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My submission to the expert panel on religious freedom
The panel is taking submissions until 14 Feb 2018. I am deeply concerned that we should be protecting the religious freedoms of all. Our legislators and decision makers should never assume that a particular religious faith can be defined simply by looking at the most vocal opinion-shapers within that faith.
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Paul and the Vocation of Israel: Paul within Judaism?
My book Paul and the Vocation of Israel has been aligned with the “Paul within Judaism” perspective. Does it fit in this perspective?
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Learning to Speak Christian in an Online World: Video
Ephesians helps us come to grips with what Christian speech is all about, and how that affects our speech in the online world.
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RBL review of my Paul and the Vocation of Israel (review by Mike Bird)
A review of my Paul and the Vocation of Israel has been published at the Review of Biblical Literature site (review by Mike Bird)
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The True Meaning of Awesome (2 Samuel 6)
How should you relate to God? Relaxed, or reverent? Familiar, or fearful? Is God your mate, or your master?
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Joining the saints at St Augustine’s Neutral Bay–once more
We’re very pleased to say that I have accepted a position as an assistant minister at St Augustine’s Anglican Church, Neutral Bay, Sydney. I was a student minister at Neutral Bay in 2004-2005 and we very much enjoyed working in partnership with the rector, Craig Roberts. One of the present assistant ministers and his wife […]
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A new site for the Briefing (and for my posts on Christian life and ministry)
What’s changed: From now on my regular posts on Christian life and ministry will appear on the new Briefing site. The Sola Panel is now dead. What hasn’t changed: I’ll continue to use this site (Forget the Channel) to post about more technical biblical and theological topics. Check out the shiny new Briefing site; it’s […]
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The olive tree is not about Gentiles joining Israel (Romans 11:17-24)
A short while ago I wrote a post claiming that Paul doesn’t ever teach that the Gentiles are included in Israel. I said: Gentiles don’t need to be included in Israel. In fact, the opposite is true; we Gentiles are saved by faith in Christ without being included in Israel. That’s one of the apostle […]
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Now you can subscribe to comments on this blog by email
In response to the growing number of comments on my blog, and to a very reasonable suggestion from my friend David, I’ve added a subscription service for comments. I.e. you can choose to receive emails notifying you when comments are added to a given blog post. Enjoy! And please let me know if you find […]
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Finally, a real blog
This site has been through a number of metamorphoses. It began as a place where I posted Greek and Hebrew vocabulary-learning tools. After a while I added a few articles and essays and random thoughts. In the last few years, I’ve been using the site to inform people about my studies and how to support […]
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Republishing older articles
Many of the older articles on this site are PDFs or static HTML pages. Over the next few months, in order to update my site, I’ll be publishing these older articles as blog posts, at a frequency of one post every few days.
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Forget the Channel: a name for this site
I’ve been thinking about naming this site for a while. The new name, Forget the Channel, is taken from the final verse of the hymn ‘May the Mind of Christ my Saviour’ by Kate Barclay Wilkinson (apparently written before 1913, published in 1925): May His beauty rest upon me, As I seek the lost to […]
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What is a tree for?
A tree is good (Gen 1:12). A tree is beautiful (Gen 2:9). A tree is for food (Gen 1:29). A tree is a blessing from God for his creation, even in those wild places where no human being has set foot (Job 40:20-22). A tree is for birds (Ps 104:16-17). A tree is for war—to […]
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Investing in bookshops
A personal theological library is a vital tool for anyone serious about serving the gospel. It is important to invest in good Christian books. But have you ever considered the importance of investing in good Christian bookshops? It’s a fact that Christian publishing is big business. This is not entirely negative: the unprecedented array of Christian […]
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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) […]
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The healthy teaching pyramid
Have you ever seen the healthy eating pyramid on the wall of your local doctor? If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, the healthy eating pyramid is a simple diagram created by nutritionists to help us achieve a balanced diet. The idea is that to maintain a good diet, you need to eat some […]
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On love and blogging
A wise man once said, “Before you criticize anyone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’ll be a mile away, and you’ll have their shoes.” Corny joking aside, I’ve been having a bit of a think about our Policy for comments on this blog—especially number 3: the comments should […]
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Do you believe in the power of prayer?
During the past 25 years, numerous medical studies have been conducted to try to measure whether prayer has any beneficial effects on patient recovery. The experiments usually involve two randomly assigned groups of patients, and a group of ‘pray-ers’. The ‘pray-ers’ are asked to pray for the recovery of one group of patients, but not […]