The Wisdom of the Cross (2)

“In part one of this series I considered Paul’s question to the church in Corinth concerning wisdom, Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? (1 Cor.1:20). There I concluded that Christian wisdom is neither a matter of gaining kudos amidst worldly fashions nor the desire we have for God to do something spectacular to make us feel like we are on the winning side. Instead, we seek a world-view that rests on God’s actions for us in the cross of the Lord Jesus.

Next, I’d like to add Job’s question to the mix: In Ch.28:12 Job asks, Where shall wisdom be found?…”

– Dr David Höhne continues his series at the Moore College Faculty blog.

Defining Marriage webcast

On Tuesday night, the Australian Marriage Forum’s Defining Marriage webcast was seen in hundreds of churches across the country. The video from the evening has now been posted on their website and at Vimeo.

(John Anderson’s comments starting at 67 minutes 30 seconds are well worth watching.)

Welcoming Defence families

Defence members and their families probably move houses more than most and can face real challenges. Defence Anglicans have some ideas on how to welcome defence families to your church.

(The article complements the feature in the July 2012 issue of Southern Cross newspaper.)

The Atonement — Visual Theology

Tim Challies has published another chart in his ‘Visual Theology’ infographic series, this one to help explain what is meant by the Penal Substitutionary Atonement. See it here.

Audio file: The Thirty Nine Articles

A few years back, Lee Gatiss at The Theologian took the time to record a reading of The Thirty Nine Articles. It’s very helpful to hear them read.

You can find the audio here as a 9.5MB / 28 minute mp3 file.

(Or you can read the Articles here.)

 

Decline and Fall

“Practical Ethics, a webpage based at the University of Oxford, has an interesting post on research that suggests a society’s crime rate will be higher where there is widespread rejection of the notion of hell. …”

– Carl Trueman writes at Reformation21.

What Joy in Hell?

“Whatever we do or do not know about the details of hell, it is clear from Jesus’ teaching that it is so terrible and terrifying that we should do all in our power to avoid it. …”

– In his weekly column, Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen turns to a topic many gloss over.

The Wisdom of the Cross (1)

“Hardly a weekend goes by without a conference being held somewhere in Sydney at which Christians can gather together to hear the wisdom of the great and the good on various subjects – everything from how to be a leader, entrepreneur, evangelist, preacher, parent or spouse right through to the finer aspects of tasting a beer, dissecting a side of beef or cooking your way to the kingdom of God!

Sydney culture in general is extremely pragmatic as we all as individuals get about the business of constructing the good life for ourselves and/or for our families …

It is in this context that the Scriptures have some sobering questions about wisdom for us to consider and the first one to consider comes from Paul’s first letter to Corinth: Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? (1 Cor.1:20)…”

– Dr David Höhne at Moore College writes on the Faculty blog.

Thinking Christianly about singing and music

Rob Smith, Sydney singer / songwriter (among other things) has recorded a number of videos to help us think Christianly about singing and music and their place in what we do in church. Helpful and encouraging.

Each segment is 2 to 4 minutes in length.

1. Introduction
2. Christian music
3. The importance of singing
4. Singing and praise
5. Honouring God in song
6. Singing and the Holy Spirit
7. Singing and emotion
8. Singing and prayer
9. Singing and proclamation

Also, check out Rob’s invitation to the concert coming up on Saturday 21st July at St. Barnabas’ Broadway (tickets).

John Stott — classic messages from Ephesians

In 1975 and 1976, John Stott, the Rector of All Soul’s Langham Place, expounded Paul’s letter to the Ephesians at major Christian gatherings in the UK, US, Mexico, Canada, India, Nepal – and at the CMS Summer School at Katoomba. One result of his labours was his volume in The Bible Speaks Today series, “God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians”.

CMS has made available the audio recordings from five talks given at Katoomba on their Facebook page. Grab them while you can.

(And that’s also a good reminder to support the CMS Annual Appeal.)

Chappo unplugged

Richard Chin, National Director of AFES, recently interviewed much loved evangelist John Chapman. As Sandy Grant says at The Briefing, “Younger generations of ministers in Sydney and Australian evangelicalism should hear this for personal edification but also to understand something of our heritage.”

You will be greatly encouraged and helped by investing 86 minutes of your time in watching Chappo. Classic. And give thanks for our dear brother.

Heavenly tours?

“Travelling to heaven and back is where it’s at today. Don Piper spent ninety minutes there and sold four million copies of his account. Colton Burpo doesn’t know how long he was there, but his travel diary has surpassed 6 million copies sold …  There have been others as well, and together they have established afterlife travel journals as a whole new genre in Christian publishing…”

– Tim Challies has serious misgivings about popular books you’ll find at some Christian bookshops.

‘Redefining Marriage’ — Archbishop Peter Jensen’s letter to Sydney Anglicans

In the light of the forthcoming vote in Federal Parliament, Archbishop Peter Jensen has written to all parishioners in Sydney Diocese on the subject of same-sex marriage.

“However hard it may be and whatever pressure we may face, we do not love our fellow Australians if, knowing God’s grace and his written will, we do not speak up and point them to God’s plan for the flourishing of human relationships.”

In his accompanying e-mail to Rectors, he said, “The whole controversy gives us an opportunity to teach on the subject of marriage and to commend the Biblical way of life in our churches and to the community.”

The Archbishop made it clear that he respected the decision of Rectors as to how and if they would pass his letter on to parishioners. The text of his letter follows:

Redefining Marriage

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is likely that sometime in the near future our parliamentary representatives will be asked to vote on a proposal to change the legal definition of marriage in order to allow for same-sex unions to be dignified by this name. I am writing to you to urge you to oppose this move as out of keeping both with the word of God and also of the best interests of our community.  Read more

Archbishop Peter Jensen in the Sydney Morning Herald on same-sex marriage

The Sydney Morning Herald has published this opinion-piece by Archbishop Peter Jensen –

“We are in the midst of a sustained and brilliantly orchestrated campaign to radically alter the marriage laws of this country to allow same-sex marriage.

Three slogans carry the message: ‘marriage equality’, ‘marriage won’t change’, ‘it’s inevitable’. Of course, the difficulty with slogans is that they are not arguments and, so, are hard to refute, except by slogans in return…”

– Read it all here, ‘Stylish same-sex campaign glosses over real issues’. Worth reading and passing on.

‘Sexegesis’ book launch in Hobart

Bishop of Tasmania, John Harrower, reports –

“Today we launched Sexegesis – An Evangelical Response to Five Uneasy Pieces on Homosexuality at St David’s Cathedral, Hobart. I would like to express my thanks to the Revd Joel Kettleton and the Dean Richard Humphrey, for their work in putting together this event.

Here is the introduction which I gave at the book launch:

2012 marks the 50th Anniversary of the Anglican Church of Australia. At the recent Synod of our Diocese we gave thanks that our founding documents affirm that we are part of the apostolic and worldwide church, that we are biblically based and that we are Christ centered.

As Anglicans then as we deal with issues such as homosexuality we do so in this context.

We are part of a worldwide Anglican communion and need to listen to that body which has clearly stated in the Lambeth Resolutions (1.10 – Human Sexuality) that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Scriptures.

As that resolution makes clear and the constitution of our Church says we take the Scriptures “as being the ultimate and standard of faith given by inspiration of God.” The Church is not at liberty to “ordain anything contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” (Article XX of the Anglican Church’s 39 Articles of Religion).  We need to keep coming back to Scripture, to wrestle with it, understand and apply it, even when it corrects and challenges us and our culture. Read more

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