Author Archives: The Briefing

Cold Turkish evangelism

Everyday Ministry

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The phrase ‘walk-up evangelism’ stirs up, in most Christians, feelings of dread. But, as Ben Pfahlert points out, at the heart of all evangelism lies extremely good news. (more…)

A truly reformed pastor

Up front

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The word ‘pastor’ comes from the word ‘shepherd’. Someone is considered a good ‘pastor’ if they are skilled and compassionate in dealing with the issues facing Christian believers. That is, the job of the pastor is primarily to care for Christians. (more…)

Sunday school gone postal

Pastoral Ministry

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I’m the children’s worker at St Mark’s Anglican Church in Oakhurst, in Sydney’s western suburbs. I don’t see my role as a job; I see it as a wonderful God-given opportunity to support the other people in our children’s ministry team and to share the gospel with people in my parish. (more…)

Review: “The Gospel and Personal Evangelism” by Mark Dever

Review

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The Gospel and Personal Evangelism

Mark Dever

Crossway, Wheaton, 2007, 128pp.

GospelPersonalEvangelism

There is much to commend about The Gospel and Personal Evangelism. It is warm, engaging and theologically accurate, and it left me encouraged to speak to friends about Jesus. However, it also left me with questions about the best way to mobilize us for this task. (more…)

Job and prayer

Up front

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What is the book of Job about? What do Job’s friends get wrong? What does Job do right? Job’s friends seem to be giving him some very good answers, and Job responds with some very strange ones. Do we go back and analyze everywhere Job gets it right and everywhere Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and Elihu make theological mistakes? Let me suggest the answer to that is ‘No’. (more…)

Professor

Word Watch

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Are you a professor of Christianity?

Today we tend to use the word ‘professor’ to mean “a teacher of the highest rank in a university department” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). Mind you, Americans often apply the title to any teacher at college level, and, in Aussie English, ‘professor’ can be used jokingly of anyone who either has, or pretends to have, a lot of knowledge. So today the word ‘professor’ is linked to this notion of having a great deal of knowledge. (more…)

The obedience of faith

Thought

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What does faith in Christ mean? What do people ‘do’ when they believe in Christ? Do they ‘do’ anything? If they ‘do’ something, how do we avoid faith becoming a ‘work’ smuggled in through the Protestant back door? Presumably if we have ‘done’ something (when we believe in Christ), we may justifiably be a little proud of what we have done and think that our belief is some kind of achievement or virtue. So how do we accurately describe the nature of faith in such a way that we exclude human pride? (more…)

Guilt-edged pages?

Up front

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While ploughing my way through The Shack recently (and it was a matter of ploughing!), a thought occurred to me about the dynamic at work in our culture and in our sinful hearts—the dynamic that generates books like this one and makes them such big sellers. (more…)

WordWatch: Professor

Word Watch

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Today we tend to use the word ‘professor’ to mean “a teacher of the highest rank in a university department” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). Mind you, Americans often apply the title to any teacher at college level, and, in Aussie English, ‘professor’ can be used jokingly of anyone who either has, or pretends to have, a lot of knowledge. So today the word ‘professor’ is linked to this notion of having a great deal of knowledge. (more…)

Atheism must advertise (Part 1)

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The British Humanist Association is running a bus campaign. I had heard about it a month or so back, and was bemused; I thought the slogan they were running was a bit daft, but only a bit. But recently I saw a bus in Oxford with the advert upon it.

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