Over at The Spectator, I have a piece about the untold side of women and domestic violence. Domestic and Family Violence (DFM) is a big issue in Australia and pretty much everywhere. It is a scourge, a cancer, it has no place in society, let alone in the church, it is only and always evil. Women bear the brunt of the majority of the abuse and men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of DFV. However, when I keep hearing the mantra... Read more

Okay, in my latest spare-time project, I’m planning to #MakeAnglicanismGreatAgain (or #MAnGA). I have several strategies, let me know what you think: a. Make Wesley Hill a bishop, the brother will totally rock a purple shirt. b. Make Amy Peeler Archbishop of Canterbury, the sister can preach. c. Build a wall around Hillsong and make Brian Houston pay for it. d. Bring back the 1559 Prayer Book and force Baptists to use it. e. Get the Nigerian Anglican Primate Nicholas... Read more

Donald A. Hagner How New is the New Testament: First-Century Judaism and the Emergence of Christianity Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2018. Available at Amazon.com I’ve been long convinced that the most contentious issue in the early church was the matter of continuity and discontinuity between the church and its parental religion and Judean socio-religious life. This is apparent everywhere, what remains the same and what changes with the coming of Jesus and the Spirit. This is a topic that has... Read more

Over at Marginalia, Larry Hurtado has a great review of Paula Fredriksen’s When Christians Were Jews. Proposing that the disappointment of hopes for the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God could have led to the demise of the Jesus-movement, Fredriksen offers “four interrelated factors” that enabled those early believers to maintain their commitment against the odds. These included continuing experiences of “charismata” such as prophesying, healing and exorcizing demons, which believers ascribed to the divine Spirit. These experiences validated the... Read more

Peter Greer and Greg Lafferty 40/40 Vision: Clarifying your mission in midlife  Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2018. Available at Amazon.com By Graham Stanton 40/40 Vision is for anyone who has realised that they have fewer years left to live than years they’ve already lived. Midlife. The years when satisfaction with life bottoms out, when (at least in the US according to Greer and Lafferty) suicide rates peak, when the use of anti-depressants peak, when the challenges of pain, death, and... Read more

“If anyone ponders over [the scriptures] with all the attention and reverence they deserve, it is certain that in the very act of reading and diligently studying them his mind and feelings will be touched by a divine breath and he will recognize that the words he is reading are not utterances of man but the language of God” – Origen, First Principles 4.1.6. Read more

In the course of my church life I’ve moved from Baptist, to Presbyterian, to Anglican. People often ask me “Why?” First, I came to faith through a wonderful Baptist Church in western Sydney in the mid-90s, a new church, with an energetic ministry, and who shared the gospel of Christ and the love of Christ with me. I was well discipled, nurtured, I attended several Baptist churches with godly ministers and ministries, and I even graduated from a Baptist seminary. I’m happy... Read more

Thomas Edward McComiskey (editor) The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary  Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992 (reprinted 2018). Available at Amazon.com and Logos. By Andrew Judd  Christmas comes every month in the biblical studies department of Ridley College, as Dr Bird distributes his latest consignment of Old Testament books for reviewing by his more B.C.E. inclined colleagues. As with any gift-giving season, however, sometimes a book arrives that I already have. In this case, it is McComiskey’s edited commentary set... Read more