Category: Bible topics

  • 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…

  • Is God Green #1: God, the World and Us

    A shorter version of this article will soon be posted on webSalt, a publication of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Is God Green? Part 1 The View from Above More than 40 years ago, the Apollo space missions to the moon sent pictures of the earth back home. For the first time ever, humanity…

  • The End of the World as We Know It

    My post on the Sola Panel today: Today, millions of Christians across the globe will join together to celebrate the end of the world as we know it. I’m talking, of course, about Good Friday—the celebration of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This is an event of cosmic significance—an event in which the world as…

  • The Life of Jesus on TV

    Something to watch on Good Friday – whether you’re committed to Jesus or just interested in the history. From the Centre for Public Christianity: CPX is glad to announce the release of the historical documentary The Life of Jesus. Shot on location in Israel and presented by John Dickson, the documentary introduces the viewer in…

  • Stranger evangelism

    I believe in stranger evangelism. Over the course of 2009, my own denomination in this part of the world is mounting a concerted campaign to make meaningful, relational connections with everyone in our area, thus helping them to come into a relationship with God through his word. For me personally, this has involved (often tough)…

  • The problem with social justice

    In the last few weeks, the world has witnessed a rather extreme example of what may be dubbed ‘social justice’—an attempt to make the world a better place for all (or, at least, an attempt to prevent the world from being quite so bad a place as it might be). Following the lead of the…

  • Bringing the Bible alive?

    We can’t bring the Bible alive; it is far more alive than we are. But often we do need to bring the Bible teaching and the Bible teachers alive.

  • 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…

  • Countering nowism

    It’s been interesting to follow the comments on Tony’s post about the ethics of everyday evangelism. Tony makes a helpful point: rather than getting caught up with the question of whether we must evangelize, it’s far more useful to ask how we can encourage, inspire and equip more Christians to talk about Jesus with their friends. In this…

  • Nowism

    There is an insidious and dangerous teaching that I’ve noticed creeping into my church, threatening my Christian hope, and stifling my evangelistic effectiveness. Up to this point, it hasn’t had a catchy title.1 But I want to correct that. I’m going to call this teaching ‘nowism’, from the English word ‘now’, meaning ‘the present age’.…

  • 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…

  • Why we must be seeker sensitive

    The phrase ‘seeker sensitive’ has dropped out of fashion recently. For those who haven’t heard the phrase, the idea of a ‘seeker sensitive service’ is a church gathering that focuses on the desires and needs of ‘spiritual seekers’—non-Christians with a thirst for knowing more about God. It aims to do everything possible to make it…

  • Sola Scriptura

    Life is full of decisions. Where do I go on holidays? What job should I choose? What should I have for dinner? Which side of the bed should I get out of? Should I get out of bed at all? Making decisions is a fundamental part of being human; we can’t avoid it, and we…

  • The wisdom of the minister

    Part 3 in the series “Being Ministers of God: Reflections on the Servant concept in Isaiah.” Moore College 2nd Year 2008 Houseparty, Wollongong Surf Leisure Resort, Fairy Meadow, 23-24 February 2008. Power point file with visual aids also available.

  • The Suffering and Joy of the Minister

    Part 2 in the series “Being Ministers of God: Reflections on the Servant concept in Isaiah.” Moore College 2nd Year 2008 Houseparty, Wollongong Surf Leisure Resort, Fairy Meadow, 23-24 February 2008. Power point file with visual aids also available.

  • The Minister and the Ministers

    Part 1 in the series “Being Ministers of God: Reflections on the Servant concept in Isaiah.” Moore College 2nd Year 2008 Houseparty, Wollongong Surf Leisure Resort, Fairy Meadow, 23-24 February 2008. Power point file with visual aids also available.

  • The New Perspective on Paul: Summary and Reflections

    The weird and wonderful world of biblical scholarship may seem a thousand miles removed from the day to day life of ordinary Christians. To the outsider, biblical scholarship looks like a strange little enclave where papers get written, learned journals get printed, books get published and theories get advanced and refuted, all with seemingly negligible…

  • The Fulfilment of the Covenants: an Acovenantal Perspective on Paul

    This was my thesis for my Moore College B.D. The Fulfilment of the Covenants: an Acovenantal Perspective on Paul. Summary: The New Perspective on Paul and the ancient Qumran sectarians have this in common: they use the term ‘covenant’ as a sociological catch-all term to describe the relationship between God and a specific community. But…

  • Women Preaching to Mixed Adult Congregations: A detailed reading of 1 Timothy 2:8-15 in reply to John Stott’s position

    The issue of women preaching to mixed adult congregations is one that has caused a lot of consternation in ‘evangelical circles’ in recent times. There is a common argument that women should preach to mixed adult congregations that proceeds along the following lines: Different scholars and respected authorities disagree on the interpretation of the relevant…

  • Is the wisdom literature of the Old Testament an exercise in natural theology?

    Introduction Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes have posed a puzzle for interpreters eager to account for their place in the canon. What, if any, connection there is between the Old Testament Law and Prophets, whose topic is the Israel’s history, and this ‘wisdom literature’, which, at best, seems only to allude to Israel’s history? One popular…

  • 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…

  • Desire: reconnected (Song of Songs 7-8)

    A Sermon on Song of Songs 7-8 Lionel Windsor, 18 July 2004 Desire … disconnected We seem to live in a world where sexual desire is everywhere, but means almost nothing. Turn on the TV, and you’ll soon find sexual desire in the ads, in the movies, on the sitcoms. Take a drive, and there…

  • 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…

  • Christianity and evolution – the real problem

    The problem in the debate between Christianity and evolution is not really scientific at all but rather philosophical. We need to distinguish between ‘science’, which is a discipline, and ‘scientism’, which is a philosophical stance. Christians too often try to attack some of the results of science, when what we really should be attacking is…