Essentials

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Written by: Thom Bull

Luke 4:1-13

What exactly does Jesus resist when he stands against the Devil’s temptations in the wilderness? The history of the reception of this passage and its parallels offers a number of possible answers to this question. Chrysostom is representative of the fathers in seeing here a rejection of specific sins – gluttony, vain ambition and the desire for riches.¹  Calvin charts a different course as an explicit correction of this exegetical tradition, taking the Devil’s offers as an attempt to provoke Jesus to doubt God, to rise up in rivalry against him, and to seize his gifts apart from him.² Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamazov famously perceives in Christ a refusal to adopt a tactic of coercion whereby allegiance would be forced through an irrefutable display of miracle, spectacle, and power, and instead a commitment to the preservation of human freedom. These readings ought not to be dismissed out of hand; yet what none of them seems explicitly to reflect (with the one possible exception being Calvin’s reading) is the extent to which it is Jesus’ sonship that is at stake in the wilderness (‘If you are the Son of God…). Here we might offer another answer to the question of what Jesus rejects that seeks to take this into account, specifically by reading the temptation narrative in the light of what immediately precedes it – the account of Jesus’ baptism.

In Jesus’ baptism, a paradox is revealed to be lying at the heart of his identity and task, and it is a paradox of sonship.

On the one hand, at the Jordan, Jesus’ identity as the Son of God is publically manifested – he is the one who stands in unique relationship to the Father, and who comes as his king and judge.³ On the other hand, it is also revealed that this sonship doesn’t secure for Jesus a path of ease and comfort; on the contrary, it calls him to the work of suffering in the place of his people. This is made clear both by the second half of the heavenly announcement of Lk. 3:22, with its allusion to the servant song of Isaiah 42, and by the action of the baptism itself, in which Jesus the judge adopts the posture of a sinful and repentant Israelite, and so stands in solidarity with the judged. Jesus’ sonship, then, far from promising him the earthly career that one might expect for so exalted a figure, delivers him into its opposite; his will not be an impervious life marked by an immediacy of glory, but rather one of weakness and affliction in the self-giving service of his own.

With this in mind, the Devil’s temptations that follow may be seen as each offering Jesus an alternative way of being the Son to that revealed in his baptism. We may take each temptation in turn, to see how this is so. The first temptation, to turn a stone into bread, invites Jesus to prove his sonship, not simply by performing a mighty deed, but one that will do away with his own hunger and lack – for surely, if he is God’s Son, God wouldn’t let him starve?⁴ The second temptation,  proposing universal sovereignty in exchange for a shift in Jesus’ allegiance, offers him something that the Father has, in fact, already promised his Son,⁵ but offers it now, with no expectation that the path by which the Father has determined the Kingdom will come – the path of rejection and crucifixion – need be trod. The third temptation, to put God to the test, goads Jesus in a way similar to the first to evidence his sonship through a demonstration of an automatic divine protection that will spare him harm in all circumstances. Each temptation, then, coaxes Jesus to act on the basis of a very different vision of what it means to be the Son of God to that which has been revealed and embodied in his baptism – one which doesn’t direct him into the passion for the sake of his people and commit him to trusting God through it, but instead spares him such things, proffering entitlement, safety and suffering-free glory.

Jesus, of course, resists these temptations through God’s word. In doing so, he reaffirms that vocation which, though manifested in his baptism, is grounded in the depths of eternity; his “No” to the Devil is in fact a “Yes” to the Father, and in this he triumphs over the one who would turn him from the Father’s course. This triumph, however, is not so much for himself, as for us; and it is such in at least two ways.

Firstly, as is often noted, Jesus triumphs for us in that the battle he wins is one that had previously been lost – by Adam, by Israel, and with them, by all of us. Luke tells the story of the temptations expressly to show that where those ‘sons of God’ failed,⁶ here the true Son of God – the true Adam, the true Israel – resists temptation, refuses to yield to sin and to Satan, and so undoes the knot that we had tied.

Secondly, Jesus triumphs for us in that his refusal to turn from suffering is a refusal to turn from the path by which he will redeem us. Jesus suffering isn’t, of course, something arbitrary that the Father has set upon him; it is the means of our salvation. This is how Jesus will bring not only himself, but us with him into his kingdom – by refusing to insist that his sonship ought to afford and preserve him certain rights and privileges, and instead committing to relinquish such things for us. Therefore, when Jesus says “No” to the devil in the wilderness, he says “Yes” to God, but as such he also says “Yes” to us. Jesus will not abandon the way of the cross, because he will not abandon us. He will not be Son simply for himself; no matter the cost, he refuses to be king without his people.

