Multicultural Ministry Matters

STOP PRESS! A website with comments on commentaries! http://www.bestcommentaries.com/ YAHOO!

If I may tout myself for a moment: I've got an article in the latest issue of the CASE journal, Case 16 . This issue is about God and creativity, and links in with the upcoming New College Lectures by Professor Trevor Hart . My article's about civil disobedience and revolution. How does that work? Guess I was disobeying, revolting against the trend...

By the way - the Wikepedia article on John Murray doesn't have much biog or anything, but it has several links to Murray's writings.

This continues my series on covenant theology. * * * * * John Murray was born in Scotland. He undertook undergraduate studies at the University of Glasgow. As a theological student of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, he studied at Princeton Seminary under J. Gresham Machen and Geerhardus Vos, and at the University of Edinburgh. He taught at Princeton from 1929-30, then lectured in systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary from 1930-66. Murray reframed the traditional doctrine of the Covenant of Works as what he termed the Adamic Administration . While he basically agreed with the content of the doctrine, he disliked terming it a “covenant of works”. This was because: (1) the “covenant of works” is itself an act of grace; contrasting it with the “covenant of grace” makes it sound unnecessarily legalistic; (2) it’s not termed a “covenant” in scripture. Scripture always uses the term covenant, when applied to God’s administration to men, in reference to a provisio...

Andreas Kostenberger is on the faculty of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He's put his pick of the top ten Biblical and Theological publications of 2007 at www.biblicalfoundations.org/?p=165 .

A longer post by Mark Baddley on the Covenanters: baddelim: One for the Covenanter Fans And you can find the website about the Covenanters at http://www.covenanter.org.uk/

This is a response to Jenny Baddley's excellent post on the Scottish Covenanters : Shackled Thoughts: Remembering the Brave . * * * * * Woo- hoo ! Go the Scots! Good 'ole Presbyterians, telling the Anglicans where they can stick their bishops! :D Seriously, though... the idea of "covenant" has been important in Scottish Presbyterian theology, ecclesiology and politics. The church is a covenant community; the nation a covenant nation; baptism is a sign of being in the covenant; Christ mediates the covenant of grace. Samuel Rutherford's Lex Rex used "covenant" to argue against against absolute monarchy: in it, Rutherford argues that the monarch is in a covenantal relationship with the people; a covenant that binds the monarch to rule the people justly. So, "covenant" is deeply woven into Presbyterian identity. As a denomination, Presbyterians have always been activists: they've been relatively quick to protest, even to revolt, against an...

I was having a quiet evening browsing online bookshops for bargains (whaddya mean, that's really nerdy? Doesn't everybody do that?) and I thought I'd update you on two sites for downloadable e-books on theological & Biblical studies (th-e-ology...?). Logos publishers make ancient and modern Biblical and theological works available on their Libronix platform. They have works by great Reformed theologians like John Owen, A. A. Hodge, B. B. Warfield (what is it with Princeton theologians and repeated initials?), and modern luminaries such as Don Carson, Millard Erickson, Thomas Schreiner and Kevin Vanhoozer. For their current pre-publication specials, see www.logos.com/prepub . Their blog's at blog.logos.com . Ages Library provide ridiculously cheap downloads of classic authors, including Jonathan Edwards, Robert Louise Dabney, John Bunyan, Carl F. H. Henry, & others. They use a simple Acrobat PDF platform. Visit them at www.ageslibrary.com/ . Quick disclaimer: I h...

I think there are two significant aspects to the idea of "covenant" in covenant theology: headship, and reliability. As mentioned in my previous post, covenant theology revolves around two covenants: works with Adam, and grace in Christ. Both Adam and Christ are representative people. They represent all those associated with them. They are their "head". Whatever happens to the head, happens to those associated with them. Adam represents all humans: so when he failed, we all failed. Christ represents the elect: his death is therefore our death; his resurrection our resurrection. This is the federal headship aspect of covenant theology. The other aspect is reliability. A covenant binds someone to perform certain actions. It is therefore a basis for faith. Faith only works if the person whom you trust is trustworthy. One way of demonstrating trustworthiness is to make a covenant, where you bind yourself to do something. This aspect of covenant theology is both powerful...

Covenant Theology - also called Federal Theology - is a way of summarising how God deals with humanity. As a system of doctrine, it comes mainly from the scholarly Calvinism of 17th century England, Scotland and northern Europe. But it was not "invented" then. It is a development of Calvin's thought [some people dispute this]; some Medieval theologians used covenant categories in their theology; and of course it tries to express what the Bible says about God's dealings with humanity. Covenant theology summarises all of God's dealings with humanity in terms of two covenants: a covenant of works with Adam, and a covenant of grace in Christ. In Gen 2, God made a covenant with Adam: if he obeyed God and resisted the devil, God would reward him with eternal life in a glorified new creation. The tree of life in the garden of Eden represents this promise (Gen 2:9b). But as we know, Adam failed, and instead of life, brought the curse of death upon the whole human race. Th...

