How can pastors support couples in our churches impacted by abortion
“There are women in all our lives and churches who have had an abortion. Men, women and children who have been touched by abortion – in our workplaces, churches and families.
Senior pastors need to stop turning a blind eye to this subject and talk much much more about abortion in church.
New Testament scholar and former nurse Dr Claire Smith says we are currently not meeting this pastoral and evangelistic need. …”
– Dr. Claire Smith speaks with Dominic Steele at The Pastor’s Heart.
Also at The Pastor’s Heart this week, Dominic speaks with Mez McConnell and Matthew Spandler Davidson about Abuse in the church – with particular reference to recent events.
A Short Book About Paul: The Servant of Jesus — review
“Historians don’t merely assemble a puzzle. Before considering how the pieces fit together, they need to determine which ones belong in the box. Some subjects offer an abundance of resources, while others leave us wishing for more.
The historian and theologian Paul Barnett combines mastery of his craft with a subject that provides plenty of pieces for someone who knows where to look. The result is that this portrait of the Apostle Paul, while relatively brief … offers a rich presentation of his life and work.”
– Moore College’s Philip Kern reviews A Short Book About Paul: The Servant of Jesus by Paul Barnett. At SydneyAnglicans.net.
Nexus20 — How to Save a City
The Nexus20 conference is set for Monday 23rd March at a new location: Moore College – and at a new time: 2:00 – 8:00pm.
From the Nexus website:
“No matter where God has placed us – in the suburbs, in the inner city, in a regional or rural area – our task is to bring the message of salvation to the people we’ve been given to serve.
At this year’s Nexus conference, we’ll be thinking about what it means to be part of God’s extraordinary saving purpose in the particular place we’ve been given to reach, how important the local church is in that purpose, and how God uses decidedly ordinary people and methods to do extraordinary things.
Our focus this year will be on how to bring salvation to our particular city (of Sydney) and the challenges we face in our gospel fellowship (that is, among Sydney ministry workers, many of us Anglicans).
But as always, we’ll be having this discussion with one eye on the broader fellowship around Australia (and beyond) who tune in to Nexus via Livestream. Our hope is that by talking honestly and theologically about our own patch, we can encourage, challenge and stimulate everyone to do the same, wherever God has placed us.”
– Watch the promo video, and register, at the Nexus website.
Feeling anxious about ‘You’? Why modern Identity can be crushing
“Whereas as our ancestors drew their identity from their place in society, we moderns are liberated from that dependency. We can be our own people. We don’t care what others think.
Except we do.
If we’re to feel good about ourselves, we crave other people’s validation. We need it, if we’re to feel worthy. …”
– Akos Balogh writes about identity and security at The Gospel Coalition Australia.
Archbishop Sir Marcus Loane remembers the beginnings of the Sydney University Evangelical Union
Forty years ago, members of the Sydney University Evangelical Union were thanking God as they remembered the founding of the SUEU in 1930.
They marked the jubilee by proclaiming Christ in ‘The Jubilee Mission’.
As part of the preparations, on 30 April 1980, then Archbishop of Sydney, Sir Marcus Loane spoke at the SUEU’s End of Term Service.
In his 19 minute address, Sir Marcus recalls the beginnings of the Evangelical Union, fifty years earlier.
Listen on this page in our Resources section.
Most encouraging.
How Jesus helps my fear
“Since the death of my paternal grandmother on 26 June 2018, my family has had to mourn the loss of three family members. Preaching at two of the three funerals, I have been forced to reflect on death personally more than I ever have before. …”
– At The Australian Church Record, Ben George points us to the big picture of God’s purposes.
Jesus the People Person
“You would expect that if God showed up in the world that there would be something to indicate his arrival. A virgin birth was a pretty good clue along with the centuries of prophesies about his coming.
My assumption would be, if God was to join us, His teaching would be significant. Indeed God joining us has shaped western society – our ethics, our politics, our literature, our culture, our relationships and brought untold blessings to the world.
I reckon if God is God then you’d also expect He’d perform some miraculous indicators of His presence.
Well for the past few weeks I have been trying to introduce you to the God who visited, to Jesus Christ, for whom the press is very mixed. …”
– Bishop of Armidale Rick Lewers continues his series to encourage people to consider Christ. Previously, he has written about ‘Jesus the Teacher’ and ‘Jesus the miracle man’.
Some Best Practices for Public Reading of Scripture
“I’m convinced that the public reading of Scripture is an important and too often overlooked aspect of our worship services. We spend considerable time preparing sermons, prayers, and music for our gatherings, but often Scripture reading is reduced to something mechanical. Like most things we do, with some attention, we could improve a bit in how we read the Bible in our churches.
What follows is something I wrote up for our church …”
– At The Gospel Coalition, Erik Raymond shares some helpful thoughts.
Related:
The Art of Reading Aloud – Clifford Warne.
“Master communicator and story-teller, Clifford Warne teaches how to read the Bible aloud, sound natural and make the meaning of the text clear.” – from SydneyAnglicans.net.
Image: Clifford Warne and Toto on Anglican Television’s Sing Me a Rainbow, with thanks to Reason for Hope on Vimeo.)