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Written by: Peter Brain

It is not uncommon for our strengths to become our weaknesses. Could this be a problem with our love for a rigorous exegetical method of preparing sermons?

Ministers are sometimes told that there is no need for a devotional reading of the Bible since all our reading and preparation should engage us with God. I believe this is a half- truth which can so easily lead us away from one of our great evangelical strengths. The strength of a warm devotion to the Lord Jesus has nurtured and strengthened the hearts of evangelical Christians and pastors alike. The daily quiet time has been an essential expression of this devotion.
The very concept of a regular time alone with God has often been branded legalism. A moment’s reflection ought to dispel this as unwise, unbiblical (Lam 3:21-23 and Matt 6:11) and singularly unhelpful since we regularly make time to eat our evening meal with our family and applaud the husband who arranges a regular date with his wife. Anything worthwhile requires planning and discipline.

Pastors who forget that they are Christians before they are pastors are at great risk in many areas of their life. Perhaps the chief danger is that of a professional approach to the Scriptures that is content with a knowledge and careful handling of the Bible rather than a growing loving relationship with God.

The advice given to me by one of my parish leaders shortly after I was converted was both wise and helpful. “Peter, try to read the Bible every day and expect God to speak to you”. Reading the Bible is more than reading the Bible. It is to engage in relationship with the living God who loves to speak to His children. This is a prior responsibility to our role as pastor, meeting as children with our Father rather than as servants with our Master. The primary purpose is not to prepare a sermon,  but to be trained, corrected, encouraged, led, indwelt and nurtured by our loving Triune God.

A number of blessings follow this prayerful expectation. The first is that the Bible will always be seen and experienced as a living book. Devotional reading will always keep our preaching  and pastoring fresh because our relationship with God will always be growing. The S.U chorus will be at the heart of our approach to Scripture. “Make the Book live to me O Lord, Show me Yourself within Your Word; Show me myself and show me my Saviour, And make the book live to me”.

Our evangelical tendency to exalt the objective above the subjective will be moderated as we expect God to speak to us in this way. We will not only preach the third day resurrection of Jesus, but remind ourselves that every day He lives to be our great understanding High Priest and our Friend. We will take great heart from His desire to fellowship with us, that abiding antidote to lukewarmness (Rev. 3:20), that persistent enemy of western Christians and zealous pastors alike.

One of our dangers is to slip into a “Christism”, as devastatingly erroneous and unhelpful as deism.   This is the trap of so focussing on the propositions of scripture as to neglect the three Persons to whom the propositions testify. The recent trend to speak of “gospel ministers” as the way of describing our role rather than “ministers of the Lord Jesus” could be an unintentional way of robbing ourselves of the joy of being called into and involved intimately with our Lord in our Father’s business.

At a very practical level of encouragement in ministry, meeting with our Heavenly Father is surely more important than simply reading or studying the Bible. Devotional reading will expect God to speak to us through the text rather than our exegetical methods. Our Lord’s “do not be afraid” to His disciples on the lake becomes a timely word to us when buffeted with life’s demands and problems. The fearful Israelites quaking in their boots at Goliath’s taunts will be a rebuke to our fears just as David’s boldness, a spur to action, along with biblical theology’s insight that David represents Christ who has won the battle for us. Would we argue with the doyen of 18/19th century expository preachers, Charles Simeon, finding strength from our Lord, when, following prayer for God’s comfort from a plain verse of scripture upon opening his Greek Testament, put his finger on the text “they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; they compelled to carry his cross” (Matt.27:32)? It may not be pure exegesis but it is does express the love of our Father for His son who was in need of encouragement to press on in His faithful exegetical ministry. If we expect our fellow Christians to apply all the exegetical skills of homiletics which we apply to sermon preparation might we in effect be closing the Book to them and missing out on God’s comfort ourselves?

Marital unfaithfulness and addiction to pornography are more likely to be kept at bay by those who engage in “a devotional pattern that places us starkly in awe before a fearsome God. A God-angled view of sin and its consequences.” (Bill Halstead).

We are far less likely to sin against One with whom we meet daily and far more likely to find the strength and pleasure of obedience from our gracious Lord who lovingly encourages us every time we meet with Him.

Our heritage is as priceless as it is satisfying. And herein lies our greatest danger when we can so easily be satisfied with our heritage rather than the One who has so graciously blessed us with it. As we remember that the same Holy Spirit who guided the Biblical authors to write the Scriptures also dwells in us we should not be at all surprised that He will make God’s written Word alive for us every time we make the time to meet with Him. 

