This page is for longer writings on theological themes
Devoted to prayer?
Paraklesis [‘encouragement’, ‘exhortation’, for life and ministry] November 2023 Peter Adam Dear friends, Are you devoted to prayer? The first Christians ‘devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer’ [Acts 2:42]. Paul instructed all the believers in the church at…
The progress of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Victoria since 1835
Some resources Angus, David E., Decisive Years: Experiences of Christian University Students, Melbourne, David Angus, 2005. Babbage, S. Barton, and Ian Siggins, Light Beneath The Cross: The Story of Billy Graham’s Crusade in Australia, London, Heinemann, 1960. Benson, C. Irving, A Century of Victorian Methodism, Melbourne, Spectator, 1935. Boyce,…
Anglican and Roman Catholic tensions in Sydney and Melbourne in the 1840s
180 years ago, on March 25th 1843 Bishop Broughton, the [high-church Tractarian] Bishop of Australia, based in Sydney, officially and publicly asserted that the episcopal actions of the recently appointed Roman Catholic Bishop of Sydney, Bede Polding, were invalid! Dr. Broughton made his public protest in St. James’s church,…
Reimagining lament
We need to learn again how to lament. We need to lament our own sorrows, the sorrows of the church and the sorrows of the world. We are bombarded with bad news every day. No one gets through life unscarred, and every family has its sorrows. We need to…
Reimagining repentance
Repentance We often confuse repentance with feeling sorry because of our sin. Sorrow for sin is an appropriate emotion, but by itself, it is not repentance! Remorse is self-pity for our sins, it is not repentance! And the contemporary statement, ‘I am sorry that you are offended/feel hurt by…
The Reformation and Renewal of Anglicanism
I recently gave a Lecture for the Anglican Institute at Ridley College on the Reformation and Renewal of Anglicanism [September 2022], You will find the Lecture at:
God’s wonderful ‘common grace’
God’s common grace is his loving and sustaining power in and through his creation, and in and through all humans he has made. It is called ‘common grace’ to distinguish it from his ‘saving grace’, in which he works to bring people to salvation by faith in Christ,…