Acting like men? - with Phillip Jensen, Craig Hamilton, Adrian Russell and Robin Kinstead 

Thank you 🙏🏽

Very distracted by the guy who constantly spoke of the 'Word o' God.'

I have two main observations about this conversation. 1. I agree that the bulk of insight we get into what a man is comes in the context of men’s relationships with their wives, their children, their fellow believers, and their parents. However I note that having made this point the only ideas about what it means to be a man that were put forward were behaving with courage - and taking responsibility. I don’t believe that either of these ideas is uniquely male - and therefore I suggest that the question of what a man is was not answered at all. I believe that this inability to define manhood and womanhood has been the situation in the first world church and I presume beyond for decades - it is why the church was invaded by worldly sexuality - because it has no idea what biblical sexuality is at its foundations. The reason why this is very significant is because if we don’t have any idea of what a man is THEOLOGICALLY - and what a woman is THEOLOGICALLY - when we approach a passage relating to men and women - such as for example 1 Timothy 2 - we are in fact seeking to determine why God has chosen for human beings that have penises to teach human beings who have vaginas - and not the other way round. Sounds ridiculous, yes? But that’s what we have been doing for a few decades - we have been trying to interpret passages that relate to what men and women are supposed to do without first seeking to work out from scripture what a man is - and what a woman is (when our conclusions could have helped to narrow down the possible meaning of man and woman passages). Because we haven’t approached the issue in the correct order we have no idea what the HEART behind the bible’s various man and woman passages is. Imagine that you have a friend who likes U2’s music. So you send them some music (everything I am saying is out of date!). Then imagine that you find out that the reason your friend likes U2 is not because he or she likes their music - but because when U2’s music is on - their dog stops barking. That’s pretty important information, yes? It means that next time you might send your friend dog biscuits. ALL of the bible is like that - if we don't relate the principle or teaching we are considering to the character of God - and therefore glory of God - we have no hope of understanding the spirit - or possibly even the letter - of what God is telling us. To provide my answer to what a man is I need to lay some very brief foundations about the character of God. While the four principal irreducible character attributes of God are his holiness, justice, mercy, and grace the first and last of these four attributes (holiness, grace) are not like the others (justice. mercy). They are different because instead of being 'simple' attributes like justice and mercy they are attributes that are about the way in which God relates to his own character. If God was not holy he would be content with the fact that HE behaves justly, and mercifully. God's holiness is his insistence that justice and mercy be present everywhere. And God's grace is his justice and mercy outworked with perfect self-giving intention (grace is justice and mercy accompanied by the fruit of the Spirit). When we behave with grace toward people we show that whatever our motives are we are behaving in a completely self-giving manner. So in fact the four principal character attributes can be whittled down to justice and mercy. (This is why Jesus summarises the law in Matthew 23 with three words - justice, mercy - and faithfulness (the last word being persistence in the first two words). So now to my definition of manhood and womanhood. I take from Genesis 2 - which defines man and woman - not just husband and wife - and also Ephesians 5 - which I conclude must ALSO relate to single men and women - not just husbands and wives - that to be male is to outwork justice and mercy with an ORIENTATION towards justice. And to be a woman is to outwork justice and mercy but with an ORIENTATION towards mercy. Said with non-theological words men are called by God to protect principle and the welfare of people by being oriented towards principle - and women protect both by being oriented towards the welfare of people. I have concluded that I must be right in my thinking because 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 reveals (indirectly) that sex differences are the very heart of the gospel. 2. There is a second reason why these men are having problems answering what it means to be a man. As far as I know no-one in the first world church (and presumably beyond) has any idea - once we come to believe - what the purpose of this life is. Why if when we go to be with God he will remove each source of temptation - and replace our fallen bodies with new bodies, the old bodies also causing us to be tempted by the world - and if God also removes the direct temptation of the devil himself - if all these things will be removed - what is the point of the years of suffering having come to believe and before being united with God? Why can’t we just skip these years and go and be with God? “To tell others about God” is not an answer to the question - it isn’t because God never asks us to sacrifice for others in a way that is for their spiritual benefit but not ours. Phillip Jensen commented close enough for our ignorance about this issue for it to be striking. Did it not seem somewhat strange that a man who believes he became a Christian decades ago would mention only making sure we are a Christian as preparation for the age to come? Was it not strange that he didn’t have an answer for what he has being doing to prepare for the age to come having come to believe decades ago? The only answer to the question he was asked that CAN make sense is one that makes EVERY day appointed to us necessary. I recently found an answer to this question - and it came to me indirectly. I was trying to reach an answer to two other questions: 1. Why if God does not give the fallen angels a second chance does he give disobedient humans a second chance? 2. Isn’t there a possibility that people who are united with God in the age to come - and who have free will - will rebel against God again? The answer I reached to the first question is that unlike the angels when human beings FIRST come to sin it is in everyone’s case the result of temptation. This is not the case with the angels. I took that answer with me to the second question. It was clear that with all sources of temptation removed that no-one would sin in heaven DUE to temptation. However that doesn’t completely answer the question because human beings on earth also engage in evil doing - a specific category of sin - free, knowing, and wilful sin - sin committed not because of weakness or ignorance - and sin which is not necessarily due to temptation. There is nothing in scripture that says that believers - having come to believe - never commit that kind of sin. I know for sure they do (when they do their sinning is their saying no to grace - therefore the sinner must repent - as distinct from confess their sin (which is sufficient in the case of sin which is due to weakness or ignorance). Professing a faith is not a license to do evil and be forgiven for it. I then found an answer that satisfied me - the purpose of this life - having come to believe - is to be trained so that we will NEVER in the age to come use our FREEDOM to rebel against God. This is what it means to be complete - lacking nothing. God cannot transform our free will with a wave of his wand - only his appointed trials on earth have the power to train the way we use our freedom now and in the future. The reason why the answer satisfied me is because I had already concluded from scripture that the purpose of this life for those who end up in hell is to make sure that they will never in hell use their freedom to turn TO GOD. I had discovered the converse of the purpose of life for those who end up in hell.

