Forget the Channel

Forget the Channel: lionelwindsor.net

  • There is no difference: Kurrajong Ministry Training Fund keynote address

    The Ministry Training Fund is a brilliant initiative of Kurrajong Anglican Church. The fund is designed to encourage and financially support people from the church who are undertaking training in Christian ministry (e.g. at theological college, Youthworks, MTS). The inaugural dinner for the fund was held on 11 August 2012. I had the privilege of…

  • Listening to the law without being under the law (a sermon on Exodus 20:22-23:19)

    Preached at Kurrajong Anglican Church on 26 August, 2012. Our problem with the law A few days after we got back to Australia from England, my wife had an experience that made us realize that we were well and truly back home. She was driving along Redbank Road in North Richmond, and a car coming…

  • Borrowing beasts & paying preachers: Why Paul’s use of the Old Testament makes sense

    This was a real “Oh yeah – aha!” moment in my understanding of the Bible, especially in my understanding of the way Paul uses the Old Testament. The Law of Moses says: You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain. (Deut 25:4) Paul says: For it is written in the…

  • ‘Mutual submission’? Scrutinizing a lazy slogan

    From The Briefing: A furore has indeed erupted over the use of the dreaded ‘s’-word in certain proposed new marriage vows. The word ‘submit,’ of course, comes from the Bible (e.g. Ephesians 5:22-24); the proposed vows are an attempt to give couples the option of using biblical terminology in place of the traditional, often misunderstood,…

  • PhD thesis: approved and now available online (Paul and the Vocation of Israel)

    This dissertation argues that Paul’s apostolic mission to the Gentiles was the definitive expression of his divine vocation as an Israelite, and thus of his Jewish identity. For many of Paul’s Jewish contemporaries, Israel’s divine vocation was to keep and to teach the precepts of the Law of Moses as an exemplary witness to God’s…

  • 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…

  • The perils of plundering the Egyptians

    From The Briefing: flickr: Gary Soup In our previous post, we looked at a story that has often been used as analogy for the way that Christians can use secular wisdom in gospel mission and ministry. This is the account of the Israelites, plundering the gold of the Egyptians as God rescued them from slavery…

  • Plundering the Egyptians: The place of secular wisdom in gospel mission and ministry

    From The Briefing: flickr: knitsteel Rock performances. Accounting textbooks. Voice coaching sessions. Self-help books. Leadership seminars. Adult education techniques. Sociological surveys. Jazz piano lessons. Child safety courses. Food safety courses. Statistical surveys. Statistics lectures. Corporate management textbooks. Primers on psychology. Magazine articles on cosmology. Blogs on modern communication techniques. Tips on writing style. In my…

  • Dangerous love

    From The Briefing: flickr: MousyBoyWithGlasses Just recently I came to realise that I had been treating a part of the Bible like a Mr Squiggle picture. Mr Squiggle was a kids’ TV show I used to watch. Children throughout Australia would draw little random squiggles–a couple of lines or curves on a piece of paper–and…

  • Support the training of future gospel workers

    Prior to Moore College, I undertook a two year MTS (Ministry Training Strategy) apprenticeship at the University of New South Wales. I’m immensely grateful for this experience; the apprenticeship gave me a gospel-centred, ministry-oriented theological perspective, which was foundational both for my academic study and for my future ministry roles. MTS Sunday is happening on…

  • Polygamy in the Bible: A sordid tale

    From The Briefing: I saw an excellent interview on Australia’s Channel 7 Sunrise program recently. Christian leaders were being asked about their opposition to proposals to redefine marriage, and were discussing the Bible’s view of marriage. At one point, the interviewer asked a question which is often brought up in these contexts: Doesn’t the Old…

  • Spectacular find: original Greek sermons by Origen of Alexandria discovered

    [My translation of the original article from the Bavarian State Library, H/T Ben Blackwell]: A spectacular discovery was recently made in the Bavarian State Library, in the process of cataloguing the Greek manuscripts from the collection of Johann Jakob Fuggers. While cataloguing a manuscript, Philologist Marina Molin Pradel identified numerous texts of sermons on the…

