12 July 2009 | 1 comment |
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I will build my church
Our current Saturday blasts from the past are about the subject of church planting. This week, Phillip Jensen discusses the significance of Jesus' promise to build his church.
11 July 2009 | 12 comments |
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Calvin’s birthday
How are you celebrating Calvin's birthday?
I reckon it'd be hard to be a committed evangelical in the blogosphere without realizing that today is the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth: 10 July 1509.
But we should not leave celebrating this most important Reformation theologian and pastor to the publishers and conference organizers! John Piper's annual biographical studies of great evangelical leaders has proved the historical interest is there!
So how are you celebrating Calvin's birthday in your local church or in your own life?
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10 July 2009 | 3 comments |
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Authorities and the preacher’s unbelief
After two decades of living the Christian life and almost a decade of preaching the Bible regularly, it's easy to think that I trust God's word. But this week I've been confronted by my unbelief.
What's your instant reaction to reading this passage?
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Rom 13:1-2)
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09 July 2009 | 1 comment |
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Why Johnny can’t preach (Part 2)
If you wanted to find our about the ANZAC's legendary Gallipoli campaign, how would you go about it? Watch Peter Weir's classic 1981 Gallipoli (“What are you legs? Steel springs”)? Go to the Australian War Memorial? Borrow a book or two from the local library? Read a Wikipedia article? Go to the new ABC 3D interactive site?
In this second discussion of T David Gordon's Why Johnny Can't Preach (read part 1), I want to reflect on the first reason Gordon gives as to why Johnny can't preach—that is, Johnny can't read (texts).
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08 July 2009 | 13 comments |
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The theological importance of criminal profiling, or The case for church history, Part 1
It is a great honour and pleasure, being invited to contribute a few guest blog posts to The Sola Panel in advance of my forthcoming visit to Australia. Given the fact that a fool is generally known by his much speaking, I have decided to focus my posts on what I know best—church history, but not in some tedious here-are-a-few-names-and-dates-manner; rather, I want to argue for the importance of church history as a vital discipline for theological education, both in seminary training and in the day-to-day life of the church. Those who do not know history may not be quite as doomed to repeat its mistakes as the famous proverb would imply, but understanding how it can be useful might yet help one or two of us to avoid some embarrassing potholes, or it may just save us from having to reinvent the wheel all over again, fun as such reinvention undoubtedly is (once watching the grass grow and the paint dry has lost its appeal, that is).
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07 July 2009 | 6 comments |
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Thinking about emotions (Part II)
Christians are arguing about emotions and passionate outpourings. Some exalt in these experiences, and see in them the revival of true and authentic Christianity; others decry the emotional hysteria of easily manipulated crowds, and assert that rational, mature Christianity needs to rise above such gross displays of experientialism.
Sound familiar? It is a (rough) description of the mid-18th-century American context for Jonathan Edwards's classic work A Treatise on the Religious Affections.
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05 July 2009 | 0 comments |
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A call to plant more churches
It's time for the start of a new Saturday series, and in light of the recent Church Planting conference, I thought it might be time to stop and reflect on some of the challenges to plant churches that we've made in The Briefing over the years. I'm reproducing these in the hope that they will stir our hearts to pray to God to raise up new congregations of his people through the preaching of the gospel all over the world.
Our first challenge comes from the Presiding Bishop for CESA (Church of England in South Africa) at their 1991 synod. Some things, rightly, never change:
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04 July 2009 | 5 comments |
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We need more pathetic preaching
I'm not sure exactly where Tony is going next with his series on emotions, but his post connected with some other thoughts I've been having—specifically, the importance of addressing the whole person when we preach. I've come to the conclusion that we need more pathetic preaching.
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03 July 2009 | 1 comment |
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Improve your biblical word power 1: Righteousness
This post is the first in a series designed to help you to get to know and love some of the important words used in the Bible so that you can be more precise as you seek to know God and talk about him.
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02 July 2009 | 4 comments |
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Wisdom for church planting
Paul, you beat me to the post! Yes, the Church Planting conference at Moore was excellent, and I enjoyed the Thursday as much as you did the Friday, and for all the same reasons. (Although, speaking editorially, if you ever again use the word ‘awesome’ in that fashion while writing on Matthias Media time, I may have to reconsider your contract.)
Three things occurred to me during the day.
