Paul wrote Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon from prison. He would doubtless have preferred to be with them in person (Phil 1:8), but as he was kept apart from them he ministered from where God had placed him as best as he could. We don’t get any sense that Paul felt his life was on hold: he continues to make the most of his daily circumstances (Col 4:3ff), preaching to the palace guards and all those around him (Eph 6:19; Phil 1:13), and sending out messengers with hand-written letters to the churches to encourage them and receive news for his own prayers and encouragement (Eph 6:22; Phil 2:18; Col 4:7-9).
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Ministering from a distance: Paul’s ministry from prison
Praying well before COVID-19
Moore College has always been in the business of praying. As a student a few years ago, I distinctly remember being struck by the faculty’s prayerful dependence on our Lord. They prayed at the beginning of each lecture. They prayed as a response to and as an application of what we were learning from the Bible. They prayed in chaplaincy groups as we shared ministry wisdom and talked through issues at College. They prayed with tears of sorrow as we struggled through life’s hardships. They prayed with tears of joy as we celebrated the happiest of moments in Christian community. They prayed before each exam, focusing our attention on the goals of growing our relationship with God and developing a deep love for people to come to Christ and grow in him. They prayed for us individually during morning tea, lunch, over coffee and as a collective faculty on Monday mornings.
Post-College, life has not been easy. Things have not gone to plan, as far as our plans are worth anything. Things have been difficult personally. And in all of this, the faithful prayer of the faculty has not stopped. With tears, couched in wise advice of those with years of ministry experience, and with empathy that brings me to tears as I pen this at my desk, some of the faculty who have mentored me have held me in prayer.
Moore College has always been a praying College. Not just the faculty, but the whole College. Our Governing Board, faculty, staff, students, wider community, alumni, donors, ministry partners and supporters. In Australia and further abroad, shaped by the life-giving gospel that brings us together, Moore College is a praying College. And this is no coincidence.
As we see so clearly in the Scriptures, praying is a big part of living the Christian life. Praying helps us to keep trusting the Lord Jesus, as we model a posture of dependence on our Lord. When we pray, we let go of all those burdens in our life which weigh us down. When we pray, we articulate our submission to our Lord who is in control of every part of our life. And so, we give him praise and thanks for saving us from an eternity apart from him by that ultimate display of his love on the cross, as well as every blessing we experience day by day.
But even more, because of his reconciliatory work, we also ask him for whatever we need, knowing that he, as our heavenly Father, gives us good things, abundantly more than we could think of asking. And finally, we pray knowing that prayer is powerful. For as we listen and inwardly digest the Scriptures, the Spirit works in aligning our affections with those of our Lord. And as we love what he loves and pray in response to what the Scriptures show us, we see that God answers our prayers. I am often reminded of this in the book of James. In his epistle, the brother of our Lord exhorts us to pray in trouble and praise in times of joy.
And so, when the pandemic hit us, we did what we have done throughout our history as a College – we prayed. The women of our College prayed. Our faculty prayed. Our students prayed. We prayed in chapel. We asked those in our Diocese to pray. And taking the lead from our Principal, Dr Mark Thompson, we came together online in the Men Praying for Moore event, and we prayed. We had people join us from as close as Sydney city and as far as Carrickfergus, Ireland. We had elderly brethren including former archbishops and retired clergy, as well as current faculty, College students, current chaplains and faithful pray-ers in partner churches. Together we prayed for the College, the Diocese of Sydney and the continued impact of the gospel around the world. We prayed for all those suffering because of this pandemic, both within the College community and further afield. And we thanked God that although COVID-19 seemed powerful, our Lord Jesus is more powerful. He who spoke the stormy sea into submission was not overwhelmed with a virus, as our world has been.
I am so thankful for the model of prayerful dependence on the Lord that I have received from Moore College. The priority and consistency of prayer speaks volumes to what the College values. Moore College was praying well before COVID-19 came along, and I take it that the College will continue praying long into the future, as would be expected of a Christian community who love the Lord Jesus, teach the Scriptures and prepare men and women for gospel service.
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How to respond when someone gives up their faith
When asked if he’s ever known someone who was influential on his faith turn from the gospel, Rev Jim Ramsay chuckles sadly. While he can’t name a mentor who went from following Christ to “hardcore atheist”, he has seen plenty of people close to him walk away.
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How scripture teachers feel about returning to school
Since schools transitioned to online learning at the end of March, Special Religious Education classes have been put on hold. Youthworks has developed a clear set of guidelines for teachers and helpers to assist in the safe return to SRE lessons, outlining what is required for distancing and hygiene.
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Glory of Christ #2
In the second of these short reflections on the glory of Christ, I want to draw attention specifically to the constitution of his person in two natures, fully divine, and fully human.
