Centre for Christian Living podcast

At Moore College, we were recently joined by Professor Christopher Watkin to talk about his new book, “Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s unfolding story makes sense of modern life and culture”, which recently won Australian Christian Book of the Year. In this episode of the CCL podcast, we bring you the recording of an interview Peter Orr conducted with Christopher, as well as the Q&A that...

It’s fascinating to read church history and learn about what God has done in the past. But how important is it for us Christians to be aware of church history? Is it just an interesting thing we can read about on the side, or does an awareness of church history actually help guard us from error and live godly lives in the present time? In this episode of the CCL podcast, Mark Earngey, Head of Chur...

Do you compare yourself to other people? As a Christian, do you look at your Christian friends and think, “They’re much more godly than I am. They’re better at prayer. They’re more patient. They’re better evangelists than I am.”? Maybe you look at your non-Christian friends or family and think, “Their lives are so much simpler than mine” or “I wish I have what they have”. In this episode of the CC...

In an age when authenticity, personal potential and the fulfilment of that potential is so highly valued, the virtue of self-control seems counterintuitive. In contrast to the world, the Bible tells us that the good life is not located in unbounded self-expression, but in purposeful self-restraint. Why is self-control so necessary to the Christian life? What does the Bible say about it, and how ca...

What does John’s Gospel have to say about the Christian life? Famously, John tells us why he wrote at the end of his Gospel: so that we might “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). We can easily read John’s Gospel and think that it’s only about understanding who Jesus is and believing in him. Those are important, but th...

What is the value of the Old Testament for the Christian life? It might seem like an obvious question. We read the Old Testament, we draw comfort from the Psalms, and we can read the Ten Commandments. But in this episode of the CCL podcast with Professor Desmond Alexander, we’re going to focus on the first five books of the Old Testament and think about how they help us to understand the person an...

The Christian life is filled with all kinds of challenges and trials that easily raise questions about the goodness of God and what it means for us to continue on in faith, even in the face of hardship. In this episode of the CCL podcast, Chase Kuhn and Peter Orr discuss how good our God is and why we can entrust ourselves to him as we continue in the life of faith. For an edited transcript and sh...

Narcissism and vanity characterise the spirit of our age—particularly when it comes to social media, where we’re tempted to promote ourselves, make ourselves look good, and present a certain image of ourselves to the world. But when faced with the glory of God, Scripture calls upon us to exhibit a different attitude: humility. What does it mean to be truly humble? What does it mean to humble onese...

Our most recent live event from our series on “A virtuous life” focused on true virtue in an age of virtue signalling. Our presenter was Professor David VanDrunen of Westminster Seminary California. In this episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast, Professor VanDrunen joins us again in a special follow-up episode to answer some of the questions that arose during the event. I hope that th...

In the information age and the advent of cancel culture, public morality has taken an interesting turn. Virtue is signalled by what we approve publicly or cancel publicly. The deep irony is that this virtue signalling is most often not backed by _true_ virtue. This is seen in the fierce and cutting remarks too common on social media. The danger for Christians is that they follow the culture and be...

Motherhood is not something that we all know directly in our lives, but we all, at least, experience it indirectly: we’ve all been born of a woman. This is something common to humanity and is one of our deepest bonds with Jesus, our brother, who was born of the Virgin Mary. Motherhood can be viewed poorly. It can be seen as something to be endured, an interruption to life and a career, or somethin...

It’s sad that over the last century, so much division among Christians has come from different beliefs about the Holy Spirit. Perhaps what’s even more sad is that these differences are, at their core, about God himself. Who is the God we worship? What is the work that he does in our lives? How does he work, and to what end does he do this work? The tragedy is that the Holy Spirit is promised to us...

Christians often think about evangelism in terms of what we say. It can easily become a formula of the right words spoken in the right way that amounts to faithfulness. In many ways, this is an entirely appropriate way to think. However, it’s also an incomplete way to think: our witness to the world is not just with our words, but also with our how we live our lives. We testify to the gospel as we...

The Beatles’ message to the world was “Love is all you need”, and certainly in Scripture, the virtue of love is regarded as supreme (1 Cor 13:13). In fact, in the Bible, love is a catch-all term for morality, summarising the law. But with the mainstream use of slogans like “Love is love” bandied around today, what does the concept of love even _mean_? How do we know what love is? What does it look...

Life is incredibly seasonal. In the last few weeks, with the turn of weather, it marks a change of clothing and habits. Days are cooler and shorter. There’s something wonderful about seasons that reminds us of the Lord’s provision and how dependent we are on him as creatures. Yet as Christians, it’s easy for us to approach seasons passively. Life can easily happen to us. But as we all know, discip...

Whom should you be able to employ or not employ in your business? If you run a school, should you be able to hire only those who agree with the stated values of your school? What if your school is a religious school? Should those you employ support your faith position? All of these questions are about discrimination: when, if ever, should someone be excluded from an activity or occupation because...

Most of us struggle to keep pace with the speed of societal progress. This means that many Christians are unsure how to approach and even answer questions to do with LGBTQ issues. We’re concerned about fitting the stereotypes of Christian hatred or intolerance. We’re nervous about the names we might be called. We’re worried that we won’t really be heard. So what do we do when WorldPride comes to t...

Discovering sexuality and coming of age is never simple, and tends always to be awkward. This awkwardness is intensified when your sexuality is not typical. Christians have a long way to go to help adolescents grapple with sexuality, especially when their sexuality differs from what the Bible says is good. How can we help same-sex attracted people be confident to live as God’s children, and share...

Do you remember the ALS ice bucket challenge of 2014? To promote awareness and raise money for ALS (that is, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which is also called Lou Gehrig’s disease), millions of people took to social media and posted videos of themselves getting buckets of ice water dumped on them. Celebrities, politicians and athletes took part. People made more and more elaborate videos documen...

When does the season feel like Christmas? Is when the decorations are hung, carols are playing, the shopping centres are full, the air turns crisp (or hot and humid, in the case of Australia), and when all the media is filled with festive ads? Or is it when we make a deliberate attempt to mark the season by turning our focus to the reason for all these celebrations? Marking the Advent season is a...

Today it’s very easy to be suspicious of people in places of authority. We’ve heard countless stories of how power has been abused. With our increased suspicion comes a level of distrust. This quickly leads us to criticise leaders, watching their every move and picking through their every word. The trouble that we have as Christians is that this sort of behaviour is destructive to our church relat...

From the dawn of time, systems of justice have demanded recompense for wrongs. The most fundamental systems have been kind for kind—such as, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or a life for a life. In fact, this sort of rudimentary justice system is biblical and it lies at the heart of so much of the law in Scripture. But in God’s kingdom, Jesus tells us that there is no room for vengeance. I...

Imagine being part of a church that wasn’t confused, reluctant or reticent about complementarianism, but rather embraced it. Imagine being so convinced of what God says that you’re able to express it confidently in what you say and do. Imagine being so compelled by the goodness of what God says that you express it positively in church life. This is the vision set forward in the new book, “Embracin...

Relationships can be difficult. One of the perennial issues for humans is how to relate as men and women. These conversations have changed over time, but they have not gotten any easier. For Christians, there is a deep conviction that God has made us male and female, equal but distinct. This is good. But what does it mean for this deep conviction to be realised in our practical life? In this episo...

Integrity seems almost mythical in our current culture. Suspicion runs deep—largely because of a history of lying and deception. At some points, our culture celebrates this sort of slight in order to gain the upper hand. This problem isn’t novel; we may use a variety of “guarantees” to back up our words—for example, “I swear …”, “On my mother’s grave …”, and so on. But often we fail to be people o...