Unless a Grain of Wheat…

“Over two weekends in June and July I attended farmers’ camps, one in Gippsland and one in Yackandandah, both in Victoria.

Gippsland was made up mostly of dairy farmers battling to be more efficient to reduce costs as they receive less and less for their milk.

At Yackandandah many of the farmers were graziers, their concern is late rain …

At both camps I preached on John 12:20-26, where the Lord Jesus announces that his hour has finally come.”

– David Cook writes at The Expository Preaching Trust.

Image: A 2024 photo of Armidale’s Bishop Rod Chiswell with David Cook.

Bathurst Diocesan Prayer Diary — July 2025

The Bathurst Diocesan Prayer Diary has been updated with the latest points for prayer and thanksgiving.

Maybe you could use it to help you pray for the work of the gospel in this huge area of New South Wales.

“Please pray for our diocese as a whole, that the Lord
…would fill us with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that we may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way.
See Colossians 1:9-10”

Download here (PDF file).

Graham Miller’s Method for “Personal Daily Bible Study”

“PERSONAL DAILY BIBLE STUDY is a simple way of studying the Bible without the initial help of commentaries or other reference books, but in humble dependence on the Holy Spirit to open God’s Word to us and ‘teach (us) all things’ (John 16.13).

It was devised and shared in this form (see example and template below) by the Rev Dr Graham Miller, late Principal of Melbourne Bible Institute then Minister of St Giles Presbyterian Church in Hurstville (Sydney, Australia) now ‘present with the Lord’. Dr Miller encouraged me to take it up, saying: ‘Bob, if you do this every day you will soon have a multitude of sermons rising up and crying ‘Preach me! Preach me!’ How right he was. …”

– At AP, Bob Thomas shares this helpful resource from Dr Graham Miller (1913-2008).

Photo of Graham Miller with thanks to the Banner of Truth.

Phil Colgan: A theology of statistics

From The Pastor’s Heart:

“It is an uncomfortable but important question: What place should numbers have in our thinking about ministry success?

We all want to be faithful. But what happens when the numbers are down? Do we need to change something? Or should we just be faithful?

And should we be counting at all?

This is the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. A tension between preaching the word and evaluating what’s actually working.

Phil Colgan has been the long term senior pastor of St George North Anglican in Sydney and presented on a Theology of Numbers* at the recent Nexus Conference.”

– Watch here.   (* not the Book of Numbers.)

Marriage in the World Today — At the crossroads of Christian and non-Christian dispute

From Phillip Jensen:

“One of the great points of conflict between Christians and the world is the topic of marriage.

Though it is part of God’s creation of the world, seen in Genesis 1 and 2, the effect of sin makes it strangely foreign to today’s society. There’s nothing new in this, as Christians were called to be different or holy in this area of life in the New Testament itself.

However, today’s discussion is about how different Christians are to be in an area of life where even non-Christian commentators are beginning to see the failure of Western civilisation.”

– Hear Phillip and Peter Jensen discuss at Two Ways News.

Moving to a five-day working week for the welfare of clergy

“We have always made clear to our new clergy that their stipend is not a salary for ‘services rendered’, but rather an allowance so they don’t have to work for a living.

Set free from that burden, they are able to adopt that particular lifestyle which is ministry—that is, giving of themselves to shepherding their sheep and seeking the lost…”

– Bishop of Bathurst Mark Calder shares his thoughts on the advantages of having a five-day working week for clergy.

The evangelical application problem — with Richard Coekin

From The Pastor’s Heart –

“We evangelicals, says Richard Coekin, have a problem – and it’s a preaching problem.

Richard Coekin says we are too often careless – his word– when it comes to application in preaching.

We work hard on exegesis, we labour to understand the original context and the author’s intent – but then we stop short. We leave our congregations with sound doctrine, but little direction.

Richard has just concluded 29 years as senior pastor at Dundonald Church in London and as the founding leader of the Co-Mission network across the UK capital. He now heads up Reach UK.

Richard’s new book, Apply: How to Preach the Bible for Real Life, is about to be released – and today he joins us to explore why good application is not an optional extra, but the very purpose of preaching.”

– Watch or listen here.

Kirsten Birkett on Proverbs — Church Society podcast

From Church Society:

“Kirsten Birkett discusses with Lee Gatiss her new commentary on Proverbs in the Hodder Bible Commentary series.”

– Listen here.