Peter Brain is the former Bishop of Armidale and presently Rector of the parish of Rockingham in the Diocese of Perth.

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Written by: Ben Underwood

What is the business of church? ¹ Why does the congregation congregate, and when they get together what should they be doing and why should they be doing it?

In answering this, our thoughts might first turn to the kinds of things that we do in church, things like praising God, learning from the Bible, praying, sharing with and serving our fellow Christians. But is there anything that holds these things together, some purpose that they all serve?

This seems to be a useful question to ponder. For if we were clear what church was for, it would help us participate in church, and give us a way to help others participate too. More than that, knowing what the congregation was supposed to be doing when it met, and why, would also help us assess how well church was serving its God-given purposes. 

I notice that reformed and evangelical Christians take different approaches to this question (to say nothing of those with other theological outlooks). I want to explore two contrasting approaches to these questions: those of John Piper and of D. Broughton Knox.

Church is for the pursuit of worship – John Piper

One answer that might occur to you is that the God-given purpose of church is the worship of God. The church service is ‘corporate worship’. Speaking this way about church places the emphasis on us making some response to God, and towards God, whether that response is the reverent and orderly participation in a proper liturgy or joyful praise and adoration in song, or receiving God’s word with open ears and ready hearts.

John Piper is a pastor and writer for whom worship is a fundamental category for talking about the Christian before God, and his thinking on the church as worship is worth our attention. In what follows I am following his seminar notes ‘Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning: The Pursuit of God in Corporate Worship’.² Piper sees the business of the Christian life as worship, and the business of church as corporate worship, unfolding as an awakening, a pursuit and an experience, all of which are worship in some manner, for they show forth the glory and worth of God. The awakening as that we are stirred up to pursue satisfaction in God by hearing the word of God, supremely in preaching, which is an act of expository exultation. The pursuit is pursuit of satisfaction in God in the common activities of the church service, and the experience is of satisfaction in God,1 in which God is glorified by our enjoyment of him.

The Experience: Worship

Piper works backwards through this triad, because for him the essence of worship is the experience of satisfaction in God, and the awakening and pursuit are only worship inasmuch as they lead to the experience. So, as he often does, Piper begins with the foundational thesis that there is no other greater than God and that our great good and purpose is to glorify him (i.e. worship him) by enjoying him forever. Worship is an inward, spiritual experience. In his words, ‘The essential, vital, indispensable, defining heart of worship is the experience of being satisfied with God because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. The chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying him for ever.’³
It may seem to fly in the face of the New Testament to think about church from the category of worship, but Piper faces this difficulty explicitly. He  looks at NT usage of two main words that might be translated ‘worship’ (proskuneo and latreuo) and acknowledges that these are not used to describe what happens in the Christian gathering. Piper seeks the explanation of this in Jesus’ aim to divert attention ‘away from worship as a localized thing with outward forms to a personal, spiritual experience with himself at the centre. Worship does not need a building, a priesthood, and a sacrificial system. It needs the risen Jesus.’ ⁴

Piper takes Jesus’ words that ‘true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth’ (John 4:23) to mean that ‘this true worship is carried along by the Holy Spirit and is happening mainly as an inward, spiritual event, not mainly as an outward, bodily event.’⁵ And, as Piper sees it, the New Testament writers continued Jesus’ programme so that in their writings worship ‘is being significantly de-institutionalized, de-localized, de-externalized. The whole thrust is being taken off of ceremony and seasons and places and forms and is being shifted to what is happening in the heart – not just on Sunday, but every day and all the time in all of life.’⁶

Piper suggests that for the NT writers to use worship language for church would too much have suggested an identity between worship and certain occasions or acts. Hence, by avoiding worship language and categories in speaking of  church gatherings, the NT does not marginalise worship, but underscores that  worship is located ultimately in the heart, not in any outward form, place or act.

