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Moore College Open Day – 25 September 2010

Mark — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:43:32 +0000

Moore College rocks the suburbs. If you’re interested in Full-Time, Part-Time or External Study to better equipped for ministry and mission come along to the 2010 Open Day & Spring Carnival – Sat 25 September. The day starts with morning tea at 10am and continues through to 2.30pm. BBQ lunch included. 1 King Street Newtown 2042.

Pass this on to others who should be thinking about studying at Moore. Blog it, Tweet it, Facebook it, ‘Like’ it on Facebook.

(h/t: Dave Miers)

What is Faith? Fiducia, Notitia, and Assensus.

Mark — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 03:27:48 +0000

In our doctrine classes, Michael Jensen has been teaching us about the doctrine of the Christian life via the ordo salutis. Thus far, we’ve looked at effectual calling, regeneration, and faith itself. One of the interesting things about faith is in defining what it actually is. Michael called our attention to the scholastic distinctions of fiducia, notitia, and assensus. So I thought I’d resume my blogging with Muller’s definitions of these important components of faith (from his Dictionary of Latin and Greek theological terms):

Fides: “faith; the firm persuasion of the truth of God’s revelation or that truth itself considered as the object of belief; most frequently the former, as it is manifest in Christians.

Saving faith is usually explained as having three components, the first two belonging to the intellect and comprising the category of cognitio certa, certain cognition, the latter one belonging to the will: (1) notitia, knowledge, the actual content of the gospel and the promises of God; (2) assensus, assent, by which the intellect acknowledges the truth of notitia, apart from any personal trust or saving appropriation of that knowledge; (3) fiducia, trust or appreheniso fiducialis, faithful apprehension, which appropriates savingly, by an act of the will, the true knowledge of the promises of God in Christ. Saving faith, therefore, cannot be merely intellectual; it must also be volitional.”

Fiducia: “trust; the essense of fides; note that in English the etymological relation between fides (faith) and fiducia is lost; in the older theology faith and trust are intimately related. Fiducia, as the crown of faith, is also called apprehensio fiducialis, or faithful apprehension.”

Notitia: “knowledge; synonymous with cognitio.”

Assensus: “assent, spiritual acknowledgement, or agreement; a necessary component of fides. Used without modifiation, a simple assent to a truth by the intellect. The scholastics distinguish three degrees of assent: firmitas, certitudo and evidentia. Assent with firmitas, or firmness, is full assent without hesitation to something accepted purely on authority. Assent with certitude, or certainty, is full assent founded firmly upon a solid ground of accepted testimony. Assent to evidentia, or evidence, rests not on testimony, but on proof drawn either from sense-experience or reason. The Protestant scholastics will argue that the assensus theoreticus of faith is assent with firmitas and certitudo only. Evidentia, by way of constrast, belongs to a science.”

So glad that the Reformers thought through this stuff!

Moore College offers Part-Time courses in 2010

Mark — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:02:46 +0000

This is great news… I reckon it’s a step in a good direction, and I’m looking forward to the other things to come in 2010!

http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/news/insight/moore_courses_go_part_time/

Pilgrim’s Podcast #4: Ruth Lee, RICE, EQUIP and Shnouncements!

Mark — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 13:52:01 +0000

Well we’ve hit #4 of the Pilgrim’s Podcast! Very grateful for all your listening, and thoughts and props!

This episode was a world first for Steve and me! We had the first ever woman join the Pilgrim’s Podcast (and many more to come!). Ruth Lee came and shared all about the RICE movement: Revolution, Events, Regenerate, and upcoming conferences! She’s awesome – and a great pilgrim who loves Jesus! We also heard all about the great work with the EQUIP women’s conferences – in fact, we signed up to get a Pilgrim’s Podcast team down there next year!

We also: had an awesome start to the podcast, launched our SMBC lovespot, gave shnouncements, talked about how to balance our work and play for Jesus, and Ruthy identified with an amazing movie! Get into it!

