An Historian Examines the Resurrection (Video)

In this short clip from the 'Life of Jesus' series, John Dickson explains that while there's no hard proof for the resurrection of Jesus, we do have the sort of historical evidence that a resurrection would leave behind. (Found on the Centre for Public Christianity website). An appropriate reminder for Easter.




See also this post:  Reasons to believe the Biblical accounts about Jesus

How NOT to Raise money for New Churches

I have been a member of the Sydney Synod now for ten years. One of the things I appreciate most about the Synod is that it is generally committed to following the Bible as God’s Word and to considering our theological commitments before making decisions. Which is why I am disappointed with the decision made by the Synod last year to impose a levy on every parish to raise funds to buy land for new churches in ‘greenfields’ areas.

A levy is a tax for a specific purpose. This levy has been charged at 2.24% of each parish’s Gross Operating Receipts meaning that it will raise $2 million in 2013. It is taken in 10 monthly installments (commencing in March) along with Parish Cost Recovery charges and is allocated to the Mission Property Committee. While the initial approval is only for one year it is intended to make this an ongoing charge.

I want to make clear that I am NOT disappointed because we are committed as a Diocese to planting churches in new growth areas. Nor am I disappointed that the Synod decided this project should have priority over many other worthwhile projects. What IS disappointing is that we chose to raise the funds by imposing a levy on the parishes.

Genesis 1 - The Main Ideas

I have recently been doing Bible studies on campus at UWS Bankstown on Genesis 1. Because of the limited time it always seems such a rush and there are often questions from students at the end which we don’t get to answer in full. In this post I will outline some of the main points that ARE made in Genesis 1. In a future post I will try to answer some questions about the relationship of these points with modern science.

It is important to remember that Genesis was written down probably 3,500 years ago at around the time Moses lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. Although it is clearly God’s word to US, we need to remember it was initially directed to THEM. Therefore it is not surprising that many things taught in Genesis 1 directly challenge the common creation stories of the Ancient Near East – from (for example), Egypt, Babylon, Sumeria and Akkadia. While not ‘borrowing’ from these accounts, Genesis teaches about God, humans and the creation in a way that highlights the differences to these alternative accounts - while having some similarities.

The most significant similarity with other creation accounts is the common ‘cosmology’ and ‘scientific’ understanding. Put simply, Genesis assumes the ancient (pre-scientific?) understanding of the structure of the cosmos – using the ‘scientific’ understanding that was common at the time. In particular this assumed the existence of the chaotic ‘waters’ (or deep) which had to be gathered into the seas and still exists above the heavens and below the earth, but is now providing water to nourish the lands. We can perhaps think of ‘the heavens’ as a dome shaped surface above the earth which holds the ‘heavenly objects’. We see many traces of this in the text of Genesis 1. This ought to make us cautious in trying to make the creation account accord too closely with our modern (or post-modern?) cosmologies – especially fixing times and dates associated with the age of the earth, the existence of the first humans and so on.

Verses 1-2 – An Overview. These verses stand as an introduction and overview of the whole chapter. The emphasis is on ‘creation’ by one God (as opposed to the many gods involved in other accounts). The ‘heavens and the earth’ is a term that means ‘everything’ and not simply the sky and the land. Verse 2 seems to describe the state of things before God begins his work. It is worth noticing that the ‘creation account’ does not start with ‘nothing’ but with ‘formless and empty’ – darkness over the surface of ‘the deep’ (chaotic seas?) and the Spirit of God over the waters.