Category: Ethics

  • A new book about artificial intelligence

    A new book about artificial intelligence

    The rise of AI technology has enormous implications for all of us—not only for how we live and work, but also for how we understand what it means to be human. Christians need to be equipped to grasp the issues and to navigate the waters ahead. In this book, Stephen Driscoll provides us with a…

  • How to live for God – Moore Q&A Video

    How to live for God – Moore Q&A Video

    What does the Bible have to say about how to live for God? Q&A with me & my colleagues Jane Tooher, Dan Wu, Chase Kuhn.

  • Stewardship and Generosity – Moore Q&A Video

    Stewardship and Generosity – Moore Q&A Video

    What does the Bible have to say about stewardship and generosity? Q&A with me & my colleagues Jane Tooher, Dan Wu, Chase Kuhn.

  • Event: Learning to speak Christian in an online world (17 March)

    Event: Learning to speak Christian in an online world (17 March)

    Learning to Speak Christian in an Online World. Lionel Windsor & Tony Payne. Thursday 17 March, 7.30pm. Moore College, 15 King St Newtown

  • ‘Allow me to die’?

    ‘Allow me to die’?

    A highly disturbing development in the Euthanasia Debate has recently been brought to light.

  • Instruments of Peace – Neutral Bay Multifaith Service 2014

    Instruments of Peace – Neutral Bay Multifaith Service 2014

    The Anglican contribution to the Neutral Bay Multifaith service 2014. The topic: “being instruments of peace”

  • Knowing Christ – Together

    Knowing Christ – Together

    A sermon preached at St Augustine’s Neutral Bay            

  • Same sex marriage: why are so many Christians opposed?

    Kudos to the Sunrise team for this excellent interview. No matter where you are in this debate, it’s well worth taking 11 and a half minutes to hear this balanced and helpful presentation of the biblical viewpoint:

  • A new morality: child death and suffering is the price we must pay for sexual freedom?

    I just heard Andrew Marr’s BBC program “Start the week”, broadcast from the Charleston Festival which is celebrating the Bloomsbury Group. This was a group of artists and intellectuals–including, for example, Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes–(in)famous both for their enormously influential intellectual output, and also for their complex polyamorous sexual relationships. It was interesting…

  • When the offended decide to go on the offensive

    Being an Aussie living in the UK sometimes leads to bizarre experiences. Like when I’m talking to a Brit, and he or she makes a joke based on the premise that Aussies are descended from criminals. That, in itself, isn’t a bizarre experience (usually the joke is quite witty and droll, in true British style).…

  • Evangelicals and the slave trade

    A while back I was looking through my father-in-law’s collection of old newspapers and found this little piece in the London Gazette (Monday August 26, 1768, Number 118; Twopence-Farthing). It’s either a letter to the editor or an editorial comment; I’m not sure which! It comes just after the announcement of a soiree to be…

  • Review of David J. Rudolph / A Jew to the Jews

    My review is now on Themelios. I’ve also included the full text below: David J. Rudolph. A Jew to the Jews: Jewish Contours of Pauline Flexibility in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.304. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. xii + 290 pp. £69.00/$137.50. In 1 Cor 9:19-23, Paul seems to wear his Jewishness…

  • Pet food, pornography, and the law

    From The Briefing: One lazy afternoon in 1999, travel writer Bill Bryson discovered a shop that sold pet supplies and pornography.1 It was at the far end of the main street of an unassuming Australian country town called Young. The front of the shop contained rather mundane supplies of flea powder, fish flakes, and other…

  • Paul and the Law by Brian Rosner – free download of lecture series

    Brian Rosner’s Annual Moore College Lectures on Paul and the Law are now available for download (MP3 and PDF) at the Moore College site. I expect it’ll be well worth listening to. Overview Paul and the Law:  Keeping the Commandments of God Five Lecture Series “Circumcision is nothing”: The Puzzle of Paul and the Law “Not under…

  • Remember the Horn of Africa

    The causes of famine in Somalia are many and complex: politics, corruption, war, greed; the list goes on. At this particular moment, however, what is needed most urgently is funds to buy food. Unicef says that if they can buy food, they can get it to where it’s needed. Apparently we haven’t taken this crisis…

  • Brian Rosner on Paul and the Law

    If you’re anywhere in or around Sydney in August, don’t miss Brian Rosner’s lecture series. This is a very important topic. I’m guessing the lecture series will touch on issues like: What does the Old Testament law have to do with Jesus? Will God judge me based on whether I keep the law? What does…

  • Suffering and decision-making

    On the Sola Panel: Is it better to choose a more difficult ministry, or an easy one? Is it more godly to choose suffering over comfort when we make decisions about life and ministry? After all, suffering makes us more like Jesus, and surely that’s good for us, isn’t it? From time to time, we…

  • Loving what God Loves

    From the Sola Panel: The UK government has launched a review into occupational Health & Safety laws (OH&S). It seems to be a very popular move. Health is good. Safety is good. But the multiplication of rules purportedly designed to enforce it often leads to madness. Most of us are aware of safety rules that…

  • The Gospel and Ageing

    From the Sola Panel What is the most polite way to refer to an old person? Have you noticed how the words we collectively use to refer to old people in the media and in private conversation keep changing? It’s a strange process. We start using a word or phrase, for example, ‘old man’, ‘old…

  • Faithfulness, Big and Small

    My post on the Sola Panel today: Late last year, Gavin wrote about the importance of being faithful in the small things. I’ve been pondering Gav’s insights, and I’d like to offer a couple of further comments. Jesus himself directly teaches the importance of faithfulness in small things: Again you have heard that it was…

  • What’s wrong with drunkenness?

    In our congregation, there are quite a few university college students. One of the students asked me the question, “Society today is very party-oriented. Is it a sin to get drunk?”. My friend Rob (a chaplain on the uni campus) is preaching through Isaiah at the moment, and he had some very helpful insights for…

  • Welcoming children

    One of the quirks of being a Christian minister associated with an historic building like St Michael’s Wollongong is that I end up officiating at a lot of weddings. However I recently attended a wedding as a guest with no official capacity. It was full of joy and wonderful testimonies to the grace and love…

  • Mortification

    The story of the Bible can be summarized in two words: death and resurrection. Ultimately, the story of the Bible is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is the core of the story we call the ‘gospel’. But this basic story also finds its expression in many different…

  • Indicative and Imperative in the Letters of Paul

    Lionel Windsor (2004) Introduction It is undeniable that Paul’s letters contain both declarations and commands, theology and ethics, indicatives and imperatives. Yet Paul himself never explicitly lays out the logical connection between these two elements of his thought. Certainly, indicatives generally precede and are connected to imperatives, sometimes broadly (e.g. Eph 1-3 then 4-6; Rom…

  • Justification and Sanctification: Biblical Definitions and Modern Misunderstandings

    Lionel Windsor (2004) Introduction The relationship between God and humanity is, of course, of fundamental importance to Biblical revelation. The details of how this relationship is made right, from God’s point of view and from our own (corporately and individually), are also treated at length, both in the Scriptures and in subsequent Christian reflection. Here…