that lasts: A national co-ordinated evangelism campaign
“How could we build back better after COVID? Could evangelicals unite together to rebuild the church with a national co-ordinated evangelistic campaign?
COVID has created an unprecedented opportunity for evangelism, but churches and church leaders are feeling fragile and weary.
In Great Britain, churches are getting set for a national campaign leading up to Easter 2022, under the banner ‘Find life that lasts. It’s closer than you think.’…”
– Watch at The Pastor’s Heart.
Review: ‘Christians’ by Greg Sheridan
Journalist and author Greg Sheridan has just released a new book titled ‘Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in Our World’. He opens with this explanation of why he wrote it:
This book is about the compelling, dramatic, gripping characters you meet in the New Testament. Above all, it is the search for Jesus. It seeks to meet him directly, in the New Testament, and in history, and to meet him indirectly through his friends, both his first friends, and some of his friends today…”
– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Akos Balogh reviews Greg Sheridan’s new book, Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in Our World.
The book is available from The Wandering Bookseller.
In a Pandemic, people need to be ready for Eternity
Today is the 91st anniversary of Arthur Stace hearing the gospel at St. Barnabas’ Broadway, on Wednesday 6th August 1930.
In the midst of a global pandemic, the message of Eternity is as relevant as ever.
(Photo of Arthur Stace by Les Nixon, December 1952.)
Review: 7 Reasons to (Re)consider Christianity by Ben Shaw
“This is a really, really good book.
In a highly readable and biblical way, the author Ben Shaw does precisely what his title suggests – he gives seven good reasons for someone to (re)consider Christianity. As such, the book is also really useful, especially in our contemporary western context, where so many are moving away from the Christian faith, from Christian knowledge, or even from Christian awareness. …”
– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Stephen Liggins reviews 7 Reasons to (Re)consider Christianity by Ben Shaw. The book was launched a month ago, just before Ben was called home to be with Christ.
Engaging with the Media — A worthwhile endeavour
Recently I decided to enter the fray of letter writing.
It was in response to a piece written by Nikki Gemmell, published in The Weekend Australian, “Why the Anglican church must evolve or die”. (Sorry – link is via subscription)
The thrust of her article was aimed at the Anglican Archbishop of the Sydney Diocese of the time, Glenn Davies (and Anglicans like him), who believe what the Bible and the Lord Jesus teaches about marriage – that it is between a man and a woman. However, according to Gemmell, the church needs to become like the world if it wants to survive and thrive; specifically, it needs to get on board with the pansexual zeitgeist of the modern western age.
Gemmell writes:
“the majority of Australians do support same-sex marriage. It feels like the archbishop is damaging his church and Jesus’s teachings of tolerance, gentleness and inclusivity.”
“The church has been on the wrong side of public opinion recently on abortion as well as same-sex marriage. It’s slowly killing itself by refusing to open its heart to others.”
So in response to her article, I wrote the following:
Ms Gemmell in her article “Archbishop You have Lost me”, writes, “the Bible as we know is open to interpretation – pick and choose at your will”.
To read the Bible in this way is to make the reader the author. There is a significant difference between interpreting the Bible and understanding the Bible.
Understanding the Bible requires a person to listen to what God has said and submit to His authority. When we seek to understand, understanding submits our reason, tradition and contemporary circumstances to God’s Word. When we seek to interpret, interpreting submits God’s word to our reason, traditions and contemporary circumstances. Archbishop Davies is simply issuing a clarion call to fellow Anglican Bishops to do the former instead of the latter, which is what they promised at their ordination.
It does not matter if the church is on the wrong side of public opinion. If there had been opinion polls in Jesus’ day, the results would have been disastrous. People wanted him dead the moment he was born, he was accused of being a blasphemer, demonic, promoting sin, a law-breaker. Jesus said things that made people hate him, made people want to kill him, made followers leave him, and compelled close friends to deny and betray him, and he was crucified on a Roman Cross.
The Lord Jesus also said that to his followers
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19)
The message of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will never be cool or popular to our world, the Lord Jesus was none of those things. If the church did what Ms Gemmell suggested, and mirrored the world, the church would be indistinguishable from the world and in essence have nothing to offer.
Although only what is underlined above made it to print, it made it to print.
Thus to have the Christian world view published in a culture that increasingly cares nothing for such a world-view I hope serves as encouragement to more of God’s people that engaging with the secular media is still a worthwhile endeavour.
– Joshua Bovis is the Vicar of St John The Evangelist in Tamworth.
Rico Tice on Luke 19:1-10
Rico Tice at All Soul’s Langham Place preached on Jesus and Zacchaeus from Luke 19:1-10 on the first day of the Evangelical Ministry Assembly 2021 in London.
Watch here. A great encouragement in so many ways, and well worth sharing.
(Link updated to reflect the edited video uploaded.)
The Great Rescue
“26th May was the anniversary of perhaps one of the greatest rescues of all time.
World War had broken out in September 1939. Into 1940, the Nazi German army was surging across Western Europe with lightning speed and force.
As the month of May progressed over 300,000 troops from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) along with Belgian, Canadian, and French soldiers, were trapped and encircled at the beach of Dunkirk in France.
A terrible disaster seemed inevitable. …”
– At SydneyAnglicans.net, John Lavender has some godly encouragement for you. (Also published in the June 2021 issue of Southern Cross.)
John Blanchard, evangelist, called home
“Well known Christian author, evangelist, and Christian apologist, John Blanchard has died. …
Blanchard’s books have long been a mainstay within evangelical circles. Several years ago, it was estimated that his booklet, Ultimate Questions had sold in excess of 14,000,000 copies. It has been translated into over 60 languages.”
– English Churchman has the news.
See also this tribute from Evangelical Magazine:
“His overwhelming burden was that the Lord would raise up a new generation of young people willing to be called into full-time Christian service.”
An online version of Ultimate Questions can be found here.
The booklet is available locally from Reformers Bookshop in a variety of languages.
Photo: Banner of Truth.
How to reach Australia + The Queensland Presbyterian crisis
On the latest edition of The Pastor’s Heart, Dominic Steele speaks with Queensland Theological College Principal Gary Millar at the Reach Australia conference on the NSW Central Coast.
As well as sharing from his keynote addresses on Holiness and Hope, Gary is asked about the problems facing Queensland Presbyterians and the College he leads.
Outreach in Parkes
“‘Why is there so much suffering?’ That is the question that popular Christian author and apologist, Kevin Simington, will be addressing in a seminar at St George’s Anglican Church on Wednesday, May 5 at 7.15pm.
Kevin is conducting a short-term ministry at St George’s during May and June as part of his position as Ministry Consultant within the Anglican Diocese of Bathurst. …”
– The Parkes Champion-Post has news about seminars to be run by Kevin Simington, who was ordained at Bathurst Cathedral last weekend.
In other news from Bathurst, Bishop Mark Calder is seeking financial support for a lay stipendiary worker in the parish of Blayney.
All this is a great reminder to pray for people across Bathurst Diocese to hear the amazingly good news about Jesus.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…