The Jerusalem Declaration: Available for download
Last night, Sydney Synod enthusiastically endorsed GAFCON’s Jerusalem Declaration.
During the debate, it was suggested that the Declaration could be made available for churches – either to give copies to members or to display one in your church.
For your convenience, you can now download the Declaration as a PDF file – it’s formatted to fit two A4 pages – an 80kb download.
Create Conference to help churches communicate
Learn about the Create Conference being held in Sydney on November 15 – to help churches in effectively communicating with our culture.
Website at createconference.org.au
Got an iPhone? Get this.
If you have an iPhone – or an iPod Touch – the people at Desiring God have now formatted John Piper’s book Don’t Waste Your Life for your device. Of greater eternal significance than playing Cro-Mag Rally on the way into work.
You can get Don’t Waste Your Life for iPhone at Desiring God. (Hat tip: Justin Taylor.)
And if you don’t have an iPhone, you can still read the book online.
From the book:
For me as a boy, one of the most gripping illustrations my fiery father used was the story of a man converted in old age. The church had prayed for this man for decades. He was hard and resistant. But this time, for some reason, he showed up when my father was preaching. At the end of the service, during a hymn, to everyone’s amazement he came and took my father’s hand. They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were dismissed. God opened his heart to the Gospel of Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life. But that did not stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face – and what an impact it made on me to hear my father say this through his own tears – “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!”
The Cries of the Helpless
On Thursday, Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, pulled no punches in a sermon on Matthew 2:13–23 and the slaughter of the innocents.
His topic? “Joseph of Nazareth Is a Single-Issue Evangelical: The Father of Jesus, the Cries of the Helpless, and Change You Can Believe In”. Hear the 37 minute sermon via this 8.5MB mp3 file. Chilling – but recommended.
(Related: The Abortion Question and the Future.)
The ESV Study Bible – A Review
“The ESV team has done an excellent job of generating excitement for the ESV Study Bible and particularly so among the type of person who tends to read my book reviews. So in this review I will try to cut through the hype and, to the best of my ability, judge this new Bible on its own merits.…”
– Tim Challies offers his review of the just-published ESV Study Bible.
Also, learn about the ESV Study Bible Online – the full text of which will be available to owners of the printed version. The site explains –
“Even if you don’t have a registration code, the ESV Online Study Bible offers you several features:
- Create a personal account
- Search the ESV text
- Write personal notes
- Highlight Scripture
Basically, without a registration code you can do everything except access the ESV Study Bible notes and resources. If you buy a print ESV Study Bible later, you can unlock these notes and resources. One of our goals is to make the ESV Online Study Bible useful to you, even if you don’t yet own a print ESV Study Bible.”
Witnessing to Jehovah’s Witnesses
Last Thursday was a bit curious — I actually had a scheduled visit from the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Typically, this had started with the ringing of the doorbell (at an inconvenient moment, but then what moments are convenient for such a visit?) by a young woman with child in tow.…
– John Richardson at The Ugley Vicar has some wise words on sharing the gospel with those who come to our doors.
Looking for help in evangelism?
If you haven’t looked at the Evangelism Ministries website lately, check out their encouraging and practical notes on these topics –
How to pray for evangelism
How to prepare for an evangelistic event
How to prepare for an evangelistic church service
How to do evangelism on a zero budget
A simple feedback card to use at your evangelistic event
– all on the EM website.
The authority of the Bible – Leon Morris
Australian New Testament scholar Dr Leon Morris on the authority of the Bible –
“It is especially important in the contemporary situation that evangelicals bear their witness to the authority of the Bible. Men have lost their best certainties, and in many cases are groping for an authority they can trust. One result of the work of modernists and extreme liberals has been to undermine men’s faith in the Bible. …”
– from Churchman back in 1961. Relevant then. Even more relevant now. Made available by Church Society (pdf life).
Related: Propositional Revelation, the Only Revelation by Broughton Knox.
The need for clear thinking in this area is illustrated by a story from The Calgary Herald in Canada – “Minister enhances faith through meditation”
Meakin, an Anglican priest, was introduced to Christian meditation by her spiritual director while in seminary. … “There are many factors in how we interpret the spiritual life, but once you set aside the words, we can recognize our unity…” (emphasis added.)
