Being a Christian is not the same as being Religious

Tim Thorburn writes at The Gospel Coalition Australia –

“One of the interesting facts from early church history is that Christians were accused of being atheists.

They didn’t do the religious things that were expected by their contemporaries in the Roman world. That might be a surprise to many in the secular West, where Christians usually look obviously more religious than their secular neighbours. After all, Christians have faith, they pray, they attend worship services. Many go further by wearing crosses, carrying Bibles, fasting, and orientating their lives around priests, festivals, saints and pilgrimages.

As many of us witness an uptick in interest in religion, including Christianity, especially among young men, I wonder what these new inquirers are attracted to. Is it Jesus and his saving work? Or is it religion, with the trappings of symbols and rituals?

Exploring why the early Christians were accused of being atheists could be a helpful exercise for us in this moment. …”

– Read it all here.

Themelios Volume 51 Issue 1

The latest issue of Themelios – Volume 51 Issue 1 – was published last month.

Free to download, this is a special issue in honour of D.A. Carson.

There are many contributions, including those by Gary Millar, Graham Cole, Peter Orr, Brian Rosner and David Peterson.

It’s available from The Gospel Coalition – here’s a direct link to the PDF version.

Targeted and Engaged Evangelism to the Eastern Orthodox

Archie Poulos reviews and commends Certainty for Life: An invitation to those in Eastern Orthodoxy by John Diacos –

“I have spent most of my ministry seeking to evangelise Greek Orthodox, and in that pursuit John and I have sometimes laboured together and sometimes in parallel with each other. I have great delight in commending this book.”

– Read about it at The Gospel Coalition Australia.

Is a mother different from a father?

“Australia has celebrated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day annually since the 1930s. Some might think that these days are a bit of a relic from the past, when traditional gender roles were more accepted and family structures were much less diverse. Couldn’t we now just have a Parents’ Day instead?

I don’t hold particularly strong opinions on whether observing these days is ultimately positive or negative for us as a society. But I do think that having separate days for mothers and fathers offers an opportunity to celebrate something that is increasingly absent from our community: the recognition that a parent is not just a generic, substitutable role. A parent is either a mother or a father. …”

– Just in time for Mother’s Day, The Australian Church Record has published this excerpt from Jocelyn Loane’s book on Motherhood.

King’s Birthday Conference 2026 set for Monday 8th June

From Two Ways Ministries –

“As in previous years, KBC 2026 will be held on the public holiday Monday, 8 June, from 1:30 -5:00pm at Moore Theological College..”

– Registration is now open.

“Our registration rate will increase on May 25 (10 working days prior to conference) so please register early to ensure a seat in the Marcus Loane Hall; we expect to fill it to capacity, and will have late registrations seated in an overflow room.

For those living outside Sydney who cannot get to Newtown, the Conference will be live-streamed …”

More from Phillip Jensen –

“The topic this year is Prophecy Today. It is a very important topic, which is under such controversy today.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Biblical Christianity is a prophetic religion – built on God’s revealed word. Therefore, nothing is such a threat to our faith as the lies Satan puts into the mouths of false prophets. Discerning prophets and prophecy is a very important activity.

Jesus warns us to beware of false prophets (Matthew 7:15), while Paul warns us not to despise prophecies (1 Thessalonians 5:20). How do we know the truth and what will indicate the falsehood of prophets and prophecies?

We are commanded to ‘earnestly desire to prophesy’ for prophecy builds, encourages, and consoles the church.

But how are we all to prophesy without causing confusion, and when are we to remain silent?

WHY IS IT CONTROVERSIAL?

At one end of the spectrum, the Charismatic Movement is keen to promote prophecy and prophets who speak in ways that contradict and undermine Biblical revelation.

At the other end of the spectrum, Liberal Christians are promoting as prophets people who preach the ‘correct’ political messages of social justice, and use the references to women prophesying to set aside any distinction between men and women.

And in the middle of the spectrum are confused Bible believers, unsure of what the Bible does teach about prophecy.

The King’s Birthday Conference is always a great time to catch up with old friends, a great place to make new friends, and an important place to bring friends to hear God’s word.”

New thinking on addressing the collapse in ministry recruitment and training?

From Dominic Steele at The Pastor’s Heart –

“In the UK there are serious signs of a narrowing pipeline into ministry recruitment and training. Fewer people are coming forward through some of the traditional routes. Traineeships are under pressure. Residential theological education is changing.

And churches are asking: Where will the next generation of pastors, evangelists, church planters and ministry leaders come from?

In Australia, it is not the same story, but there is a similar question. Geoff Folland has argued that the old model of the young, full-time, residential theological student is no longer the dominant reality. Colleges face rising compliance costs, changing student profiles and tighter finances. And, churches, apprenticeships, parachurch organisations and mission agencies are now doing more of the early work of formation.

So is this a Bible college problem? A local church problem? A recruitment problem? A funding problem? Or an ecosystem problem?

Orlando Saer is Senior Pastor of Christ Church Southampton, Chair of Trustees of 9:38 and part of the team behind the Yarnton Gospel Workers Trust launched last week — a new UK initiative seeking to remove blockages and multiply gospel workers for the harvest.”

– Watch or listen here.

The Temple of the Holy Spirit — Our embodied future

From Phillip Jensen –

“The commandments of 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 are obvious: flee sexual immorality and glorify God in your body.

However, Paul does not simply give commandments; he gives the rationale behind them. The rationale has to do with the meaning of the body in his thinking in terms of our creation, our resurrection, and our marital union with Christ.

