Latest Ideas

Talking about predestination with kids

  • Tony Payne
  • 1 June 2010

Some parents resent being the taxi driver. I offer to do it whenever I can. When else do your teenagers actually consent to sit within 10 metres of you, let alone talk to their friends while you listen? And besides, the opportunity to pay out their appalling music

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Is the church still serious about hell?

  • 1 June 2010

Hell is not a popular subject for Christians and non-Christians alike. However, for Jesus, hell was a very important topic—so much so that much of the information we have about it came from him. In this article, Jonathan Gibson explores several alternative views of hell as well as what the

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Keep the Sabbath

  • 1 June 2010

At the risk of being too general, most Christians agree it’s good and wise to keep the intention of the Sabbath by taking a day off every week and resting.[1. There have been some great Briefing articles about this. See, for example, ‘The relationship between the testaments: Law and Sabbath’

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Some reflections on team leadership

  • 1 June 2010

There has already been so much published on team leadership that, upon being asked to write this, my immediate response was, “Not another one!” I’m not even sure that ‘team leadership’ is the right category to use, for it leads us into business pragmatism rather than the Bible’s relational categories.

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Jesus. All about life, by Murray Smith

  • Scott Petty
  • 1 May 2010

  Jesus. All about life (Youth Edition) Murray Smith Bible Society NSW, Macquarie Park, 2009. 135pp. Murray Smith has put together a smart and sassy little book called Jesus. All about life. This 135-page creation has an obvious connection with the evangelistic campaign of the same

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Can't read? Won't read!

  • 1 May 2010

  There are some great resources around for reaching people with the gospel—books on apologetics like If you could ask God one Question and Naked God—books that explain the gospel clearly, like A Fresh Start and Christianity Explained—and, of course, there are Bibles and Gospels that we can hand

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Making babies when sex just isn’t enough

  • 1 May 2010

Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”: Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.” (Prov 30:15b-16) Infertility is on the rise: current statistics say it now affects one in six couples.[1. http://www.abc.net.au/health/library/stories/2007/05/30/1919840.htm.] If you are not personally affected,

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Diary of a ministry apprentice (Part 3): March to May-ish 2008

  • Guan Un
  • 1 May 2010

Here is the third part of this six-part series written by Guan who, in his spare time, likes to think about things. He is married to the remarkable M,[1. ‘M’ stands for Mary, here abbreviated to M in an effort to bring the world of Sesame Street just that little

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The joy of infertility

  • 1 May 2010

In the midst of the grief and pain of infertility, Karen Galvin found joy and opportunities to grow in godliness. In Briefing #262, Phil Wheeler wrote some pastoral reflections on infertility, entitling his article ‘A silent grief’. But I believe that infertility ought not to be so. In my experience,

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The book and the vine

  • Tony Payne
  • 1 May 2010

One of the more fascinating books I read last year had the ironic title The Book is Dead. Long Live the Book. It was a book seeking to persuade me that books are history. The author, Sherman Young, ran the provocative thesis that a ‘book’ was not the outer

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