Why you can rely on the Canon
“When it comes to the canon of Scripture, are 66, 39, and 27 the right numbers? How can we be sure which books belong and which do not?
Mark Mellinger recently sat down with Michael Kruger, president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, to discuss this ever-relevant issue of Scripture and canon.”
– Read the article and watch the video here.
Related: 10 Basic Facts about the NT Canon Every Christian Should Memorize.
Remembering the St. James’ Massacre
“Man’s evil trumped by God’s good – always!
Today (July 25) marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 massacre at St James Kenilworth in suburban Cape Town. A commemorative service will be held at St James today to mark the occasion.”
– David Mansfield writes at SydneyAnglicans.net.
The 1933 Election
The Australian Church Record takes a look back at one of the key Archbishop’s elections – that of Howard West Kilvinton Mowll in 1933.
Moore College Library Day — 27 July
Some think of him as “the flogging parson”, but across the Tasman, he is remembered as “The Apostle to New Zealand” and a missionary statesman. In January 1814, the Rev. Samuel Marsden brought the good news of Christ to the Bay of Islands.
As the Bicentenary approaches, Moore College’s 2013 Library Day will focus on the start of Marsden’s mission.
Update: College Principal Mark Thompson adds:
“Come to the 2013 Moore College Library Day and hear of the real Marsden and his lifelong passion to see the lost won for Christ.”
“In a few week’s time there will be a celebration of Samuel Marsden and particularly his involvement with the earliest Christian mission to New Zealand two hundred years ago this year. He will be the subject of a day conference at Moore College on Saturday 27 July. I must confess this is an aspect of the great man’s life of which I was blissfully unaware until recently.
Marsden is sometimes misunderstood and his enormous positive contribution to the cause of Christ in Australia and New Zealand overshadowed by such less than flattering epithets as ‘the flogging parson’.
Come to the 2013 Moore College Library Day and hear of the real Marsden and his lifelong passion to see the lost won for Christ. Hear too of his ceaseless efforts to overturn one of the most horrendous miscarriages of justice in those early years. Here was a man of integrity and courage who sought above all else to diligently serve his Lord.
Details of the Library Day can be found on this advertisement. See you there!”
Calvin’s chair
“Calvin’s original pulpit is no longer there within St. Pierre’s, though a similar one has been built on the spot he preached. Not many relics can survive nearly 500 years of history, but one remains: his chair.”
– Tim Challies continues his series on the history of Christianity in 25 objects.
The Billy Graham of the 19th Century
“Dwight L. Moody was to the 19th century what Billy Graham was to the 20th century.
Both spent the better part of their life as itinerant evangelists, travelling the world preaching Christ and calling upon people to repent and put their trust in him.
There were differences between the two men and differences between the two centuries in which they preached, but it is unlikely that anybody preached Christ to more people in the last two centuries than these two men…”
– Phillip Jensen gives some key background to the Men’s Collegiate Choir of the Moody Bible Institute, who are in Sydney this weekend.
The Indulgence Box
In his “History of Christianity in 25 objects”, Tim Challies uses an Indulgence Box to introduce readers to Martin Luther and his great discovery.
“It is a plain and unadorned box, notable only for a coin slot in the lid. Its significance is found far more in what it represents than it what it actually is. The pennies that slid through the slot and into the coffer represented a gospel of salvation by works, a gospel foreign to the Bible, a false gospel. Luther had recovered the great doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, and there would be no place for indulgences and no place for meritorious good works.”
The Gutenberg Bible
“The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin contains a copy of what many people consider the most valuable book in the world. The Gutenberg Bible is not only the oldest surviving book to be printed using moveable type, but also the first complete book to be produced with that technology…”
– Canadian Tim Challies has been surveying the History of Christianity in 25 Objects. This week, he turns to the Gutenberg Bible.
An introduction to the series, and a list of the posts so far, is here.
A New New Testament
“Hal Taussig and a team of eighteen scholars and religious leaders have chosen ten texts… to be published alongside the twenty-seven that comprise the New Testament and called it A New New Testament.
The ‘new’ texts are from the post-New Testament eras and are mostly ‘gnostic’ in character (an exception is the Acts of Paul and Thecla). In fact, these texts are not ‘new’ but go back almost to the era of the apostle and for the most part have been known for many years by historians. …
Hal Taussig and his colleagues say that the ‘canon’ of the New Testament was not really ‘closed’ until relatively modern times and that it is therefore valid to publish other texts with the twenty-seven of the biblical canon within the one book. This asserts that the canon is, in effect, elastic. It is an elastic canon, capable of the addition of new texts.
