The Briefing, to go

Resource Talk, Sola Panel

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Back in the mists of time, before mobile phones, before the internet, even before Michael Jackson’s Thriller, there were ‘The SOCM Papers’. (more…)

Bible brief: Micah

Bible Brief, Life

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The opening verse of Micah indicates the prophet’s origin (“of Moresheth”), time of prophesying (during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah—about 750-700 BC) as well as the object of his prophecy: the people of Samaria (northern Israel) and Jerusalem (the capital of Judah in southern Israel). Less obviously, it also presents us with Micah’s main theme: his name means “Who is like Yahweh?”, a question that is paraphrased in 7:18: “Who is a God like you?”. While there are many great themes in Micah, such as judgement, hope and justice, the main theme is that Yahweh, Israel’s covenant God, is Lord.

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Fruitcakes and the fruit of walk-up evangelism

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I met Lewis in 2001 when I was a university student. I was sitting in one of the common eating areas. Exams were over and it was the last day of semester. He approached me with a smile, and asked me if I would like to talk about Christianity. People had asked me before, but I’d been busy then. However, since classes were over, I said yes. (more…)

Sloth: Is it our problem?

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Out of all the seven deadly sins, we may think that sloth is the least concerning for us. But, as Ben Underwood shows, our busyness and toil is just evidence we’re caught within sloth’s grip.

At the outset of a sermon series on the seven deadly sins, I asked people to choose the two deadly sins they thought hampered them most. Of the seven—greed, anger, pride, gluttony, lust, sloth and envy—sloth came in dead last, receiving only one vote. Where I am, people don’t seem to have problem with sloth or ‘under-working’. They don’t believe there’s nothing like sitting in the sun on a Tuesday afternoon; rather, they think there’s nothing like working till 11pm on a Tuesday night, for that is what they often do. (more…)

Spiritual Depression

Review, Sola Panel

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Spiritual Depression: Its causes and its cure

D Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1965, 300pp.

 

Available from Moore Books

02 9577 9966 (more…)

What kind of discussion is this?

Up front

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I picked up and modified this helpful rubric:

  1. Fight for what is right (truth).
  2. Argue for what will work (tactics).
  3. Keep quiet about everything else (preference).

Fight for the God-given biblical principles, argue for how to put them into practice, and just leave all the personality or preference issues up to each person to work out for themselves. I can hesitate on preference—in a meeting, I can even back down on my view of tactics—but I must never back down on truth. (more…)

Water

Up front

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Some symbols are hard to understand and some are arbitrary, but the symbol of water has immediate and obvious impact—especially to a dry continent like Australia. It works as a symbol because it creates the reality that it symbolizes. (more…)

Miraculous godliness

Up front

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I was part of a group recently when a wonderful, faithful, godly older pastor told us about something that had happened in his church. During an important public meeting, a man had risen to his feet and started shouting abuse at him. It was a tirade full of invective and malice and hatred. How would you have responded? (more…)

The blessing of unanswered prayer

Up front, Sola Panel

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I hate unanswered prayer. This is not just because I want what I pray for (although that would be nice!), but because my unbelieving heart takes unanswered prayer as an opportunity to doubt God. Here are some examples:
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No hope without character

Life

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I was in church on Sunday morning, listening to a sermon on Romans 5. In spite of having read it hundreds of times in my life, I was struck by my lack of understanding. Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope (Rom 5:3-4). Why have I never thought about how those things fit into the context of Paul’s argument in this chapter?

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Conversion by law

Life

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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:

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