Sexual Contentment — As called, so remain

From Phillip Jensen –

“As we work through 1 Corinthians 7, we come to a paragraph that seems to have nothing to do with glorifying God with your body in love, sex, or marriage. Suddenly, there is a paragraph about slavery and circumcision. But this is the most important passage in the chapter, for it is simply using these topics to discuss contentment, which is the key to love, sex, and marriage.

I hope you enjoy this discussion. Please remember that Two Ways News is provided free of charge by the generosity of friends. If you would like to become one of our generous friends, at the end of the transcript are details regarding how you could contribute.”

– Listen to Phillip and Peter discuss, at Two Ways News.

Also mentioned and good to check out:

Book Recommendations on Corporate Worship from Pastors

From 9Marks:

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16).

Is there a singer or musician in your church who is hungry to glorify God as they lead in corporate worship? Or do your members need to be taught that they’re all “part of the choir”?

9Marks asked a couple of pastors who have thought a lot about corporate worship for book recommendations on the subject.”

– See the recommendations here.

Among the comments –

“A collection of and commentary on liturgies from the 16th century, but the three introductory essays are worth the price of the book.”

“Of all the books on a biblical theology of worship, Peterson’s work is one of the most focused, thoughtful, and helpful. This will provoke your thinking on the ultimate reason the church gathers.”

King’s Birthday Conference 2026 — early bird prices ending soon

The King’s Birthday Conference 2026 is coming up on Monday 8th June at Moore College.

We’ve been reminded that the standard rates below will apply until the end of this week:

Regular $25, Concession $10

and that they increase from Monday 25th May.

“Is prophecy dead? Where have all the prophets gone?

Amos said he was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, and yet he was one of God’s prophets in Israel. Do we have prophets and prophecy today? Should we all prophesy or is it the task of some of us?

The issues around prophecy are many and varied; this King’s Birthday Conference will look particularly at a Biblical view of prophecy today.”

See the website for full details and registration.

Marriages in Mission

From Phillip Jensen –

“A mission church has many basic Christian morality issues to resolve.

The old culture, not built on the gospel, will have practices inconsistent with the gospel. But as with most cultures, these practices are assumed rather than thought out. The gospel revolutionises all cultures, and Paul the Apostle is dealing with the marriage cultures of Corinth in 1 Corinthians 7.

This episode of Two Ways News is a difficult unravelling of Paul’s advice on several complex issues.”

– Listen to Peter and Phillip Jensen discuss – at Two Ways News.

Should evangelicals sing Hillsong, Bethel and Elevation songs in evangelical churches? — with Mal York

This week from The Pastor’s Heart –

“Church music is one of the most formative and contested parts of local church life.

People join churches because of music. People leave churches because of music. But music is not a filler between the sermon and the prayers. The songs we sing put theology into people’s mouths and memories.

So how should we choose the songs we sing in church?

Mal York, the dean of students at Sydney’s Moore Theological College, joins us to talk about principles and pragmatics in choosing songs for church.

We discuss theological depth, singability, musical excellence, doctrinal drift, performance culture and what to do with songs from movements like Hillsong, Bethel and Elevation.”

– Watch or listen here.

A quote from Mal York to consider  –

“Hillsong, whether we like it or not …  see their songs as advertising for them. So, they see that whenever you sing a Hillsong song in your church, you are advertising their ministry. Now, some churches might be happy to advertise their ministry, but for me, I found it hard to sing those songs.” (At 13’20”.)

Sex in Marriage

From Phillip Jensen –

“When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he had to deal with many issues, some of which were raised by the Corinthians themselves. Several of the issues related to the subject of sexual morality.

Chapters 5 and 6 of 1 Corinthians conclude with the importance of serving God with our bodies, and chapter 7 opens with the issue of how to serve God with your body in the face of sexual immoralities. The answer is not in celibacy, but a right understanding of sex in marriage.

Peter and I are going to take several weeks to discuss the many issues raised in 1 Corinthians 7. This week, it’s sex in marriage, verses 1-6.”

– Listen at Two Ways News.

Themelios Volume 51 Issue 1

The latest issue of Themelios – Volume 51 Issue 1 – was published last month.

Free to download, this is a special issue in honour of D.A. Carson.

There are many contributions, including those by Gary Millar, Graham Cole, Peter Orr, Brian Rosner and David Peterson.

It’s available from The Gospel Coalition – here’s a direct link to the PDF version.

Is a mother different from a father?

