A🧵on John 2:1-12.

Today's Bible reading took me to one of its many portrayals in art:
'The marriage at Cana of Galilee' (1861, reworked 1863), by Australian artist, Adelaide Ironside (1831 – 1867)

And it has a fascinating detail to reflect on near the end! Here we have Jesus' humanity, sharing in a wedding – one of the most enjoyable aspects of human createdness we can celebrate!

Clearly, v3, many attenders must have enjoying quite a few glasses of wine, given ancient middle eastern weddings often lasted days.

@SteveMeisterVDM Steve, Paul has been such an encouragement as an historian, NT scholar, and as a church leader here I. Sydney Australia. As a young man, “Is the New Testament history?” was so helpful, and his brief “Apocalypse Now and Then: Reading Revelation Today” so sensible. @SteveMeisterVDM Later “Jesus and the Logic of History” and “Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity” (& two others in that series) were such stimulating history. And obviously his 2 Corinthian commentary. But…

Welcome to my final day of live-tweeting from #gafcon23 at Kigali Convention Centre. The land of a thousand hills is also a land of morning mists (& maybe a little wood burning smog?) and this week, morning rains. But here’s today’s dawn from out 11th floor hotel room. On 3 of my 5 mornings here, I’ve run a 5km circuit of the centre. Seen institute of forensics and statistics, bank head offices, also small traders, coffin shops, many small pharmacies (which will please mum & dad), endless motos, and many large bags of bananas on people’s heads!

Welcome to Day 4, #Gafcon23. Each day the Bible reading has been delivered by memory by an American cathedral Dean! (Couldn’t quite get all of Colossians 3:1-17!) Archbishop @KanishkaRaffel addresses ‘identity’ in a world where
* identity has been used to divide from the land of his heritage - 🇱🇰- through to the nation that hosts us here - 🇷🇼;
* sexuality & identity have often merged as one, and ‘male & female’ are oppressive to some.

#gafcon23 Day 3 started with one of the great hymns, and here’s a sample… I reckon we sung the chorus another dozen times too. How Great Thou Art, God, How Great Thou Art! Today’s keynote sermon - Colossians 1:28-2:23 - is delivered by James Wong, Archbishop of the Indian Ocean, on the 40th anniversary - to the day - of his ordination.

Bishop Jay Behan from New Zealand opens up Colossians 1:15-23 for us in the first morning session of #Gafcon23 We always want more, better, newer… So too in Colossae… maybe Jesus is a good start, but is there more?

No, our theme is “go to Christ” and you cannot get a more exalted picture than that given in Colossians 1:15-23.

We must be breathless at the dignity & glory of Jesus!

#gafcon23 begins in Kigali, Rwanda. This is our theme this week. The chairman of the GAFCON primates conference. @FoleyBeach calls us to be
1. A repenting church (Mark 1:15, Acts 2:38)
2. A reconciling church (2 Cor5:18-20)
3. A reproducing church (Acts 28:19)
4. A relentlessly compassionate church (1 Tim 1:5)

The rightly ordered ministry, like the rightly ordered life, begins with a vision of the true glory of God… weighty and worthy! - Craig Schafer #Nexus2023

bible.com/bible/111/isa.… Glory… seen ultimately in Jesus!

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
2 Corinthians 4:6 NIV
bible.com/bible/111/2co.…

“History, not philosophy, is the key to understanding God.”

- Peter. F. Jensen, p104, “The Life of Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine”

matthiasmedia.com.au/collections/la… ⁦@matthiasmedia⁩ “Once the secret of grace has been understood, it becomes determinative for every aspect of the Christian life.”

Today’s grab from Peter Jensen, p123, “The Life of Faith”.

matthiasmedia.com.au/collections/la…

For Aboriginal Sunday at @SydneyCathedral, the @archbishopsyd's text was Genesis 4:10, where God says to Cain:
"What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground." The context in Genesis chapter 4 reports the Bible's first murder. Cain murders his brother, Abel. The Lord inquires of Cain as to Abel’s whereabouts, to which Cain replies – notoriously – ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’

🧵Theology Methodology Thesis:
The best way to be a Jesus-preaching church is to be a Bible-teaching one. And the best way to be a Jesus-trusting Christian is to be a Bible-based one. To see if that is so, go right to the heart of our faith: to the attitude of Jesus himself on the Scriptures!
…Because Christians are people who have come to love Jesus; people who want to be more like Jesus. So anyone who wants to be like Jesus will want to share his attitudes.

