Who selected the books in the Bible? Was it all just a power play between leaders? Mark Thompson surveys the history of our biblical canon, and the central role of Jesus in its formation. (more…)
A tale of three cities
Pastoral Ministry
Sydney
It’s 7 am Thursday, and I am sitting in a café on York Street in the central business district of Sydney. This is my hometown. The coffee, in case you were wondering, is okay. The Suncorp building towers above me, Grosvenor Place tall behind me, and every bus coming off the Harbour Bridge stops outside this café. (more…)
Humble strategic planning
Pastoral Ministry
There are lots of leaders talking about their visions and strategies for ministry. Paul Harrington encourages churches and their leaders to be thinking about God’s plan before making their own. (more…)
The Universe Next Door by James W Sire
Review
The Universe Next Door (5th edition)
James W Sire
IVP Academic, Downers Grove, 2009. 293 pp.
I first read The Universe Next Door while I was at university. We were running an evangelistic event where students lined up to take a quiz to discover what world view would suit them best. We would then give them a pamphlet that explained their likely world view, along with any weaknesses it had and relevant Christian viewpoints they ought to consider. It was my job to write these handouts, and the Christian survey of various world views, The Universe Next Door, was my main source (in combination with Wikipedia, of course). I pored over it for a week, reading and re-reading, and got the pamphlets done in the nick of time. Then, in true student style, I ejected every piece of information out of my brain and moved on to my next assignment. (more…)
The future of books
Resource Talk, Sola Panel
These are troubling times in the book business. As I sit down to write this month’s Resource Talk, the dust is still settling after the financial collapse of the owner of two of Australia’s largest bookselling chains. The management is blaming a mix of factors: the high Australian dollar, the rise of online retailing (whereby customers can buy books cheaper and tax-free from overseas), the heavy discounting tactics of department stores, the global financial crisis, and the rise of the ebook.
Four reasons not to worry about the ethics classes
Life, Sola Panel
What do we do when a law we’ve benefited from changes? Perhaps it’s time to brush ourselves off and get back to the work of the gospel.
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.
What makes ‘progressive’ progressive?
Life
In a recent SMH opinion piece, Adele Horin bemoans the choices made by two women of her acquaintance—a mother and a daughter, both highly intelligent, who opted out of the full-time career market to spend time at home raising children:
She topped the state in the final exams, a brilliant girl. But she married young and did what women did in the 1960s, stayed at home to raise her children while her husband climbed the corporate ladder. Much later she worked part-time. Now it’s her brilliant daughter’s turn. A lawyer in her 40s, she has pulled back, left the big firm with its killer hours to do home-based work, and to raise her own precociously bright daughters while her husband does the climbing.
Why the Bible is like a newspaper
Life, Sola Panel
The Bible is like a newspaper in many ways:
Choosing the hill to die on
Life
Apparently you have the option to choose the hill you are going to die on.
What I know about military strategy can be written on the round bit of one of those metal thingies that come out the long bit you point at other people when using a rifle.
A preacher’s near blunder
Pastoral Ministry
Well, I preached Psalm 11. For what it’s worth, you can find a somewhat sloppy manuscript somewhat sloppily inserted into the comments of my previous post.
I made the mistake of assuming that the ESV text, which I used, would be fine. It was, except that the NIV text—which was the preferred Bible translation at the church I was visiting—departed ever so slightly from the ESV at two significant points.
Speaking of miracles
Thought
Do miracles occur today? If we evangelicals express caution in response to a question like that, we’re either accused of being Cessationists or told that we lack real faith in the God who is the same yesterday, today and forever. (more…)
Devoted to the public reading of Scripture
Everyday Ministry
When Timothy was exercising responsibility over the Ephesian church, the apostle Paul instructed him as follows: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13). Although this was to be a temporary role for Timothy (“until I come”), it presumably outlived him in the life of the church; that is, when the apostle wrote “until I come”, he was not suggesting that the practice itself would be temporary, only that his own arrival would mark the end of Timothy’s personal responsibility to fight for and guarantee these practices. (more…)
Review: “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God” by JI Packer
Review
Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God
JI Packer
Inter-Varsity Press, Westmont, 2008. 136 pp.
Recently republished as part of the ‘IVP Classics’ series, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by JI Packer remains as relevant today as when it was first published in 1961. Well, so I’ve been told; I wasn’t born until 1985. But, assuming it was relevant when first published, Evangelism remains relevant today.1 (more…)
A course is a course, of course
Resource Talk, Sola Panel
There are two ways to change a culture, as Tony Payne said in last December’s Briefing. You can run as many people as possible through your programs and courses and hope for the best. Or, you can work individually and with small pockets of people to change the culture. The latter is slow and sometimes inefficient, but it tends to be the surest way to see a lasting difference in attitudes and direction.