Now there are all sorts of reasons why Christianity is a singing faith; for the practice of making melody to the Lord, and of hymn singing in particular, has many purposes. My intention in this article is to focus specifically on congregational singing and to open up its three principal purposes. (more…)
Author Archives: The Briefing
Bible 101: 1 Kings 11:9-10
Bible 101
The story of Solomon is a literary tragedy worthy of the greatest of poets. As the son of David he comes to the throne of Israel in fulfilment of the promise of Yahweh to his father: that he would never lack one of his offspring to rule the kingdom of Israel (2 Sam 7:12, cf. 1 Kgs 3:6). Shortly after he consolidates the kingdom, Yahweh appears to him in a dream and offers him whatever he desires (1 Kgs 3:4-15), and Solomon requests an “understanding mind” so that he might rule rightly, and discern between good and evil (3:9). (more…)
Editorial: Singing, church, judgement, and fear
Singing, church, judgement, and fear: that’s what this coming issue of The Briefing is all about.
Recently I spent a week at the Hillsong Conference in Sydney. There were many wonderful things about the week, along with a number of troubling issues. I’m still trying to process everything that went on there, and I’ll say more about it in due course. (more…)
Discipleship teams
Everyday Ministry
“…there’s hardly a church I come across that does not have small groups. It seems that if you’re an evangelical ministry that doesn’t offer small groups, you’re not the real deal and you’re not going to be attractive. Sadly, very little attention is being given to small group leaders…” (more…)
Fear of God
Thought
I grew up with a serious fear of vampires. This was because one night sometime in early primary school, my mischievous (or culpably negligent) grandmother let me stay up and watch the classic 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu. (more…)
Evangelism fundamentals for reaching Muslims
Everyday Ministry
We discover in Scripture that the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Rom 1:16) and God has given us the staggering responsibility to preach this message. So we must spend some time thinking about the process of evangelism. Most people I know consider the task of evangelism to be a difficult one, however if I ask them what the gospel is, most will quote me something from a book on Systematic Theology. For example, Wayne Grudem, in his excellent Systematic Theology, says that the facts of the gospel are:
(more…)
Singleness in the Bible
Review
Redeeming Singleness: How the storyline of Scripture affirms the single life
Barry Danylak, Crossway, Wheaton, 2010, 256 pages.
Some Christian topics seem to engage our interest and time more than others. Predestination is a classic; marriage and singleness is another. With so many books already written on this subject does Redeeming Singleness bring anything new to an already crowded ‘relationships’ section of your local Christian bookstore (if you still have one)? (more…)
The ‘S’ word: some thoughts on singleness
Life
Recently, a good friend who is a pastor asked me to jot down reflections on my experience of being single so that he could use them to help struggling single women in his church. One of my first thoughts was: why should singleness be an issue, or an aspect of life that I am asked to frame myself in? (more…)
Q&A today
Life
We Christians today find ourselves at a very contested intersection with science and ethics. The amount of conflict is partly because in a post-Christian society there is no longer any shared ‘moral grammar’ about the common good. Our world has not just drifted from but also actively rejected many of the beliefs and virtues that largely derived from the Christian world view of previous centuries. (more…)
The power of the word
Resource Talk
Do you believe in the power of the word? These guys do.
I wish we’d taken his name and number, or asked him to write up his story. (more…)
Church architecture matters
Review
In recent decades, the fights that many churches have had over musical styles have been termed the ‘worship wars’—typically cast as a battle between traditionalists on one side, who wish to retain the noble beauty and heritage of historic church practice, particularly in music; and modernizers on the other, who want church services to be contemporary, relevant, engaging, and so on. (more…)
John 13:34-35
Bible 101
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
There’s a story about John the apostle as an old man, recounted by Jerome.1 Whenever John’s disciples carried the frail apostle in to their meetings, he would say, “Little children, love one another”. Every. Time. (more…)
The dilemma of preaching and hearing God’s word
Pastoral Ministry
As a preacher, I work hard to maintain good habits in preparing a sermon. Translating from the original Greek or Hebrew text, engaging with the commentators, creating a clear structure for the sermon, and finally, figuring out how to communicate God’s word in an enlightening fashion (as opposed to a dry and boring one). (more…)
1 Kings 8:38-40
Bible 101
“…whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind), that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers. ”
Israel’s great King Solomon is remembered primarily for two things: his wisdom, and the temple that he built in fulfillment of the promise that God made to his father David (1 Kings 8:15-20, cf. 2 Samuel 7:13). Soon after its completion, Solomon dedicated it for use in Israel’s life (1 Kings 8:12-66). As Solomon prayed at the temple, he reflected that its completion was not simply the fulfillment of a promise, but an event with cosmological significance. The God who could not be contained by the highest heaven (1 Kings 8:27) had nevertheless come to his people, and made his dwelling place among them. The temple is called the ‘house of Yahweh’ eleven times in these central temple-building chapters (chs. 5-8). This is more than a symbolic statement: Israel was a nation who lived their lives in the presence of God. (more…)
Editorial: Inside baseball
Moneyball is exactly the sort of movie I thought I would hate. I loved it.
Released last year, it’s a movie in which Brad Pitt plays the manager of a fairly average baseball team trying to put together a successful season on a tight budget. (more…)