Category Archives: Assurance
Personal security (part 2): The kingdom pattern established and the fall
Thought
Personal security (part 1): Introduction
Thought
There were 828 homicides in our city in 2010, an increase of 210% from 2009. There were 15,493 cars stolen, many of which were taken at gunpoint, and 323 kidnapping events (often involving more than one captive)—all increases on the 2009 levels. In a city of 4.5 million, that’s a lot of violent crime—and so far, 2011 is breaking all the records.
Good Friday and good-ianity
Everyday Ministry
This Easter you and I will come into contact with equinox Christians. That is, Christians who attend church twice a year: Chrissie and Easter.
It’s hard to communicate to these people the mind-blowing great exchange that is the gospel of Jesus Christ, isn’t it?
Lies, lies, lies!
Life
I was talking to a friend lately who struggles with eating issues, and she told me that one of the techniques she is using to combat her anxiety is something called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). If I’ve understood her correctly, ACT is when you try to keep your thoughts focused on the present instead of allowing them to drift off in all sorts of unhelpful directions. So, for example, when she gets a craving for a cookie and starts to think that she couldn’t possibly get through the afternoon without one, she acknowledges that she’s had that thought, points out to herself that what her brain is telling her is a lie (i.e. that she can get through the afternoon without a cookie, and she knows that because she’s done it before), and then moves on with the rest of her day.
Keeping the solas together
Thought, Sola Panel
One of the aims of the Sola Panel is to go back to basics, to remind ourselves of the importance of the ‘solas’ (i.e. scripture alone, faith alone, Christ alone, grace alone, glory to God alone). This post will look at one way in which these solas all fit together. (more…)
Talking about predestination with children
Everyday Ministry, Sola Panel
It’s the question that every Christian parent knows is coming sooner or later. I’m driving when six-year-old Thomas pipes up from the back seat. We’re alone, which doesn’t happen often in a family of six, so it’s a precious time for us. Deep thoughts are clearly running through his head: “Mummy, why do some people believe in Jesus and not others?”
An Arminian in the pulpit
Pastoral Ministry
“Be a Calvinist on your knees and an Arminian in the pulpit.” This has been the counsel to young ministers for many years. (more…)
Mental toughness and the living God
Life
Michael Clark, Australian cricket team vice captain, recently confounded his critics by scoring a career-best 168 in a test match against New Zealand. He had every excuse not to. Before the match, he’d had a week that had included a broken engagement to a celebrity model, a dash across the ditch, time away from training, public accusations of lack of focus and commitment, and intense media scrutiny because of it all. But contrary to his detractors’ doubts, it seems that Michael Clark has got mental toughness!
I’m told ‘mental toughness’ is something that frequently appears as a goal of military training. That’s no surprise; we don’t want those defending the nation to wither at the first sign of difficulty or opposition. There’s an equivalent in the world of parenting and education that parenting gurus and school advertisements call ‘resilience’—the emotional ‘surefootedness’ to survive failure and disappointment that parents want instilled in their children to equip them for life.
God’s sovereignty; human responsibility
Life, Sola Panel
Recently after a sermon on 2 Timothy, we received the follow comment on the topic of election. My answer follows.
Question: You said that God calls all people everywhere to repent and follow him. But we are also taught that only the elect are able to turn back to God. So how, then, are the non-elect culpable for their actions when they are given no opportunity to turn back?
Apostasy and God’s faithfulness
Thought, Sola Panel
The National Director of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students (AFES), Richard Chin, has begun preaching through 2 Timothy at our church. When he covered chapter 2, we received a couple of questions. I ended up answering them as the pastor here.
Question: 2 Timothy 2:13-14 says, “if we are faithless, he [Christ] remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself”. Can you explain to whom is God faithful?
His eye is on the magpie
Life
Last week my children made an exciting discovery: high up in the branches of the gum tree in the back yard of the house next door, a magpie was building a nest. For three days, we were transfixed, taking it in turns to look through the binoculars and watch him flying up with tiny sticks, one at a time, carefully adding them to the nest.
On the fourth day, it was windy, and we craned our necks, anxiously watching the upper branches of the gum tree. Would the nest survive? Had this little magpie chosen the wisest place to build a home for his family? We talked about how sad it would be for the poor bird if all his hard work was lost in a sudden gust of wind.
Is history what you make, or what you receive?
Life
History. We might be standing in it, but which direction are we looking?
The Terminator told us he would be back, but the latest version disappointed fans because the Governor of California was reduced to a Computer Animated bit-part. For the Australian, T4 was rescued somewhat by the presence of our own Sam Worthington—but only just!
Even though it struggles a bit with the inherent fatalism of a future that seems to march inevitably towards the present, no matter what is done in the present, a major theme of this series of movies now stretching across a quarter of a century is that the future is not fixed; fate is what you make.
Using your biblical word power: Justification through atonement
Thought, Sola Panel
Conversion by law
Life
Leviticus, one of the Old Testament books of God’s law, seems, for some reason, to be the target for particular mockery both by non-Christians (who will invariably allude to the silliness of the food laws as they attempt to satirize its opposition to homosexual practice) and even some Christians (who will use it to empathize with some who feel that Bible reading is boring).
But Dave Bish over at the Blue Fish project reminded me of the wonderful story of how Charles Simeon, uber-preacher of Cambridge University during the late 18th and early 19th century, became a Christian: