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.

Getting the name right: revisionism

“By and large you don’t get too many Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on doors on the campus of a conservative evangelical theological college like ours. When they do, the odds are that the first question is, ‘What do you think is wrong with the world?’

It’s a searching question because it makes you try and boil down all your misgivings into as small a phrase as possible, preferably even a single word. It makes you focus. The short-hand answer is ‘sin’, and put less technically perhaps something like, ‘We have all loved ourselves at the expense of our love of God and of our neighbours.’

In a similar vein, Anglicans at the moment have to answer the question, ‘What do you think is wrong with the Anglican church worldwide?’ Because there’s a pretty widespread agreement something is. And while it is right to answer that question in terms of sin and a disordered love of self, it is also helpful to try and be a bit more specific…”

– Dr Mike Ovey at Oak Hill College in London reflects on last week’s address by Archbishop Eliud Wabukala at the FCA Leaders Conference.

‘Tearing the Fabric’ — 2012 edition

An updated edition of ‘Tearing the Fabric’ (‘The Episcopal Church: Tearing the Fabric of communion to Shreds’) has been produced by The American Anglican Council.

It’s a very useful resource – and a sobering reminder of how a denomination can lose the gospel.

It can be downloaded from the AAC website (PDF file).

The main sections:

Catalog of Heresies: Quoting Episcopal Church Leaders
Fruits of TEC‘s Theology
Declining Membership
Litigation, Uncanonical Acts, and Harassment

The uniqueness and sufficiency of Christ

Dr Mike Ovey, Principal of Oak Hill College, preached on Hebrews 1:1-4 at the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans Conference in London this week.

Watch his most encouraging, edifying and challenging exposition – at the GAFCON website.

You Have to Get Religion to Get Religion

“Charles (Chuck) Colson got religion, but those people who haven’t got it, do not get it. They keep missing the point of his imprisonment as they retell his story. Sometimes they even get the chronology wrong – and in this case the chronology is important.

Chuck wasn’t converted in gaol, but beforehand. In fact he was gaoled because he was converted. Not that he was a martyr; persecuted and imprisoned for his faith. He went to gaol as a criminal because he had ‘got religion’. If he had not got religion he most likely would never have gone to gaol. …”

– Phillip Jensen’s weekly column tells the real story behind Chuck Colson’s imprisonment.

Gambling is not a numbers game

“I applaud Mr. Wilkie for his efforts in championing poker machine reform amidst broken promises from the Federal Government.

However, the fact that this issue is only on the agenda because Mr. Wilkie holds a controlling vote demonstrates a sad state of affairs. The Government should repent of its opportunism…”

– The Bishop of Tasmania calls for a radical change in politics.

Long to reign over us

“It is characteristic of the Queen that, on the eve of her jubilee year, she should address the Commonwealth not by drawing attention to herself, but by preaching the Gospel in her annual Christmas broadcast. She has done this before, most notably at the turn of the millennium, but never as clearly as last year, when she spoke quite directly about human sin, the forgiving power of Christ and the need for each of us to be born again.”

– In his Editorial for Churchman Spring 2012, Gerald Bray writes about Queen Elizabeth II and her legacy. (PDF.)

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