The Pursuit of Worship
If, as Piper reasons, the essence of worship is the experience of being satisfied in God, then since we are to worship God, we should pursue this experience of being satisfied in God. This pursuit of satisfaction in God then becomes a kind of extension of worship out from its essence. The ambit of worship widens to include both the experience of satisfaction, and the activity of pursuing that satisfaction. Indeed all things in life should serve the pursuit of this satisfaction in God, including church. So, if Christians are convinced that ‘nothing is going to bring satisfaction to their aching hearts besides God’, then ‘This conviction breeds a people who go hard after God on Sunday morning. They are not confused about why they are there. They do not see songs and prayers and sermons as mere traditions or mere duties. They see them as means of getting to God or God getting to them for more of his fullness.’⁷

This pithy answer to the question What is church for? explains why Piper’s Philosophy Of Music And Worship begins with ‘God-centeredness’, which is expounded as ‘A high priority on the vertical focus of our Sunday morning service. The ultimate aim is to so experience God that he is glorified in our affections.’⁸
Congregation members are to ‘Come on the lookout for God, leave on the lookout for people.’ And they seek to ‘Remove horizontal intrusions between vertical acts.’ (I take this to mean that a focus on people should not interrupt the congregation’s focus on God.)

The Awakening of Worship

However, there is something else to be taken into account: ‘In the real world of ordinary Christians, the pursuit of satisfaction in God through supplication, thanks, and praise do not usually arise in the hearts of God’s people without being stirred up in some way when they come together.’⁹
The stirring up is accomplished by the Word of God, by the mouth of the preacher, augmented by the example of the preacher: ‘in this world it is normal to go backward without continual exposure to the Word of God awakening in us the spiritual affections God deserves from us.’¹⁰ ‘God also designs that some of this continual exposure to the Word of God be provided by leaders in the church whose calling it is to make truth known to the people and to be examples of Godward affection for them.’¹¹ ‘The content of God’s Word will be woven through all we do in worship. It will be the ground of all our appeal to authority. Preaching (expository exultation) will be central.’¹²

This high valuation of the preaching of the word leads Piper to a further widening of the ambit of the word worship. Worship is not only the experience of satisfaction in God, and the pursuit of this satisfaction, but the stirring up of others to pursue satisfaction in God through preaching (‘expository exultation’) is itself worship too,
‘because the declaration of God’s truth and the demonstration of its value with appropriate affections is worship. That is, it displays the value of God in that it shows he is worth knowing and proclaiming and feeling strongly about.’¹³

Two observations about all this. Firstly, Piper is thinking out of a theological foundation into the practice of church against the background of Scripture and his context. Worship is the big theological category for everything in Piper’s view of what it is to be a human being before God, so worship is the foundation for thinking about church too. This is not surprising. What we should note is that in this analysis, church is complex – it is not a simple, uniform act of worship that goes on in a congregation, but centres about sluggish, forgetful human hearts being stirred up to seek satisfaction in God, centrally by the expository exultation of a preacher, and the congregation together using the activities of the service as the means of seeking and expressing that satisfaction in God. 

The second observation I would make here is that this analysis is an antidote to any approach to church which does not place the relationship we have with God at the centre of what church is about. It is an assault on the church as social-cum-community group or cultural habit. It is a theological, un-sociological account of church designed to reveal the real significance of what it is to go to church.

Church is for the expression of fellowship – D. B. Knox

To be frank, Piper’s approach to church seems foreign to me (unsurprising, really, since he is from a slightly different culture). Engaging with Piper’s vision of church has sent me back to examine the influential voices in my own Christian culture to understand my own instincts about church. If the pointy end of John Piper’s theological vision is worship, then D. Broughton Knox, who taught influentially in Sydney Anglican circles, had a theological vision with a pointy end too, namely, fellowship. We Knox sees the business of the Christian life as fellowship, and the business of church as to express and enjoy that fellowship. We may summarise Knox’s view of the aims of church as the increase and expression of the experience of fellowship.

The Experience: Fellowship

Whereas John Piper thinks of the true end of human beings as the worship of God, Knox thinks of the true end of human beings as fellowship with God and one another in Christ. As Piper sees it, God’s basic delight is in his glory and its display. Our fundamental way of sharing in God’s basic delight is our worship, which is the enjoyment and display of God’s glory. As Knox sees it, God’s basic delight is the fellowship – the shared love and activity – of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our fundamental way of sharing in God’s basic delight is to come into fellowship with him, and his people.
In his essay ‘The Biblical Concept of Fellowship’, Knox defines fellowship as, ‘friends sharing a common possession, leading to a common activity on the basis of that sharing’.¹⁴ For Knox, although ‘fellowship is a basic and delightful human experience’¹⁵ , fellowship begins in God – the full, perfect and blissful fellowship within the Trinity. Their common possession is the self-giving love the persons of the Trinity have for one another, and all the divine works of creation and salvation are their common activity.¹⁶

Human enjoyment of fellowship with one another ‘springs directly from the image of God in which men and women have been created’.¹⁷ We are made for fellowship. This fellowship is to be with God, and with one another, and although the fall has broken that fellowship with God and one another, in Christ, that fellowship is restored. A favourite verse of Knox’s is 1 John 1: 3;  ‘that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.’