This densely argued paragraph provides for us a Christian understanding of ourselves as well as our motivation to live Christianly.”

– Listen at Two Ways News.

On ‘Worship Nights’

Mikey Lynch at The Gospel Coalition Australia shares some observations –

“I have observed an uptick in stand-alone ‘worship nights’ in Australia in the 2020s—that is, Christian prayer and praise communal singing events. I hear of churches and inter-church conferences hosting special ‘worship nights’; there are even once-off inter-church events, often hosted by informal parachurch groups.

These kinds of events have strong appeal among those under thirty.

In this article, I give some notes on this phenomenon, concluding with words of caution and calls for discernment. …”

– Read here.

John Newton: Mastermind and mentor of early Australian Anglicanism

“On 8 July 1777, Reverend John Newton confessed in his diary to binge-reading the latest bestseller: Captain James Cook’s A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, published that same year. It caught Newton’s imagination, but it also caught his evangelical heart: he prayed that the gospel would ‘arise and shine upon’ people of ‘unknown regions’.

Newton didn’t know it then, but his Lord had a time and a plan for those souls. Within seven years, Newton himself would play a crucial role in launching and nurturing the first Christian mission in Australia. …”

– Again, give thanks to the Lord for John Newton. At the Moore College website.

The clarity of Scripture and church gatherings

James Chen writes at The Australian Church Record –

“In the wake of the technological developments that churches went through during the COVID lockdowns, I explored different live and recorded videos of gatherings that occurred locally and globally. What it provided me was an insight into the flavour of church services across denominations and regions.

Something I was struck by was the disproportionate number of Protestant gatherings that would say, or have on their church website, something to the effect of how much they valued God’s word, yet would then have no more than one section of Scripture read in the service, usually a Bible reading preceding the sermon. …”

– A challenge and an encouragement for all churches.

The College for the Colony

Ever wondered why Moore College is called “Moore College”?

– This infographic for the 170th anniversary of the founding of the College introduces Thomas Moore.

Richard Johnson: Laying the foundation stone of the Australian evangelical church

“When we think of the great evangelical movements of the late eighteenth century, our minds often turn to the Clapham Sect, those remarkable men and women whose faith reshaped British public life and whose influence extended around the world.

Figures such as William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton and Hannah More loom large in this story. Richard Johnson, the first evangelical chaplain to Australia, does not.

Johnson was never formally part of the Clapham Sect, nor was he a central figure in the closely related Eclectic Society, a small, but influential gathering of evangelical clergy and laypeople committed to deep theological reflection and gospel advance. And yet, without these two groups—and the prayerful vision that animated them—Richard Johnson would almost certainly never have set foot on Australian soil. …”

– Moore College Principal Mark Thompson reminds us of the legacy of Richard Johnson.

Context, Context, Context — Applying biblical thinking

From Phillip Jensen –

“Hard passages of the Bible are great passages. The reason that they are hard is because we are not thinking biblically. Wrestling with these hard passages gives us the opportunity to change our thinking in order to be aligned with biblical thinking.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 is notoriously difficult, and over the next two weeks, Peter and I are going to try to unravel some of its complexities.

We start today by looking at the context.”

– Hear Peter and Philip discuss at Two Ways News.

AI is coming for your Systematic Theology

Tim Challies warns of the dangers already present –

“A recent article at The American Scholar asks Who Is Blake Whiting?

Whiting appears to be the most prolific scholar of our age, sometimes publishing up to 13 books a week ‘on a host of complex archaeological and historical subjects, ranging from the collapse of Near Eastern civilizations in 1177 BCE to the recent discovery of a huge Silk Road-era city in Central Asia.’ He must be quite the individual!

But as you no doubt guessed, he is not an individual at all. Rather, Blake Whiting is fabricated, and the books under his name have been generated using AI. …

I want you to know about these books because I want you to be aware that this is happening. I want you to know it’s happening because it’s likely that things will get far worse before they get any better. I’ll first introduce you to this slop theology, then discuss the threat these books represent, and then tell you how you can identify them.”

– Read it all here.

Do I choose an old or new church?

“Many words are being written, and the occasional clickbait headline, to debate whether a revival is blowing across the land. The answer (as I’ve been saying for the last few years) is, no. As much as we pray and long for spiritual revival in Melbourne and across Australia, we are not witnessing revival. And yet, I do think there has been a nudge, a gentle opening of the curtains.

Evidence of this nudge is suggested by increased Bible sales and some churches indicating growth in Sunday attendance. There is anecdotal evidence of a slight turn from religious indifference (and animosity) toward curiosity. Dare I suggest, that even among Australia’s major newspapers, their tune toward Christianity has changed a little.

One of the quandaries facing young Aussies as they contemplate visiting a church and investigating Christianity is this: should I go for new or for old? …”

Murray Campbell at Mentone Baptist in Melbourne suggests some diagnostic questions to ask in considering what church to join –

“Do they read the Bible?

Do they teach from the Bible?

Does the preacher’s message match what the Bible teaches?

Do they teach that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone?

Do they believe in heaven and hell?

Do they preach the sufficiency of Jesus’ death on the cross?

Do they practice baptism and the Lord’s Supper in accord with the significance given in Scripture?

Is the church’s sexual ethics in line with the Bible.

Do the people love one another? Jesus tells us ‘the world will know you are my disciples, because you love one another’.

Do they welcome visitors with kindness and grace. Is the church safe for the unbeliever and inquirer?”

– See it all here.

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