“All statements about Christ … bear theological significance”
“Christians are defined by one primary mark: we believe in and are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. …
It is not enough to simply say ‘I love Jesus’ or ‘I follow Jesus.’ Many who say they love Jesus and follow Jesus do not follow Jesus as he has revealed himself in Scripture. As the confession reminds us, we must confess that we believe in ‘Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord’ – the Jesus whose true identity and mission is revealed in Scripture.”
– Albert Mohler has published an excerpt from his new book about The Apostles’ Creed.
Straw Men in the Religious Discrimination debate
An article in the Sydney Morning Herald (“Religious discrimination bill gives Australians ‘right to be a bigot’”, J Ireland, SMH 30 Jan 2020) sets up a number of “straw man” arguments so that it can knock them down and claim that the proposed Religious Discrimination Bill is harmful. I disagree.
The first paragraph offers some examples of things that the Bill ‘could make it legal’ to say…”
– Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia looks at the arguments used in an article published in The Sydney Morning Herald. Is it actually “an argument against free speech, and for authoritarianism”?
New concerns over Victoria’s proposed banning of ‘conversion practices’
“As a Victorian, I have a moral obligation to report to authorities personal knowledge of alleged child abuse. As a pastor of a church, I have both a moral and legal duty to report knowledge of or suspicions of child abuse. Mandatory reporting is a social good. Even without the legal requirement, one’s natural concerns for a child’s wellbeing would automate contacting the police.
In Victoria, under new laws being proposed by the Andrews Government, I can be imprisoned for 12-18 months, for speaking up against the psychological and physical trauma inflicted upon children by gender warriors and dangerous medicos who work to change a child’s gender or sex. …”
– Murray Campbell in Melbourne warns of proposed legislation in Victoria.
A fresh translation of Ephesians
As a follow up to his helpful series on Ephesians, Lionel Windsor at Moore College has posted his own translation of the letter for your edification.
Submission on Second Draft of Religious Discrimination Bill
Associate Professor Neil Foster writes about the Second Draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill –
“In short, I think this legisation is an important step in improving protection of religious freedom in Australia, and the second draft is an improvement on the first. But I recommend some clarification or change of approach in the following areas:
- Defining Religious Belief – I recommend that the way that the courts should determine whether a claim to religious belief is justified should focus on sincerity rather than courts examining “reasonableness” ; I also think that the bar of “unlawfulness” determining what beliefs cannot be protected at all needs to be raised to mainly cover serious criminal offences;
- Who is protected by the Bill? – I suggest that the Bill ought to protect religious groups as well as individuals; in this context I think that the limits on protection based on the concept of “commercial activity” need to be removed, though I agree that the kind of organisations protected need to be limited in other ways;
- Who is bound by the Bill? – I agree that, as at present, both individuals and groups should be bound not to religiously discriminate; but I think the exemption given to government bodies from the provisions relating to religious free speech outside working hours should be rolled back;
- The limits of protection – I argue that cases where religious freedom can be over-ridden should be limited to those where it is “necessary” in protection of important fundamental rights, as spelled out in the ICCPR art 18(3);
- Protecting religious free speech – I argue that the good initiative protecting statements of religious belief in clause 42 should also be extended to “vilification” claims, so long as they do not contravene the limits set out in the clause itself and defined by the Commonwealth;
- Conscientious objection by health practitioners – I argue that the complicated provisions protecting conscientious objection to certain procedures by health practitioners need to be improved;
- The Religious Freedom Commissioner – I support this new position but argue that the person concerned should be clearly shown to understand the issues facing religious citizens;
- A note on charities – I support the current provision ensuring that advocacy of traditional views on the nature of marriage not disqualify a body from being recognised as a charity, and suggest a further change to make this even clearer.”
Pursuing Sanctification – God’s work or ours?
“John Owen says Christians need to ‘be killing sin, or it will be killing you.’
Yet from my experience most Christians aren’t employing everything they have at their disposal to kill sin or to pursue sanctification in any regard. The most I hear about this is the throwaway line, ‘I’m struggling with X sin’ but upon further questioning often those who say this aren’t struggling at all with a sin; they’ve often simply identified that they have a persistent sin, and yet do nothing about it.
Then when I reflect on my own fight with sin, I’m ashamed to realise I too often fall into the same trap of identifying sin without fighting it. I started to consider why this is the case for me. Why is it that I know about my sins, but I don’t fight them? And I have come to the conclusion that I (and I suspect many others) don’t fight sin because I don’t know what my role is in sanctification.
In order to figure it out I had to understand three things …”
– Daniel Bishop writes on what should be of vital interest to every Christian – at The Australian Church Record – Part 1 and Part 2.
Giving thanks for Richard Johnson
This Australia Day long weekend, pause to give thanks to the Lord for the Rev. Richard Johnson, Chaplain to the First Fleet and first Chaplain to the Colony of New South Wales.
232 years ago this weekend, the First Fleet arrived at Farm Cove. 232 years ago next weekend, Johnson preached at the first church service at Farm Cove.
Read about Richard Johnson and pray that the Lord will call many into the service of Christ’s gospel in our land.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…