In Knox’s view a verse like this describes the heart and reality of the Christian experience and the goal of salvation. Christ (that ‘seen and heard’) has brought Christians into fellowship with himself and his Father, with one another (‘we’) and, through their proclamation of Christ, with still others (‘you’).

Elsewhere Knox writes: ‘In the Scriptures, God has made known his plan and purpose and final objective for mankind, which he is bringing to pass. It may be summed up in one word – fellowship; God has made us for fellowship. Heaven is fellowship with one another in God’s presence’¹⁸

Fellowship is friends sharing in a common activity¹⁹ , and Knox sees this fellowship with God and one another as being experienced by the Christian in several areas of activity. Christians share together in the praise, thanksgiving and intercession directed to the Father, led by the Son and helped by the Spirit.²⁰ We share together with Christ and one another in the fellowship of evangelism, of living by faith in God, of suffering, of generous giving, of hope, of the inheritance of God’s people, of the Spirit.²¹

Knox writes that ‘our truest fellowship is the sharing of Christ’, and, ‘to be conscious of this fellowship means being conscious of of our relationship with God and one another in God.’²²

This is the Christian life – a life of fellowship with God and one another, which is fundamentally a delight. So then, as Christians, we should seek to express and to increase this fellowship.

Expressing Fellowship

Church, then, is an expression of this fellowship. ‘The church service should provide this fellowship’, writes Knox, going on to say ‘The real reason [for church] is that the Spirit of God has drawn [the congregation] into each other’s company to meet with Christ in each other, in accordance with his promise to be present with them. The Spirit has drawn them that they might experience the fellowship of the Spirit whom they all share.’²³

Knox lamented the failure he perceived in his own culture of church to appreciate the centrality of fellowship – ‘friends sharing in a common activity’. Neither pulpit nor pew thought they were in church for fellowship, and the formal, solemn, quiet, constrained conduct of church services provided little opportunity ‘to see the faces of our fellow-Christians […] shining with the face of Christ’.²⁴ Rather, Knox laments that in his church culture, ‘the only thing a worshipper at Morning Prayer sees of his fellow worshipper from the moment he enters the building, til the time he leaves it again, is the back of his head.’²⁵
Rather, the expression of Christian fellowship, friends sharing Christ in common, as we meet, ‘doing together what we do on our own, seeking Christ’s face for he is in each of us and we meet him in one another.’ I’m not sure what Knox would have said to Piper’s ‘Come on the lookout for God, leave on the lookout for people’ quoted above, but he might have said, ‘If you are on the lookout for God, look for him in his people.’ Knox is concerned our recognition and appreciation of one another as we gather is natural, genuine and primary in our engagement as church.

Increasing Fellowship

Knox holds that the end of church is Christian fellowship, and this fellowship is not a means to a further end, and always exists as it has been established by Christ. However, our consciousness and enjoyment of that fellowship can be and should be increased.  The means to Christians experiencing the fellowship of the Spirit ‘is remembering Jesus, dwelling in him, setting our minds on things above, where he is. All these phrases mean the same thing – namely being consciously in his presence.’²⁶

One important way to increase our consciousness of the reality of our  fellowship, our consciousness that we are together in the presence of Christ and his Father is teaching the word of God. ‘Christian fellowship is evoked on the word of God, and response to that word.’²⁷ The word of God brings a knowledge which is the first thing necessary for the strengthening of fellowship. He writes,

‘Christian fellowship is based on knowledge; knowledge of our common possessions, our common calling. This knowledge stirs the imagination, warms the affections, energizes the will to work, to suffer and to hope, and unites us all into one, God and his people. Knowledge comes through being taught with a receptive, obedient mind.’²⁸
Knox therefore treats the teacher of the congregation as one exercising a foundational function in the strengthening of fellowship. But his emphasis falls more upon the ‘receptive, obedient’ minds of we who hear, who ‘must act on our knowledge and direct our wills to the things of God’ to experience fellowship with him, whose fellowship is weak because we fail to set our minds on things above, where Christ is. ²⁹

The things we do together at church help us to set our minds on things above – not only hearing his word, but praising him, thanking him, praying to him, sharing the Lord’s Supper. All these things help us remember Christ, and that we are in him and he is in us. When we do these things together at church, our fellowship ‘is not only directed towards God, but also towards one another, building one another up as Christians. The Spirit’s gift of love for one another will ensure that when we come into each other’s company, an important consequence will be helping one another to be better Christians through instruction, exhortation and encouragement’.³⁰

There are obvious points of similarity between Piper and Knox.  They both have an experience taking a central place in their vision of the Christian life. For Piper it is the inward, spiritual experience of being satisfied in God, for Knox it is friends sharing a common possession, namely Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And for both, church has important role in strengthening that experience for the Christian. And further, the preaching or teaching of the word of God has a central place in that strengthening role.