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A giant of 20th century evangelicalism
James Innell Packer was one of the three giants of 20th century evangelicalism: the evangelist, Billy Graham; the pastor/Bible teacher, John Stott; the theologian, Jim Packer. His influence on evangelical thought and practice around the globe has been immense. Here in Australia we owe him an enormous debt. With the brilliant mind with which God endowed him, he was able to answer the dominant liberalism of the mid and late twentieth century and help revive classic reformed theology in the life of the church.
Jim’s book Fundamentalism and the Word of God (1958) was life-changing for many. He gave our confidence in the Bible a new depth and resilience. Slightly later, his book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (1961) demonstrated the way a clear reformed theology, with an emphasis on God’s sovereignty in all things, not least in salvation, went hand in hand with a confident and gracious evangelism. We can share the message of Christ, call people to repentance and faith, while recognising that it is God who saves people, not themselves and not the brilliance of the one who shares the gospel with them. Prayer is the partner of evangelism because God is the Saviour of men and women. That is an incredibly liberating truth. Then his enduring classic, Knowing God (1973), captured the hearts and minds of a generation of young Christian men and women, grounding them in God’s revelation of himself and his ways in Scripture. A lecture he also gave in 1973 at Tyndale House, ‘The Logic of Penal Substitution’, helped many to grasp the theological dimensions of the cross and its consequences. In more recent years a number of his articles have been gathered into a 4 volume set, The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer (1998–9).
Jim Packer’s writing was always clear, insightful, generous towards those with whom he disagreed, but uncompromising in its commitment to the truth given to us in the words of Scripture. He was an encourager of others. The number of books he endorsed is almost legendary. He travelled around the world teaching the Bible and introducing people to his beloved Puritans. He loved the Puritans because they were determined to bring theology and life together. The knowledge of God, they knew, is not an abstract discipline, the kind of knowledge that puffs up. The knowledge of God is profoundly relational and practical, it shapes the way we live. Jim’s book The Quest for Godliness (1990) was a call for us to follow the Puritans in this determination to live in the light of the God we know, his mercy towards us and what he has made known of his purpose and intention for our lives.
Throughout his life he did not shrink from declaring the truth even when it was fiercely opposed. He was a founding member of the Council for Biblical Inerrancy and an initial signatory to the Chicago Statement. He contributed a number of books and articles defending the utter truthfulness of Scripture. He was a member of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and defended a complementarian view of identity, relationships and ministry. He did not shrink from declaring the teaching of Scripture on the issue, notably penning an article for Christianity Today in 1991 entitled ‘Let’s Stop Making Women Presbyters’. He called for ecumenical cooperation without the compromise of theological distinctiveness, most famously by contributing to the book Evangelicals and Catholics Together. He was one of those who endured the sanction of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster when he, the congregation he attended in Vancouver (St John’s Shaughnessy), and a number of leading Canadian Anglicans voiced their opposition to the move to bless same-sex unions and removed themselves from the local synod in June 2002. He later explained his decision in another Christianity Today article, ‘Why I walked: Sometimes loving a denomination requires you to fight’ (2003). His license as a minister of the word was removed by the Canadian hierarchy in 2008, though immediately his ministry was affirmed by other Anglicans throughout the world. He was made an honorary canon of St Andrews Cathedral, Sydney at the end of that year and became Theologian Emeritus of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) when it was formed in 2009.
Jim Packer was a great friend of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney and Moore College. He was one of the early lecturers in the Annual Moore College Lecture series. He gave a series of lectures in 1978 entitled ‘We Preach Christ Crucified’. I met him on a number of occasions, memorably spending a week speaking at a conference with him in the mid 1990s. He was warm, friendly, willing to provide advice and encouragement to the crowds of theological students and others who clamoured for a moment of his time. I remember taking a group of students to hear him speak on ‘What we can learn from the Puritans’ at Latimer House in Oxford in 1995, knowing that having spent time with him was something they would never forget.
Others will be able to speak with greater authority about Jim Packer the man. My personal encounters with him were fleeting. Every moment I spent with him was encouraging and thought provoking. He was generous in person just as he had always been in his writing. He did not seem to be aware of the scope of his influence and the enormous help he had been to so many. However, his theological contribution over almost 70 years (he entered Wycliffe Hall Oxford in 1949 and was still encouraging people far and wide until ill health made meeting people impossible more recently) has been extraordinary. Like so many around the world, I learnt a great deal from him. Today we thank God for giving us this man and giving him the gifts he used so faithfully for the health and growth of the church of God. He now sees face to face the Saviour he loved. Meanwhile his remarkable legacy will continue to enrich the lives of God’s people for many years to come.
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