Down-under round-up: 9 April 2015

In the spirit of James 4:15, I intend to supply GoThereFor readers with a weekly list of what’s caught my ministry eye around the web.

Given the speed of evangelical social media, I won’t bother trying to link to the latest or most popular items. That requires a daily service, and I’m certainly not Challies! And anyway, Matthias Media has generally tried to avoid the ‘Areopagus Syndrome’ of Acts 17:21 (nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas!).

Instead, I’ll be sharing:

• What I consider the best and most helpful commentary on whatever the issue of the week was, since it is easy to miss the quality amongst the social media quantity sometimes.


• Several good articles to help with disciple-making—a broad category, since following Jesus involves every area of life. Where possible, I will emphasise Australian voices that deserve a wider audience.


• An ‘image of the week’ for the visually minded.

Please feel free to draw something to my attention via Twitter: @SandmanGrant.

Here’s my first effort.

Issue of the week

Evangelical Christians would much prefer to ‘go to the wall’ over the resurrection or the uniqueness of Christ or Scripture’s authority. But we have to talk about same-sex marriage and the defence of religious liberties. Why? Because the former is today’s foremost ‘defeater belief’ inhibiting our evangelistic efforts, and the latter helps preserve our ability to evangelize legally (if not easily)! Which brings me to the debate over religious freedom laws in Indiana.

In the wackily-titled Indiana Laws and the Raiders of the Lost Freedom, Neil Foster gives a detailed but helpful legal explanation of the issues at stake in Indiana over religious liberty. Towards the end he gives a survey of how these issues are being dealt with in Australia. Neil is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Newcastle in Australia, and also a theologically educated Christian of reformed evangelical flavour.

For something briefer on Indiana from America, but still widely relevant, try A Time for Testing.

Making disciples of Jesus

Last week, the text of Mark Thompson’s excellent address on When to Make a Stand (and when to let something go) from the Anglican Future Conference in Melbourne went online. In light of Athanasius, the Reformation, GAFCON, and especially Galatians 2, he develops some theological principles:

1. The good God has given us a good word that is for the benefit of his people.


2. God’s word is the only authoritative basis on which to make a stand.


3. Matters of ‘indifference’ only exist where either Scripture is silent or it gives freedom for diversity.


4. Christians must have the courage to say ‘no’ as well as ‘yes’.


5. The goal of making any stand is not a ‘party win’ but confessing Christ and caring for his people.

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Then over Easter, the previously-mentioned Neil Foster shared his fascinating paper, Jesus: Dead or Alive? Evaluating the evidence for the Resurrection, where he argues that when we apply contemporary principles of evidence law to the case for the resurrection of Jesus, there is enough evidence to justify a belief that it happened.

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Remarkably, on Easter Monday, in the very secular and progressive Sydney Morning Herald,Australia’s foremost economics journalist, Ross Gittins, wrote admiringly and pretty accurately of Jesus the great debt-eliminator. With the help of Christian Czech economist, Tomas Sedlacek, Gittins reminded Australians that “Western civilisation has been shaped by Christianity and Christian values, which means Christianity has also shaped economics".

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Lastly, on the evergreen topic of leadership, Dave McDonald helpfully reviews Leaders Eat Last—a secular leadership book by Simon Sinek. Dave is ‘robbing the Egyptians’, but with appropriate theological discernment.

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On the topic of leadership, can I say how excited I am about Matthias Media’s publication mid-year of Wisdom in Leadership: The How and Why of Leading the People you Serve by Craig Hamilton. I’ve just got an advance copy of the manuscript. I’d never heard of the author before, but he theologically reflects on a wide range of contemporary leadership thought and applies it wonderfully to Christians, especially in churches. Look out for it!

Image of the week

What chapter of the Bible would you choose to illustrate this saying of J Gresham Machen: “In the gospel, there is included all that the heart of man can wish”?

Here’s what Challies picked…