There are also striking differences. In Piper the oneness of God is to the fore. He is God and we are his worshippers, and the great pleasure of God is the display of his glory before his creatures for our joy and his. In Knox, the triunity of God is to the fore. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and his great pleasure is in his own fellowship, shared with his creatures for our joy and his. Perhaps as a result of these differences Piper also focusses more upon the individual ‘going hard after God’ for him or herself in church, with other parties somewhat secondary, whereas Knox focusses on the primacy of the sociality of church, of mutual recognition and appreciation.

Both Piper and Knox offer robustly theological accounts of church designed to reveal the real significance of what it is to go to church, and how we should see and engage with the activities of church and the people we meet there. I can’t read what they have to say without being challenged to examine what I am thinking and feeling and seeking when I go to church on Sunday. And I have a hankering to read what some of the reformers had to say on this topic.

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Written by: Richard Condie

It might not be too far fetched to claim that the Anglican Church in Australia is at a cross-roads. With one third of our Dioceses now declared unviable, and several more teetering on the edge, at the least, we have a serious problem to address. It seems to me that we need to come together to make some positive decisions about our future direction.

One of the glaring omissions in the viability report that was presented to the General Synod last July was the recovery of mission and evangelism as the only real strategy to reverse the trend of decline. There was an assumption that if we got the structures working better, then somehow we would see improvement.

I was recently talking with a ministry colleague of a different tradition. The ministry they were doing was primarily around trying to get people to “come to church”. That was the expressed and assumed goal. When I tried to prod that perhaps helping people come to faith in Jesus might be a more effective goal (and even delivering the desired outcome), I was met with a slightly mystified look, as if I was espousing some arcane idea from a bygone age.

But before I feel too smug, I weep when I see the relatively few people who have made first time professions of faith through our own ministry. If I am brutally honest, the vast majority of people who have become disciples of Jesus at our church have been from overseas, and vastly different cultures from the one in which I have grown up. Praise the Lord for students from Asia, and refugees from the Middle East who are hungry for the gospel, and who want to learn about Jesus!

But to borrow Paul’s phrase in Romans 9, “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart … for my kindred” Aussies. Perhaps it has something to do with living in “the most livable city in the world”, but they seem almost immune to the gospel message that we try to hold out to them. While Melbourne claims that moniker, the rest of the country ain’t that bad either. I remember as a Curate in rural northern NSW preaching at a harvest festival on Deuteronomy 8 about the dangers of “forgetting the Lord”. In many ways the fertile valley where we lived was the Aussie equivalent of a “land flowing with milk and honey”, well at least bananas and sugar cane!

So what are we to do? If Australians already live in something they think of as close to heaven, and quite frankly see no need for the God that we speak about, then we need to do some pretty clear thinking if we are going to make any kind of impact, let alone see a future for our denomination.

At one level we need to be concerned more about the progress of the gospel than we are about the viability of Anglicanism. But at the same time, our Anglican heritage and identity is exactly what Australia needs. The English reformation was about transforming the church so that it was able to present the pure word of God to a world that was in the dark. Sound familiar? And the prayer book, was an attempt to put the word of God and the worship of God into a form that was understandable to the masses (pun intended). It was a missionary endeavor, to reach the people in a way that made sense.

We have just sent out a family from our church to work in cross-cultural mission in East Asia. They have spent the better part of the last 10 years learning about the culture and the ministry context into which they are about to step. They will learn the language, they will find appropriate illustrations of gospel truth that will work in their new context, they will think hard about how the gospel challenges the idols and systemic sins of the country in which they work.

We Aussies need to do the same. We need to realize that we are losing ground for the gospel in Australia by our refusal to change. I do assume with the general readership of Essentials that I am preaching to the converted. However even the converted need to keep sharpening their tools.