Why mission needs strategy: A conversation with Scott Sanders

The Australian Church Record speaks with Scott Sanders on why mission needs strategy –

“I went to college with a strong desire to plant churches in cross-cultural contexts, and that naturally drew me into the early stages of the church planting happening around 2008–2009.

Geneva Push was forming in response to the broader church planting momentum that was happening globally at the time.

I joined in June 2010, shortly after their first conference, and initially worked to build out the assessment process and coaching systems. There wasn’t much of a plan—just a bold vision to see hundreds of new churches evangelised into existence. It was an exciting, ambitious goal. …”

– Read Kirsten McKinlay’s interview of Scott Sanders here.

What God has Joined Together — The plan for sexual intimacy

From Phillip Jensen:

“As we continue to think about the creation of the man and the woman in the garden, we find marriage being introduced as the outcome of our sexual polarity.

The woman is created to the joy of the man. Consequently, the man is to leave his parents to ‘cleave’ to his wife. The old-fashioned verb to cleave has been changed in most modern translations. But the concept of sex inside the marriage cannot be changed. So Peter and I wander into a discussion about sexual intimacy in and out of marriage.”

– Listen at Two Ways News.

Wonderful help for reading the Bible in public

Many of us can give thanks for excellent public Bible reading in churches.

But how can we help church members read the Scriptures clearly and in an engaging manner?

Clifford Warne (1930 – 2003) was a much-loved Christian communicator and broadcaster.

Perhaps his greatest passion was to ensure that the Bible is communicated well.

In 1979, he and Paul White published, through the Anglican Information Office in Sydney, a small book entitled “For Reading Out Loud”.

In the introduction they state –

“Some people who think the Bible has nothing to say to them, do so not because they’ve read it, but because they’ve only heard it read.

An unprepared or careless reading of God’s Book meant to them blurring of meaning and boredom.

These are days of trained news readers on television and radio. Why should we not have skilful Bible readers in church?

For the reader, learning, using and mastering the few rules set out in this book will make the Scriptures live in a new way.

For those who listen, it can mean a new understanding of the Bible and a desire to read it for themselves.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER IN READING ALOUD IS

TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU READ
TO SOUND NATURAL and
TO MAKE THE MEANING CLEAR.

When words are spoken, the meaning is not in the words alone, but in

THE EMPHASIS
THE PHRASING and
THE EXPRESSION given to those words.”

In addition to writing on the subject, Clifford Warne gave many talks and lectures. Three, in particular, were often distributed on cassette tape.

Thanks to Russell Powell at Anglican Media Sydney, three key recordings are once again available and are wonderful resources for individuals and churches.

They are –

The art of reading the Bible aloud.

A storyteller’s secrets.

How to hold an audience.

They are all accessible from this page at SydneyAnglicans.net.

We can be thankful for excellent Bible reading in churches – Let’s help all who read do it well!

Spiritual Conflict

“In his Screwtape Letters CS Lewis observes that there are two equal and opposite errors that people fall into regarding the dark powers. One mistake is to disbelieve in their existence; the other is to believe in them to excess.

In Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 through 12, Paul the Apostle writes:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power… For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places…

Paul takes the reality of conflict in the world to another level…”

– John Mason urges us to see what we need in the struggle against the cosmic powers of this present darkness.

Be radical and read the Bible

From Murray Campbell in Melbourne:

“A challenge if you live in Melbourne. A challenge no matter your age, and especially if you’re part of Generation Z

Be radical and read the Bible!

Check out the latest on ‘Tomorrow’s Melbourne’ and how an upsurge of Bible reading in the UK could help us take the Bible more seriously here in Melbourne.”

– That’s the theme of his latest ‘Tomorrow’s Melbourne’ video.

Living and Leading in the Way of the Cross — Don Carson

From The Gospel Coalition’s Carson Center Podcast –

“In this lecture [from 1 Corinthians chapter 4], Don Carson emphasises the role of Christian leaders as servants of Christ and the importance of faithfulness, humility, and integrity in their leadership.

Carson urges Christian leaders to avoid pride, remain accountable to God, and uphold the way of the cross in their lives.

Carson stresses the importance of discipline and the need for leaders to serve as models of Christlikeness within the church and community.

He teaches the following:

– Listen here.

Photo: Don Carson at the Next Level Conference in 2016.

Church Society Podcast: George Whitefield

The latest Church Society podcast:

“Ros Clarke and Lee Gatiss talk about the controversial and brilliant George Whitefield.”

– Listen here.

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