Each day this week in the lead to Christmas, I'm going to tweet my favourite quotes from Her Late Majesty's annual Christmas broadcasts, starting today with her Millennium message. It's often seen as the time from when her long-term Christian faith became even more open... "Christmas is the traditional, if not the actual, birthday of a man who was destined to change the course of our history. And today we are celebrating the fact that Jesus Christ was born two thousand years ago; this is the true Millennium anniversary... 2000/1

"Behold the Bridegroom comes..."

An image that especially arrested my attention from the opening chorus from Bach's #Advent Cantata, "Sleepers Wake", sung yesterday as part of the mid-morning service at @SydneyCathedral. Enjoy listening here...

A little later, our lead tenor at the Cathedral, Ben Oxley, sings, "He comes! He comes! The bridegroom comes..." And the rest of the cantata celebrates our longing and the groom's royal and tender love, and the everlasting bliss that awaits...

Why did the Bishops and Dean cross the road?

To urge Macquarie Street MPs to put #AirbagsOnPokies!

#GamblingReform #NSWPol
@MStead11 @GaryKoo @SydAnglicans @AnglicareSydney Jesus cared for the weak and heavy laden, and few burdens weigh so heavily as the harm caused by gambling - especially on the poker machines engineered to suck you in.

“God is an effective communicator.”

If there was a single sentence to sum up @MooreCollege Principal, Dr Mark Thompson’s approach to Scripture, it would be those five words!

E.g. p122 & p125, “The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction” Mark says John Webster is right to point out that the relation between divine and human agency in the production of Scripture is not the same as the union between divinity and humanity in the person of Christ.

Absolute gold from Simon Manchester in the interview before preaching… to clergy!
Q. A text that keeps you going?
A. 2 Tim 4:5 - RSV! Not a day when one of these injunctions doesn’t apply. bible.com/bible/2020/2ti… If you don’t commune with God in your ministry, you will learn to fake it (Keller). Astonishingly, Paul, facing death, is full of confidence from God’s promise of life (1:1; also 1:10)!

Day 4 #gafaus22 began for me at the Chins with 1 Chronicles 18 and prayers from the prayer diaries of @AnglicanAidSyd for India, @CMSAustralia in UAE, @MooreCollege study week and @AFES work in Albury-Wodonga and Armidale. 1 Chronicles 18:13-14 possible contains the pinnacle of OT existence, “...And the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went. So David reigned over all Israel, and he administered justice and equity to all his people.”

Day 3 of #gafaus22 Conference began with a chilly run in foggy Canberra with @rscchin, @beachsidepastor and @MStead11 - @SydAnglicans and @AFES in happy gospel friendship! And yes, that was frost settling on my arms as we ran!

#gafcon #gafaus22 Conference Day 2 Live Tweet Thread. A privilege to start with my friends and hosts in Canberra and start the day with a run with @rscchin, then reading 1 Chronicles 16 and also praying the daily entry in @AnglicanAidSyd prayer diary. This verse struck me… Now to Philippians 2 with Bp Jay Behan of the church of Confessing Anglicans in New Zealand. Notes the deep desires of people to “walk together”, including the desire of those seeking to revise doctrine. Jay agrees: unity is deeply and rightly prized in Philippians 2; John 17.

Peter Adam asks: “What verses will you memorise from Philippians for #gafaus22 this week?” (He didn’t actually use the hashtag!) #Gafcon #CommendingMemoryVerses Paul prays and loves…
- Prays with thanks (for gospel partnership) and confidence (in God’s finishing power)…
- Loves with the affection, indeed the live of Christ himself…
- Prays again that love will abound - “You can’t love God or love people too much” - in knowledge…

I’ve been reading Psalm 119 over recent mornings and also beginning Mark Thompson’s book “The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction”. It’s been a good juxtaposition! bible.com/bible/113/psa.… Mark has some great quotes to introduce his book… " Holy Scripture, indeed, speaks in such a way as to mock proud readers with its heights, terrify the attentive with its depths, feed great souls with its truth, and nourish little ones with its sweetness." - Augustine