  • Are we really devoted to the public reading of Scripture? (Scott Newling, Cambridge)

    As evangelicals, we’ll often claim to believe that God speaks to us through the Bible. But do our public church gatherings actually reflect this conviction? This article by Scott Newling (currently in Cambridge), which appeared last year, is a salutary reminder to put our beliefs into action: Many evangelical churches are today characterized by what…

  • 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:

  • Philosophers, puppies, parchments and Pastoral epistles

    Paul’s Pastoral letters can sound strange to our modern ears, especially since they mix high-minded theology together with mundane, personal instructions. In 2 Timothy, for example, we read the following theological exhortation: Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel…

  • An anatomy of sin

    From The Briefing: flickr: SashaW The first stage in Paul’s announcement of the gospel of God’s grace is a concise anatomy of sin (Rom 1:18-32). Sin is, at its heart, a suppression of truth. This suppression of truth has a kind of logical progression to it: rejection of God (vv. 19-21) leads to worshipping the…

  • 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…

  • Not My People: Gentiles as Exiles in Pauline Hermeneutics

    David Starling‘s recently published dissertation has received quite a favourable review. Here are some choice excerpts from the review, which made me cheer: [T]he situation of the Israel under judgment in Gal 2:15–4:11 corresponds to the existence of the godless Gentile sinners, and the corollary is that believing and justified Gentiles obtain the same position…

  • Identity and reality in the modern Australian and ancient Jewish diasporas

    Our family has been away from Australia for almost 3 years now. One of the funny things we’ve noticed about ourselves is how much our Australian identity is wrapped up in symbols and dreams that have little to do with reality. For example, this 1-minute ad for Tourism Australia–based on Les Murray’s poem, “The Dream…

  • More on Moore College’s theological legacy: Graeme Goldsworthy

    To follow up on my previous post about Donald Robinson and Broughton Knox: “The evangelical Christian world owes a great debt to Graeme Goldsworthy”. These words were spoken by Peter Jensen at the book launch of Christ-centred biblical theology: What Goldsworthy shows is that although there were in the earlier years few books which emanated…

  • With gratitude for a rich (and ongoing) biblical and theological legacy – Moore College

    A short quiz: Which seminary lecturer described his course this way (and when)? the course quickly developed into an introduction to the theology of the Bible as a whole … ‘the church’ as such was subsumed under the wider theme of God’s creative purpose for Adam, his promise to Abraham and his seed, the elect…

  • Anglicanism for dummies (and for everyone else)

    Don’t let the dusty-sounding title of Ashley Null’s paper, 16th Century Anglican Ecclesiology, put you off. It’s a devotional, deep, rich, concise yet scholarly account of the roots of the Church of England by one of the most well-respected experts in the field. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand this very…

  • Theological German Flashcard Program – for Mac and PC

    Here is my Microsoft Excel Flashcard Program – pre-loaded with vocabulary especially for theological students seeking to learn German. The word list came from Ben Blackwell (h/t), and is top notch. It’s graded and very comprehensive (4,335 words altogether). Flashcard Program for Microsoft Excel on PC – Theological German Flashcard Program for Microsoft Excel on…

  • Suffer the little children

    From The Briefing: The political pressure to redefine the meaning of marriage has recently become more intense and obvious in certain English-speaking countries. But you might have noticed that the vast majority of people in our society aren’t particularly concerned by these developments. Why is that? Here’s one possible reason: in the hearts and minds…

  • Speech and Salvation: Conference Package

    I recently led a series of talks and discussions at our church’s weekend conference. I’ve put the whole conference together here into one package for others to use (it would work with a small group or a larger church group). To kick off, I started with the question, “Are all Christians commanded to evangelise?” But…

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