Inspiring People: John Anderson
Former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson speaks with Karl Faase at one of last week’s ‘Inspiring People’ events – about what’s wrong with Australian society. See the 1 min 45 sec clip on Vimeo.
(Thanks to SydneyAnglicans.net)
Bioethics and Future Hope lectures online
Audio files of the talks from last week’s New College Lecture Series on Bioethics And Future Hope by Professor John Wyatt are now available, courtesy of New College.
See the New College website to download the files.
At his Just in CASE blog, Trevor Cairney also provides helpful thoughts on the lectures:
Two worldviews: Two views of life and death
Bioethics and Redemption: Understanding pain, suffering and death
Bioethics and Future Hope: An Eschatological View of the Future
(Related: Tom Hargreaves recommends a Firefox plugin called DownThemAll for downloading links from web pages – useful for getting all the audio files linked from a page.)
Confess or Die audio
The audio files of the Confess or Die conference held at the Presbyterian Theological College in Sydney last month are now available for download, with thanks to the PTC.
“The contemporary church seems to have amnesia about what it really believes. This two day conference is here to jolt the church’s memory, and give it new life for mission. …”
Carl Trueman – Talk 1, Talk 2, Talk 3
John McClean – Bible and Confessions
Mark Thompson – The 39 Articles and Global Anglicanism
Geoff Tacon – The AFES Doctrinal Basis
Chris Balzer – WCF and Presbyterian Church of Australia (Text only)
Source: Confess or Die website.
Book Review — Words from the Fire
“We’ve seen a steady stream of books come from Mohler’s pen in the past couple of years. I have read them all and am quite comfortable saying that this one is the best of the bunch.”
– Tim Challies reviews Albert Mohler’s new book, “Words from the Fire: Hearing the Voice of God in the 10 Commandments”.
Edinburgh Expositors’ Conference audio
Audio files from the 2009 Expositors’ Conference held at the Faith Mission Bible College in Edinburgh the week before last have now been made available.
Iain Murray’s talk on The Expository Ministry of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones is well worth hearing.
The files are on the College website. (h/t Colin Adams.)
Focussed on Christ
“The holiest Christians are not those most concerned about holiness as such, but whose minds and hearts and goals and purposes and love and hope are most fully focussed on our Lord Jesus Christ.”
– J.I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit.
With thanks to Of First Importance.
9Marks eJournal on Church Discipline
“Western culture doesn’t seem to understand tough love. Love today means unconditional acceptance. If you love me with conditions, you don’t love me. You’re judgmental and intolerant.
God knows better. He knows we’re finite and fallen. Therefore, his love challenges us at the very points of our finitude and fallenness for our good, and that’s not comfortable.
Church discipline is just such an uncomfortable act of tough love, which is why 9Marks would like to spend two issues of the eJournal considering this important topic…”
– Jonathan Leeman introduces the current 9Marks eJournal – on the seldom-addressed topic of church discipline. Worth reading – it’s available as a 420kb PDF file.
Leadership on the front foot — 20% off
As a follow up to last week’s mention of the 2009 Australian Christian Book of the Year Awards, we thought you might be interested to know that Youthworks is selling Zac Veron’s ‘Leadership on the front foot’ for 20% off.
(You can download a sample chapter from their website.) Photo: Zac Veron, Bishop Paul Barnett and Don Howard receive their awards.
The Work of the Minister of the Gospel
“You have been called as minister in this congregation and you have been ordained in pursuance of that call. There are many functions which devolve upon you in that particular capacity, but I want to draw your attention particularly to two of these functions because I believe they are the two main functions which devolve upon the minister of the Gospel. …”
– Food for sober reflection from a 1960 ordination charge given by John Murray – with thanks to Martin Downes at Against Heresies.
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
There are a number of bands seeking to make hymns known to a contemporary audience. Page CXVI, apparently in Boulder, Colorado, is one – check out their website and hear (or buy) their album – at pagecxvi.com
“Inspiring People”: Connect09 initiative
Connect09 Executive Director Andrew Nixon writes:
I want to tell you about some important events planned for September and October, as part of the strategy to reach the Central Business districts of our cities. These events will be unlike any we have ever staged.
1. They are designed to attract outsiders, even those who don’t know a Christian – hence we will advertise extensively in the CBD.
2. They will feature high profile Christians in prominent positions, who will tell their life stories, including their testimony, during panel discussions.
3. These discussions will be integrated with an offer to explore the Christian faith through the “Life of Jesus” course using “The Essential Jesus”.
Events will be held over five weeks, either before, during or after work in the CBD, North Sydney and Parramatta, starting Tuesday 15 September.
The”Inspiring People” website is now live.
41 Questions to ask a potential Church
Colin Adams at Unashamed Workman has posted questions he asked of the elders at his new church prior to him being called.
There are a lot of sensible questions there.
Do we have free will?
Andy Naselli writes:
“This summer my church… hosted a “Difficult Issues Series” on Wednesday nights, and on June 10 I addressed this topic: “Do We Have a Free Will?”
MP3 (1 hour and 45 minutes including Q&A)
Handout (7-page PDF), Condensed Essay (4-page PDF).”
– thoughtful resources from Andy Naselli’s theology blog. (Andy serves as research assistant to Don Carson at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.) h/t Justin Taylor.
Mark Dever interviews Phillip Jensen
While in Sydney, Mark Dever conducted an interview for 9Marks with Phillip Jensen. Both Phillip and Mark speak about bringing change in a church.
Video of the interview, which runs for 16 minutes, is posted at phillipjensen.com.
Ryle on Sin
“Men will never come to Jesus, and stay with Jesus, and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come, and what is their need. Those whom the Spirit draws to Jesus are those whom the Spirit has convinced of sin.
Without a thorough conviction of sin, men may seem to come to Jesus and follow Him for a season, but they will soon fall away and return to the world.”
– Bishop J.C. Ryle, Faithfulness and Holiness: The Witness of J.C. Ryle, p. 114, 115. (Thanks to Erik Kowalker at J.C. Ryle Quotes.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…