J I Packer interviewed by Carl Trueman

Carl Trueman recently interviewed Dr J I Packer. He writes, “the testimony to God’s grace in his own life, his reflections on the Puritans and on Lloyd-Jones and his advice to young ministers is invaluable”.

Wonderful interview – watch it here (16 minutes).

BCP’s 350th!

“I love my historical anniversaries. (Regular readers will know this, as do members of my church!) Anyway, 350 years ago today, on 19 May 1662, The Act of Uniformity received the royal assent in England. This enforced use of the Book of Common Prayer. … Today I want to share a little about the famous 1662 BCP, as it’s often called for short.”

– Sandy Grant gives thanks for the BCP – at The Briefing.

1662 and all that

A talk given by John Richardson –

“1662 and all that: How the Prayer Book changed the Church of England, and how the Church of England Changed the Prayer Book

An address given in our Benefice to mark the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer

On March 21st 1556, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake in Broad Street, Oxford. A metal X still marks the spot where you can, if you’re very careful, briefly pause in the middle of the traffic. The charges against him of treason and heresy both merited the death penalty…”

– Read it all here.

‘A table of the Lord’

Dr Barry Newman has been blogging on the meaning of the expression in 1 Corinthians 10: 21 –

“Focussing on the phrase, ‘a table of the Lord’, the aim of this blog series is to present a case that suggests that this phrase has nothing to do with any practice associated with a sacrament…”

– Barry has now posted the full series as a single PDF file on this page. You can follow his arguments and see what you think.

Nehemiah Found!

“Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars found fragments (and, in some cases, fuller scrolls) of every biblical book except for Esther and Nehemiah. Until now…”

– George Athas at Moore College has news of an interesting find.

9Marks Journal – Wanted: Apostolic Pastors

“Jesus hasn’t called our churches to fulfill the great commission alone. So look up, look out, and see what encouragement and unexpected fruit God may have in store for you as you work to bless other pastors and churches…”

– The latest 9Marks Journal looks at caring for the work of the gospel outside your local patch.

Making the most of the Cross

“The second sermon I ever gave was a cracker. People told me! It was logical, engaging and humorous. I succeeded in explaining, illustrating and applying the Bible in a way that captivated the listeners. My girlfriend (now wife) even started to believe that I might have some hope of becoming a preacher! But, it’s time for public confession. I basically pinched the whole talk, idea for idea, point for point, from John Chapman.

I don’t think I was the first to do this, and I’m certain that I wasn’t the last. You see, I’d looked over the Bible passage again and again, and I couldn’t see any way to make it clearer than Chappo…”

– Dave McDonald commends Chappo’s book Making the Most of the Cross.

Prayers for Defence ministry

Our friends who minister to Australia’s Defence personnel would be very glad of your prayers on a regular basis.

There’s the current Prayer Diary (pdf) and other prayer resources at this link.

Simple Bible reading advice

“Wherever you settle on this question, be sure to ignore headings as much as possible. In fact, the best exegesis experience I ever had in the gospel of Mark was using a text without headings, paragraphs, or verses. Just 40 pages of a block of text with page and line numbers. A wonderful teaching tool I used for years and highly recommend.”

– In a discussion about ‘the spirituals’ in 1 Corinthians 12, Bill Mounce offers this advice for reading the Scriptures.

Same-Sex Marriage ‘makes a lot of sense’

“Same-sex marriage makes sense if you assume that the individual is the center of the universe, that God—if he exists—is there to make us happy, and that our choices are not grounded in a nature created by God but in arbitrary self-construction…”

– Michael Horton’s piece at The White Horse Inn is well worth reading. (h/t Tim Challies.)

What I say is who I am!

“When a lot of our time is spent within the Christian community, or when we talk about Christian things with fellow-believers rather than non-believers, we easily get used to what we sound like and it just sounds normal. To us, the words we say mean what we know they mean. But for others, the words we use may be giving a very different signal…”

– Greg Anderson, Head of the Missions Department at Moore College, appeals to Christians to think about how we communicate.

The Working Mother

“If you want to divide a church, cause a rift in a family, ruin a dinner party, and bring hatred upon yourself – raise the issue of working mothers. Few subjects create more heat and antagonism than this one. There are not many more sacred cows, nor more strident voices bullying opposition into silence, than this topic.

So most people keep their wisdom to themselves. And woe-betide any man who cares to venture an opinion. He is not a mother, does not understand, has a vested interest in having somebody to stay at home and serve his needs and never adequately shares the housework, so has no right to speak. Thus, with nervous fingers I approach the keyboard, remembering that there is not much difference between a brave man and a fool…”

– Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen approaches a hot topic in his weekly column.

Evolution’s End? President Obama calls for Same-Sex Marriage

“Is President Obama’s “evolution” on same sex marriage finally complete? His call for the legalization of same-sex marriage yesterday is an historic and tragic milestone. An incumbent President of the United States has now called for a transformation of civilization’s central institution. And yet, no observer of this president could be surprised. The arrival of this announcement was only a matter of time…”

– Dr Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, looks at the unsurprising announcement from the American President.

Related: New York Times story.

Happy Birthday, New Bible Dictionary

“This month marks the 50th anniversary of The New Bible Dictionary, first published by IVP back in May 1962. Initially edited by James D. Douglas, it featured contributions from a host of evangelical scholars, including Australians like Leon Morris, Donald Robinson, Edwin Judge, Alan Cole, Broughton Knox, and more recently, Peter Jensen and David Peterson…”

– Over at The Briefing, Sandy Grant gives thanks for a most significant and enduring resource.

Is the Reformation over?

At last month’s Together for the Gospel conference, Carl Trueman spoke at a breakout session on ‘Why the Reformation isn’t over’. He gives five reasons why the Reformation matters in our churches today –

“The Centrality of the Cross, the Centrality of the Word, the Centrality of Assurance, the Centrality of the Pastor, and the Centrality of more than just the gospel.”

Audio here.

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