RICE: www.riceevent.org.au
RICE REGENERATE: www.riceregenerate.org
EQUIP: www.equip.org.au (next event: Saturday 8th May, 2010)

Can I put a serious plug in here for the RICE movement. Sam Mak, Steve Chong, Ruthy and others are wonderful servants of our Lord and He is blessing this ministry in great ways. If you haven’t (or your church hasn’t) yet gotten involved, do it! Hit up the site above and get in touch – great things are happening now, and there are great plans for the future too!

Listen here:

Can Moore College Get in Touch with the Next Generation?

Mark — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:53:20 +0000

Ok, I seriously want to know your thoughts on this one. I’m on a team with some other people to think about how to get Moore College in touch with today’s generation. Ie, how to position the college via the web. I know there’s more to it, but this is one thing that’s being thought about.

Here’s the current website: http://moore.edu.au/and here’s 5 of my thoughts. I’m going no-holds-barred, so I want your raw thoughts too.

1) The website looks awful. Design-wise it’s outdated and looks completely piecemeal.
2) The video excerpts lack production. Compare this with http://www.wts.edu/resources/media.html and http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/sermons. We need to step it up.
3) No course material is offered online. Compare this to http://www.rts.edu/ who offer excellent reformed courses online via iTunes http://www.covenantseminary.edu/
4) We have recorded (audio/visual) lectures and sermons just doing nothing. Just like http://www.wts.edu/ who opened up over 50 years of lectures (John Murray, Van Til, Gaffin, Bahsen, Clowney, Beale), we should too!
5) The enrolment info is extensive and easy to get. This is my positive point. If you want to come, it’s pretty easy to work out what to do.

But what else needs to be done to get in touch with the current generation? iTunes, FB, Podcasts, Twitter? …. Google Wave? People I speak to are more and more just learning from listening – and that’s not a bad thing in itself – but how can we get there?

Sydney Bloggers Meetup

Mark — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:00:53 +0000

A bunch of bloggers in Sydney got together for dinner tonight at the Nag’s Head Hotel in Glebe. It was a great time. Good banter, good fellowship and especially great to meet in person those who we’ve had cyber-contact with!

Justin organised it, and it was great to meet him and share a few laughs. A great guy who is thinking and working passionately to see people come to love Jesus in Sydney. Doug and I rocked up together and met a bunch of lovely people: Michael Canaris who posts regularly on his blog and on Sydney Anglicans, Karen who’s got a great blog (with a great name!), Georgina who’s a friend of Doug’s from Wildside days, and Craig Schwarze who’s got a cracking blog and who writes a column on Sydney Anglicans.

We chatted about many things – from blogs (could we avoid it?) to Moore college, to St. Phillip’s York Street, to Boxing and UFC!

Thanks for a great time guys – look forward to doing it again!

More from Tommo!

Mark — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:32:13 +0000

Over, on Mark Thompson‘s new blog, he announces the first meeting of the Sydney Fellowship of Systematic Theologians.

What a great thing! Let’s pray it’s the start of something good for the Kingdom of our Lord.

Moore College’s Calvin Conference

Mark — Mon, 18 May 2009 04:32:22 +0000

This looks fantastic! From Mark Thompson’s blog:

“Over two days, on 16–17 September, guests from around the world and all over Australia will come together at Moore College to engage afresh with the great Genevan Reformer and his theological legacy. Paul Helm of Regent College, Vancouver will speak about Calvin and philosophy. Oliver Crisp of the University of Bristol will explore Calvin’s understanding of Prayer. Ashley Null, world expert in the the theology of the English Reformation, will uncover Calvin’s impact on Tudor Anglicanism. Peter Adam, Principal of Ridley College, Melbourne will address the subject of Calvin and preaching. And Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney, will speak about the role of Calvin’s theology in theological education today.

Martin Foord from Trinity College in Perth will locate Calvin’s treatment of 1 Timothy 2:4 against the exegetical tradition he inherited. John Maclean from the Presbyterian Theological Centre in Sydney will engage with Calvin’s treatment of the sacraments.”

Looks awesome – be there! I hear there’s 2 streams: 1) aimed more at the upper theological level, and 2) one aimed more at the layperson’s level. Both streams look fantastic, and I hope it’ll be a privilege to hear from these great Calvin scholars. Having recently read Paul Helm‘s Calvin and the Calvinists, I’m looking forward to hearing him on Calvin!