We recently did an exercise among our leadership team to develop a spiritual profile of the area we are trying to reach – a series of observations about what people believe and how the gospel addresses each of these beliefs. It was a fascinating exercise and we have much more work to do on it. So far we have identified that the typical person in our neighbourhood views themselves as: 

• Autonomous – valuing freedom to govern their lives.
• Secular – valuing the here and now, the material, and rejecting the supernatural .
• Consumerist – where their consumerism is focussed on experiences.
• Activist – passionate about social and political causes.
• Tribal – belonging to groups of like minded individuals.
• Culturally diverse – in ethnicity but also subcultures.
• Distrusting of institutions – therefore suspicious of the church along with other institutions.
• Egalitarian – believing that every individual has value and a say.
• Sexually active and libertine – where sexuality is a matter of personal choice.
• Highly educated and affluent – most with tertiary qualifications and or well paying jobs (with significant pockets of exception).

Highly engaged with technology – constantly connected through social media and tech devices.
That list might resonate with your context too. But that is a very different kind of person to the one who was being reached by Anglicans in Australia even in the 1980’s when I came to faith. If we don’t adapt, and don’t think how the gospel addresses these changing aspects of our society, and then build an action plan around them, then we will be tossed onto the scrap heap of irrelevance.

We know the Gospel still has something to say. We know that it is the Word of Life for our broken world. We know that it is powerful to transform lives. We know that it answers the deep assumptions and yearnings that are behind many of these observations. But we are going to have to work hard at finding new ways of communicating and engaging with the world and communicating in their language and culture, which I think is a very “Anglican” thing to do. The Anglican Church of the next generation may look very unlike the Anglican church of the last (or even this) generation. But being culturally adaptive, while holding on to the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3), is exactly what Anglicans are supposed to be good at.

Enter, The Anglican Future Conference, 2015. My hope and prayer all along has been that this national gathering of Anglicans will grapple seriously with the issues that I have raised. The conference has six strands:

1. Hearing from God’s Word: It is right that we listen to what God wants to say to us as his people. Kanishka Raffel will open up 2 Peter for us with its challenge about the importance of doctrine and the godly life, and its call to action.

2. Recovering our Anglican Identity: As I have said above, the Anglican movement has been a force for gospel good in our world. Recovering what it really means to be Anglican in a theological sense will help us see the relevance and beauty of what our tradition has to offer for mission in the 21st century. Anglican identity is “what we believe”, and Ashley Null (an internationally renowned Anglican scholar) will unpack this for us over our three days together. Our desire is that it will make us confident about our Anglican future.

3. Standing in the Global Anglican Community: We are not alone in dealing with rapidly changing mission environments. In fact the whole Anglican communion is engaged in different ways. From the challenges of Islam, to the rise of secularism, and the changing face of mission, we need to learn from each other. We are bringing the world to Melbourne in March, where we will hear from Anglican brothers and sisters across the globe about what contending for the faith means for them.

4. Understanding our Missionary Context: As we have noted above Australia is on the move. Our plenary session on our missionary context, and the seven workshops that follow, will help us encounter some of these changes, and think how the gospel helps us to engage them. Simon Smart from the Centre for Public Christianity and Julie-Anne Laird from AFES at Melbourne University will help us think like missionaries at home.

5. Encountering Critical Issues for the Church in the West: There are many issues we need to grapple with if we are going to adapt for mission. New ideas and opportunities abound, and a few hurdles must be overcome. A plenary session led by Stephen Hale (Chair of EFAC Australia) with a panel of practitioners will identify the issues, and again 8 different workshops will help us think about how to put this into action.

6. Imagining Our Anglican Future: We have the potential for a strong positive and healthy future. In the plenary session Peter Adam will share some thoughts about what this might look like, and then a panel will respond to him. Contrary to the thoughts of some, this is not about the secession of FCA and EFAC from the Anglican Church of Australia, it is about our positive contribution to its future. Various workshops will help equip us for a strong faithful future.

On the Thursday evening we will launch the Australian branch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, and invite people to become members. We think this fellowship of likeminded orthodox Anglicans will be a necessary alliance as we move forward together.

My hope and prayer is that this conference will be a positive contribution for all Anglicans in Australia. We have a great gospel to proclaim, and much work to be done. Registrations continue to grow and so I’m glad that it looks like we will have a strong group of Anglicans gathered to work out how to move through our cross-roads to a fruitful and exciting future.

Richard Condie
Chair – Anglican Future Conference
Vicar, St Jude’s Carlton.

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Written by: Dale Appleby

Tradition and change, old and new, debates, opinions, discussions, experiments, can make one feel a bit sea-sick. If you pay attention to social media you will hear lots of voices telling you what's wrong with church and why people don't like going. To a lesser extent you will hear some discussion of what kind of message, or what form the message might take, in relation to different groups – Muslims, secular atheists and so on. You might even hear a variety of ideas about the Bible and how to read it.

