Bishop JC Ryle’s new book
Bishop J C Ryle has a new book.
Well, sort of – it’s a collection of previously uncollected tracts entitled Distinctive Principles for Anglican Evangelicals, published by Church Society.
See the details here. We hope it will be available in Australia in due course.
“If you are ordering from Europe or overseas, please email us with your order, and we will send a link for you to make the payment.”
CMS NSW Summer School underway
CMS’ NSW Summer School is now well underway, with John Yates leading the main Bible Studies on Romans 1-8.
If you can’t be there, or missed the first two talks, CMS has made them available here.
Advancing the Gospel on the Front Line
As many gather for CMS Summer Schools around the country, this interview with Dr Tim Keesee, the man behind the Dispatches From the Front video series and book, is appropriate.
This interview is an extract from Ligonier Ministries’ Tabletalk magazine. The January 2015 issue is available as a free download, and is packed with encouraging and worthwhile articles, as well as a Bible reading guide on the theme of Wisdom.
This isn’t Rocket Science either
“Prior to Christmas, I shared the statistic that 58% of Australian church websites weren’t displaying Christmas service times. …
So I set out to discover what would happen if I emailed each church and asked for the Christmas church service times. In the 2 weeks before Christmas, I emailed the same list of 100 churches (regardless of whether or not they displayed service times on their website) and asked them a simple question…”
– Steve Kryger at Communicate Jesus does us all a service. Read it all. (What will be the results this Easter?)
Related: It’s not Rocket Science.
C.H. Spurgeon — Morning and Evening
This month’s free audio book from Christian Audio is C.H. Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening.
Looking for help in praying regularly in 2015?
Looking for help to pray regularly in 2015?
A number of apps for smart phones and tablets are now available to help you pray. One of the best is PrayerMate from the UK.
“Prayer is an amazing privilege, but it’s also really hard work (the apostle Paul compares it to a wrestling match!). PrayerMate is a Christian prayer app that seeks to help you actually pray for all the people and causes you care about.
PrayerMate brings all your prayer points together. Whether its your personal prayer points for friends and family, regular updates from some fantastic mission organisations, or the latest PDF prayer letter that just arrived in your inbox, PrayerMate puts it all together in one place and helps you get on and pray.”
It’s a free download for iOS and Android, and is recommended by people we know and love. Take the time to learn about it here.
More Bible reading plans for 2015
In addition to those reading plans mentioned earlier by Tim Challies, R.C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries has also compiled a comprehensive list.
Also see: How not to read the Bible in 2015 (SBTS).
What is Your Bible-Reading Plan for 2015?
Tim Challies provides links to a number of different Bible-reading plans.
Check them out, and be encouraged to commit to regular reading of God’s word in 2015.
(Photo: Smithton Church.)
Oak Hill Commentary magazine Winter 2014-15
The latest issue of Commentary, the twice-yearly magazine of Oak Hill College in London is now online.
Lots of good reading – the articles by Nick Tucker on A Confessing Church (page 11), Levi Booth on Identity in Japan (page 14), and David Potter on Philosophy (page 17) are good places to start!
The Best Possible Gift — the case for theological education
“Theological education is a costly business. Whether you are raising your own support, or whether it’s being funded by the church, it’s expensive to be trained for ministry. There’s a personal cost, too. Giving several years of your life to theological education is sacrificial. …
This short film looks at the case for theological training and features short interviews with people who are currently in training or who are now doing ministry in a wide range of contexts in the UK and Ireland…”
– A new resource from Oak Hill College in London.
The REAP Journal — to help you read God’s Word
Growing Faith (part of Youthworks) have just released an new Adult Edition of their REAp Journal.
From the blurb:
“If you’re training to be an athlete or concert pianist, you’ll no doubt have a daily workout or regime to get you to your goal. So, how do you train to be godly? By devoting yourself to the word of God and being disciplined in allocating time to its study and meditation!
Sounds difficult? It doesn’t have to be! This REAP Journal will help you to reach your spiritual goals with an easy-to-use format and a daily Bible Reading Program to keep you on track.
REAP stands for Read, Explore, Apply and Pray and is designed to make reading the Bible easy as a part of everyday life. There’s a version for Adults, Youth and Kids, with similar daily passages across all versions (with special consideration for each demographic), meaning that families can learn together just as easy as individuals can.”
– You can get it here. (Youth edition, Kids’ edition.)
Christmas messages 2014
It’s time for Christian leaders to release their Christmas messages.
Please pray that all will speak clearly and plainly of the saving gospel of Christ.
We’ll post messages as we find them (in no particular order).
- Archbishop Philip Freier, Melbourne.
- Bishop Trevor Edwards, Vicar General, Canberra & Goulburn.
- Bishop Ian Lambert, Bishop to the Australian Defence Force.
- Bishop Bill Ray, North Queensland.
- Bishop John Harrower, Tasmania.
- Archbishop Glenn Davies, Sydney.
O Christmas Tree
This year’s Christmas video from Revival in the UK is out. It’s a little quirky – yet has an excellent message. Watch and share.
Previous videos:
Christmas in Dark Place.
Santa vs. Jesus.
Wise Judgements
“For many years biblical scholars have baulked at the idea that Jesus was a transcendent figure and have busied themselves redefining him in humanistic terms.
Is this due to the ‘secular’ spirit of the age that airbrushes the Almighty from the public square?
For a period in early the twentieth century some thought there was little we could know about Jesus, for example, in 1934 Rudolph Bultmann declared, ‘We can now know almost nothing about the life and personality of Jesus’. The pendulum has swung back so that in 1985 Ed. Sanders could say, ‘We can know pretty well what Jesus was out to accomplish… we can know a lot about what he said…’.”
– New Testament scholar Bishop Paul Barnett has published some fascinating work he’s been doing on the judgements of Jesus.
‘Logic on Fire’ trailer
At The Gospel Coalition, Justin Taylor shares the trailer for a forthcoming film, “Logic On Fire: the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones”.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…