I'm trying to get my blog onto the Facebook blog network. So if you like this MMM of mine, hop on Facebook, go to my Blog Networks page - I think it's http://apps.new.facebook.com/blognetworks/blogpage.php?blogid=28546 - and confirm my blog!

I've tried to reframe those five habits of effective ministers in terms of evangelical effectiveness. In one sense it's just a change of words; but I'm trying to avoid mere pragmatism, and make the gospel - the message of Christ crucified and risen - more obviously central. So, here's my five habits of Evangelically effective ministers: 1. All their life, they broaden and deepen their understanding of the gospel ("committed to lifelong learning"); 2. They actively seek good examples of Christ-centered ministry, and seek to pass the gospel on to the next generation ("make leadership selection and mentoring a priority"); 3. They regularly and deliberately analyse their life and ministry, to examine how effectively they are advancing the gospel ("have a dynamic ministry philosophy"); 4. They deliberately evangelise themselves, realising that they are basically no different to those they minister to, but are themselves sinners, forgiven by Chri...

It just occured to me - I'm becoming a bit of a Pauline specialist. Since April, I’ve preached exclusively from Paul. I did Romans ch 1-5; then one-off talks on Eph 2:11-22, Galatians 2:11-21, 1 Thess ch 1, and 2 Cor 5:11-21. I won't be changing any time soon: this month, I’m gonna be running some Bible studies on Galatians for SBM! Well, I did the whole of Deuteronomy back in Tasmania in January. And I did Matthew ch 26-28 at St David's in March-April, as we approached Easter. And in our ACU Bible studies, we're looking at 1 Peter. So I'll have some input from the Old Testament, a Gospel, and a non-Pauline letter. But, I must admit, my mind is full of Paul. I really should broaden my repertoire. It's probably not healthy to be too specialised so early.

I'm reading Clive Hamilton's brand new book The Freedom Paradox (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin 2008). It's very interesting. There's a lot of quotable quotes but so far this is my favourite: There can be little doubt that in the marketing society of the modern West, the only idolatry that can compete with the sexual one is the worship of money. (Page 199) For more on Clive Hamilton, check out www.clivehamilton.net.au .

A couple of weeks ago, our pastoral care group discussed the five habits of effective ministers. An effective minister is someone who remains in full-time, "professional" ministry until retirement (they don't burn out), has a sense of purposefulness in their ministry (they're not grumpy, miserable and constantly stressed), and has a balanced personal and family life (neither they nor their family are falling to pieces). Studies show that ministers who exhibit these characteristics tend to: 1. Be committed to lifelong learning – informally (personal research, personal projects etc); non-formally (workshops, seminars, conferences); and formally (higher degrees, continuing professional education etc); 2. Make leadership selection and mentoring is a priority – both being mentored, and mentoring emerging leaders; 3. Have a dynamic ministry philosophy, or personal mission statement, which normally emerges in their mid to late 30s; 4. Repeatedly and regularly renew their per...

This is my 100th post! WOO-HOO!

Just created another section to the links: bookshops. Down the bottom right of the page. Bookfinder and Addall search various book seller sites - Amazon, Alibris, Abebooks, Barnes & Noble, etc. They also factor in exchange rates and shipping prices - so make sure you set "shipping destination" to "Australia", and "currency" to AUD. http://www.bookfinder.com/ ; http://www.addall.com/ . Better World Books raise funds for third-world literacy, have quite good prices, and very cheap postage - $2 worldwide! I don't know how they do it! http://www.betterworld.com/ Then of course there's the local Christian book sellers: Koorong, Reformers, Moore, Word and Christian Books Australia. Koorong is big and (usually) cheap - but wait for sales, and always check that you can't get the same price (sometimes cheaper!) at Reformers or Moore. Always check Koorong's markdowns - I've picked up quite a few unexpected bargains there. Quality theology doe...

In 2006, I wrote a column for Southern Cross, the monthly Sydney Anglican Newspaper, called "Diary of a Novice Minister". One of my columns, titled "Hey - I'm fashionable", was about my surprise at discovering that Calvinism was making a comeback among young ministers. It was a response to an article by Collin Hansen in Christianity Today . Hansen's now published a book: Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008). He investigates the new evangelicals in their teens, twenties, and thirties, who enthusiastically, passionately embrace Calvinist-Reformed theology. He traces the influence of teachers and their associated ministries: John Piper, Bethlehem Baptist Church and the Passion Conference; Al Mohler and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; C. J. Mahaney and Joshua Harris of Sovereign Grace Ministries; Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church in Seattle; continuing interest in, and research on, Jonathan ...