Church, gospel, Bible are of great interest to evangelicals. And the broad church that is modern evangelicalism has a whole range of views on these topics. And these are not even the controversial Shibboleth topics. So much talk could drive you to the monastery.

Or make you think you were in the monastery and wanted to get out.

What we may not hear much of in the monastery is talk about the criminally oppressed poor. Or talk about our indigenous brothers and sisters. But, I suppose that depends on which cell you are in.

Are there too many voices? Is the Christian world too noisy? Is it a post-Babel world where everyone talks and no one understands? Maybe. But the post-Babel world is a very old world. And although God spoke everything into being before Babel, he continued to speak to the world after Babel as well.

Can he be heard? Can I hear him? Sometimes we can identify with David who recognised that God had dug out his ears for him (Ps 40.6 ESV fn). Quite an interesting picture, don't you think?  Paul says it a bit more eloquently, “For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” (2 Cor 4.6).

Both of those can be turned into excellent prayers.  Amongst the noise, we want to keeping hearing the voice, and seeing the light, of God himself.

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Written by: Dale Appleby

Dale Appleby reflects on the incarnation

Christmas is quite shocking. At least the big event at the heart of Christmas is. It is like the good shock we get when a very important person visits our home unexpectedly. We may wish later that the place had been cleaned, or that we had said at least something that was intelligent, but as we recover from the shock we feel pleased that we were honoured by their visit - even if we are not quite sure why they came.

We could feel like that about the birth of Jesus, because this is the creator of everything coming to visit and live with his creatures. Presumably he thinks this is important. Or he thinks we are important. Or we could think we were important because of his visit. All of that is true. But why?

Why did the Son of God want to, need to, take on human life, become a human being while still remaining God? And here is a different kind of shock. It was not so much that God needed to do something but that we needed him to do something. He saw that we had a problem that is focussed on death.

Heb 2.14-15 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.

We see the answer to why he became human by observing what he did with the humanity he took to himself. Did he turn it into something glorious and noble, did he become the epitome of the legendary great human? Quite the opposite to startt with: as a human he seemed very ordinary and weak.

Phil 2.7,8 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death- even death on a cross.

The great shock is that he took the humanity to death. He killed it off. He took on humanity in order to put it to death.

Heb 2.17 Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.

Gal 4.4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.

To redeem humanity, to bring it back because of its sin, its rebellion, its turn-your-back-on-God and treat-him-like-a-servant attitude. Because it not only deserved death as Adam was told, but needed it.

Rom 8.3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh

Which doesn't paint humans in a very good light. But then God is not a painter, he is a creator. His interest is not in renovating humans, or giving them a make-over, but in recreating them.

The greatness of the shock of bringing Jesus' humanity to death is deepened when we see what God did next. He raised it from death. He didn't leave the humanity in the grave as though he was finally rid of it. He raised it to a new life.

1 Cor 15.21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.

The raised Jesus is the human divine Jesus who was killed. He took the humanity of Adam to death, and through death to a new life which is now directly connected with Christ rather than Adam. A new start has been made, a new humanity created out of the old. The shock is that God intends that humans should live in an entirely different way. The new life for humans is directly connected with the life of Christ. Who is no longer on the earth.

Eph 1.20 God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come

It is  the same human and divine Christ who is now seated in the highest place. The humanity has not been left behind. The shocking fact that he has taken humanity to the throne of God gives a clue to God's intention for us.

Eph 2.6,7  God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

But how shall we enjoy this new life? It is not a life given to us independent of Jesus. It is not ours to do with as we like. It is the life of God as we know it in our relationship with Christ.

Col 3.2-4  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

So many shocks. That God sets such value on us that he goes to such great lengths to bless us in this way. And also that he declares that we do not deserve this life but that we have forfeited what he gave us in the first place.

In fact that we live under the shadow of death - a death promised by God in the beginning. But it is through death (the death of the New Human) that God does away with the judgment that hangs over us, and also brings to an end the old corrupted humanity and from it raises up a new human, united with himself in Christ.

Such a wonder. That humans who were once made as the image of God, should in the end share the likeness of God's only Son.

1 John 3.2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

Why did God the Son take human flesh? Why did he want to become a human? Why did the Father send his only Son into the world?

1 John 4. 9,10  God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

So? These are the kind of shocks applied to someone whose heart has stopped beating. Do you, will you, live for this God who loved you so much? The new life is directly connected with Christ himself.

2 Corinthians 5:14,15 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
1 John 4. 11,12  Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.