That was not the view, however, of church leaders in the 2nd and 3rd centuries…”
– Historian and New Testament scholar Bishop Paul Barnett responds to a new publication which is sure to get publicity. Read it before you get all those questions.
Related – some publicity: “A New New Testament” – ABC Radio National.
Majoring on the majors: Phillip Jensen on John Chapman
“God gives different gifts to different people. The important thing is not the gifts we’re given, but what we do with them. Being a godly man, Chappo always used his gifts for the gospel, and always for other people. He could have used them for himself, but he never did. That was his godliness on display. …”
– Phillip Jensen remembers John Chapman. He touches on a good deal of recent history, in both Sydney and Armidale. Edifying and interesting.
Related: John’s interview for AFES in 2012.
The Rise of the Papacy
“There are one billion Roman Catholics worldwide, one billion people who are subject to the Pope’s authority. How, one might ask, did all of this happen? The answer, I believe, is far more complex and untidy than Catholics have argued…”
– David Wells takes a look at the origins of the papacy. (h/t Justin Taylor. Photo: Desiring God.)
The Marcus I Knew and Loved
Greg Blaxland, former SAMS missionary, and well-known to many of our readers, has just published “The Marcus I Knew and Loved”, subtitled An Autobiographical Appreciation of Sir Marcus Lawrence Loane.
In his Preface, he writes,
The pages that follow do not purport to be a complete life story… Rather, they are a simple, loving, autobiographical appreciation of a truly great man of God…
Many share such a high estimate of Sir Marcus Loane.
It’s available as an e-book (in ePub, Mobi, or PDF formats), and can be purchased for $US9.99 here.
Related:
- Sydney Synod gives thanks for Marcus Loane.
- Archbishop Marcus Loane photo gallery.
- Remembering with gratitude Sir Marcus Loane, on the Centenary of his birth.
- Guarding the Gospel.
The Origin of the Thirty-nine Articles
“What were the Articles meant to do? … They were part of a wider program of establishing the Protestant character of the Church of England…”
– Church Society has posted online a 2011 Churchman article by Dr Mark Thompson on The Origin of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Available here as a PDF file.
Archbishop Jensen on the 225th Anniversary of Australia’s first Christian service
Here’s Archbishop Peter Jensen’s sermon given at St. Philip’s York Street on February 3rd 2013. It was the 225th Anniversary of the first sermon preached in the Colony of New South Wales, by the Rev Richard Johnson.
“Today we have little concept of the difficulties and dangers through which the First Fleet passed in order to deliver its cargo to these shores. Its arrival here was a masterpiece of organisation, skill and courage.
Given the ubiquity of modern communications, we can scarcely imagine what it was like to travel so far with little chance of report or cry for help. We forget how rarely European ships had passed this way and how uncharted the sea was. We can scarcely conceive how frail their ships were, how powerful the forces of nature that imperilled them, how lacking in the technical instruments by which the path may be found and the course traversed in safety.
I think we may say that in truth the voyage of the First Fleet was one of the greatest feats of seamanship in recorded history. …”
– Read it all at SydneyAnglicans.net.
225 years on — will we be faithful?
Two hundred and twenty five years ago, on Sunday February 3rd 1788, the Rev. Richard Johnson, Chaplain to the First Fleet and first Chaplain to the Colony of New South Wales, preached at the first Christian church service in Australia.
Craig Schwarze has some resources here – and there’s our own page on Richard Johnson here.
And it’s also worth taking the time to read Johnson’s Address to The Inhabitants of The Colonies Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island (PDF file) published in 1792.
Excerpt:
“This will be my daily prayer to God for you. I shall pray for your eternal salvation, for your present welfare, for the preservation, peace, and prosperity of this colony: and especially for the more abundant and manifest success of the Redeemer’s cause and kingdom, and for the effusion and out-pouring of his Holy Spirit, not only here, but in every part of the habitable globe.”
As the spiritual beneficiaries of men like Richard Johnson and John Newton (who recruited Johnson and who edited his ‘Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies…’), the question remains: Will we remain faithful to the gospel of the Lord Jesus, and will we be as concerned as these men were for those without Christ?
Related: Lord hast thou not a time for these poor benighted souls? – John Newton’s diary entry as he considered the needs of those without Christ in far-off lands.
(Archbishop Peter Jensen will be preaching at a service to mark the anniversary – 10:15am at St. Philip’s York Street.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…