“Australia has celebrated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day annually since the 1930s. Some might think that these days are a bit of a relic from the past, when traditional gender roles were more accepted and family structures were much less diverse. Couldn’t we now just have a Parents’ Day instead?

I don’t hold particularly strong opinions on whether observing these days is ultimately positive or negative for us as a society. But I do think that having separate days for mothers and fathers offers an opportunity to celebrate something that is increasingly absent from our community: the recognition that a parent is not just a generic, substitutable role. A parent is either a mother or a father. …”

– Just in time for Mother’s Day, The Australian Church Record has published this excerpt from Jocelyn Loane’s book on Motherhood.

The Temple of the Holy Spirit — Our embodied future

From Phillip Jensen –

“The commandments of 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 are obvious: flee sexual immorality and glorify God in your body.

However, Paul does not simply give commandments; he gives the rationale behind them. The rationale has to do with the meaning of the body in his thinking in terms of our creation, our resurrection, and our marital union with Christ.

This densely argued paragraph provides for us a Christian understanding of ourselves as well as our motivation to live Christianly.”

– Listen at Two Ways News.

On ‘Worship Nights’

Mikey Lynch at The Gospel Coalition Australia shares some observations –

“I have observed an uptick in stand-alone ‘worship nights’ in Australia in the 2020s—that is, Christian prayer and praise communal singing events. I hear of churches and inter-church conferences hosting special ‘worship nights’; there are even once-off inter-church events, often hosted by informal parachurch groups.

These kinds of events have strong appeal among those under thirty.

In this article, I give some notes on this phenomenon, concluding with words of caution and calls for discernment. …”

– Read here.

The clarity of Scripture and church gatherings

James Chen writes at The Australian Church Record –

“In the wake of the technological developments that churches went through during the COVID lockdowns, I explored different live and recorded videos of gatherings that occurred locally and globally. What it provided me was an insight into the flavour of church services across denominations and regions.

Something I was struck by was the disproportionate number of Protestant gatherings that would say, or have on their church website, something to the effect of how much they valued God’s word, yet would then have no more than one section of Scripture read in the service, usually a Bible reading preceding the sermon. …”

– A challenge and an encouragement for all churches.

Context, Context, Context — Applying biblical thinking

From Phillip Jensen –

“Hard passages of the Bible are great passages. The reason that they are hard is because we are not thinking biblically. Wrestling with these hard passages gives us the opportunity to change our thinking in order to be aligned with biblical thinking.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 is notoriously difficult, and over the next two weeks, Peter and I are going to try to unravel some of its complexities.

We start today by looking at the context.”

– Hear Peter and Philip discuss at Two Ways News.

AI is coming for your Systematic Theology

Tim Challies warns of the dangers already present –

“A recent article at The American Scholar asks Who Is Blake Whiting?

Whiting appears to be the most prolific scholar of our age, sometimes publishing up to 13 books a week ‘on a host of complex archaeological and historical subjects, ranging from the collapse of Near Eastern civilizations in 1177 BCE to the recent discovery of a huge Silk Road-era city in Central Asia.’ He must be quite the individual!

But as you no doubt guessed, he is not an individual at all. Rather, Blake Whiting is fabricated, and the books under his name have been generated using AI. …

I want you to know about these books because I want you to be aware that this is happening. I want you to know it’s happening because it’s likely that things will get far worse before they get any better. I’ll first introduce you to this slop theology, then discuss the threat these books represent, and then tell you how you can identify them.”

– Read it all here.

Judging the Unrighteous — Exclusion from the kingdom of heaven

From Phillip Jensen –

“If ever there is a passage of the Bible that has caused controversy and division today, it is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

There is not much doubt as to what the passage says or means, yet the application of this passage in the church and in society has led to great conflict.

In today’s episode, Peter outlines something of the background of the conflict within the Anglican Communion over the last two decades, before we turn to the real pastoral importance of this passage in the lives of the leaders.”

– Peter and Phillip Jensen discuss this very sobering topic at Two Ways News.

Widows in the household of God

From the Priscilla and Aquila Annual Conference 2026 –

“A deep dive into 1 Timothy 5:3-16.

Working closely through the passage, Lionel Windsor addresses key questions and tensions – how it relates to the rest of Scripture, what it means to honour widows, and how the church is to order its life as God’s family.

The talk highlights the importance of honour, responsibility, and care, and challenges the assumptions we often bring to age, family, and independence.

We are reminded that the church is not simply a gathering of individuals, but a household shaped by God’s word – where men and women are called to honour one another and live out the implications of the gospel together.”

– Fascinating and helpful.

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