Free audio book – Spurgeon’s ‘All of Grace’
This month’s free audiobook from ChristianAudio is a reading of C.H. Spurgeon’s “All of Grace”. Use the code OCT2008 at the checkout.
The mp3 files are around 100MB and run for over three hours – available free until the end of October.
The Courage to be Protestant
On last weekend’s (October 5, 2008) broadcast from The White Horse Inn Dr David Wells, author of ‘The Courage to be Protestant’, and numerous other books, was the special guest.
Dr. Wells has some very helpful observations on the accommodation of churches to the surrounding culture – and some challenging words on preaching.
Hear it at The White Horse Inn. (See our earlier posts.)
Ryan Ferguson recites from Psalms
Back in May, we linked to the video of Ryan Ferguson giving memorised dramatic recitation of Hebrews 9 and 10 using the ESV.
At this year’s WorshipGod08 Conference, run by Sovereign Grace Ministries, he recited Psalm 22, Psalm 25 and Psalm 145. The video files have been posted on YouTube. (Hat tip Challies.com)
In addition, audio files of the talks and seminars from the conference are available here.
The Passions of the Marian Martyrs: Lessons for the Anglican Communion
Evangelical Christians within the Western branches of the Anglican Communion face continual hostility because of their commitment to Jesus Christ and the biblical gospel, as is increasingly apparent with every year that passes.
To become a gospel minister within the Anglican churches of Britain and North America now requires a willingness to face a lifetime of bullying and scorn, not least from neighbouring clergy and the episcopal bench. We cease to be surprised at scandalous tales of harassment of the godly by power-thirsty bishops. Ministers have their licences revoked, their church buildings confiscated, their stipends stopped, their families expelled from their rectories, simply because they insist on obeying God before men.
The persecution of the saints by those in positions of ecclesiastical power has become an established part of life within the Anglican Communion in the West. Yet we have been here before. …
– Dr. Andrew Atherstone, Tutor in History & Doctrine and Latimer Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, wrote this article (direct link to PDF file) for Churchman in 2006. Sobering reading.
Thanks to Church Society. (Photo: Wycliffe Hall.)
Desiring God Conference files online
The 2008 Desiring God Conference was held in Minneapolis over the weekend. Sinclair Ferguson, Bob Kauflin, Mark Driscoll and John Piper and others spoke.
Following their normal practice, the people at Desiring God have generously made the transcripts, audio and video files of the conference available.
John Piper’s talk on Is There Christian Eloquence? Clear Words and the Wonder of the Cross is particularly helpful –
“There is a way to speak the gospel—a way of eloquence or cleverness or human wisdom—that nullifies the cross. I dread nullifying the cross, and therefore it is urgent that I know what this eloquence-cleverness-wisdom of words is, so I can avoid it.”
See all the files at Desiring God. (Note that each video file is approx. 200MB.)
The Problem of Heresy
Next weekend the Diocese of Pittsburgh holds its special diocesan convention to consider separating from The Episcopal Church. The Rev. Christopher Klukas, Rector of a church in that diocese, has written a helpful analysis of what happens when heresy in a denomination is not challenged.
“But how did we get to this point? How did the Church become so corrupt? … The roots of our present problems go as far back as 150 – 200 years. The situation didn’t become acute, however, until the 1960s. It was at this time that Bishop James Pike published a book called ‘A Time for Christian Candor.’ In this work he openly denied such basic doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Virgin birth.”
Download the PDF document here, courtesy of Chris Klukas. (Photo of Bishop James Pike: Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.)
Carson on works of mercy
In many parts of the evangelical world, one hears a new debate—or, more precisely, new chapters in an old debate—regarding the precise place that ‘deeds of mercy’ ought to have in Christian witness. … the debate between those Christians who say that we should primarily be about the business of heralding the gospel and planting churches, and those who say that our responsibility as Christians extends to the relief of oppression, suffering, and poverty in all their forms. …
– In the light of the TEC/CofE focus on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, Don Carson’s editorial in the current issue of Themelios is especially worth reading. (hat tip Justin Taylor.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…