I am afraid that I cannot afford to buy Phillip Jensen’s book The Coming of the Holy Spirit. It isn’t very often someone attempts to critique someone’s theology and practice without reading their book on the subject - but if you hang with me you will see why I consider myself still able to make comment. I have chosen to post my comments here because I don’t know any other location where anyone would likely read them. My problem with Phillip Jensen’s theology and ministry relates to his attitude to the Holy Spirit - but to explain what I am concerned about I am going to start in a different place - by asking a question many people THINK they can answer - but cannot in fact answer. The question is about as basic a question as there is for Christians - what is an evangelical Christian? If you give ten people a chance to answer this question you will hear various emphases. One might talk about the gospel, another about being committed to a tradition of proclaiming the gospel. Another might talk about how evangelical Christians believe that the bible is the word of God. I disagree with all of these definitions. These things are all THE RESULT of being an evangelical Christian - they are all things that evangelical Christians DO - they don't tell us what an evangelical Christian IS. Here is my definition - an evangelical Christian is a person who has concluded that they have no choice but to turn to the Christian God for authoritative self-understanding - and understanding of all spiritual matters - and for all spiritual and human needs - due to a revelation of God's character leading that person to realise their understanding and life direction was faulty. God reveals his character to the person through creation (Romans 1), their conscience (Romans 2), and (the Spirit of) Christ (Romans 3) - this causes the person to gain self-understanding by comparison with God. The key point when it comes to defining an evangelical Christian is NOT God's self-revelation (even liberals believe God has revealed himself) - the key element is that the person now turns to God instead of to themselves. Note that when God's initial self-revelation is described in John 16:8 - there is no mention at all of the scriptures (as they were then): ESV And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: Read John 16 yourself - you will find an explanation of how the Spirit relates with people - without any mention of the Spirit using the bible as the Spirit’s authoritative agent. (Of course the earliest believers didn’t have a single word about Jesus to read in order to come to an understanding of the truth - but they did have the Spirit. John's awareness of their having the benefit of the Spirit leads him to say to his readers: 1 John 2:27 ESV But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie-just as it has taught you, abide in him). This verse should cause Sydney Anglicans to make a complete re-assessment of their approach to the Spirit and the bible. The average Sydney Anglican believes that there is no way to understand the Spirit without the word - and yet the verse above is saying that there is absolutely no way to know what the word is without the Spirit. The entire direction of the Sydney Anglican church must change due to what we learn from this verse. The question then - if salvation begins with God showing us without the NEED for scripture that our self-understanding is wrong - is how are we supposed to turn to God for understanding? It cannot be - in the first instance - turning to the bible - because as people whose self-understanding is faulty we cannot receive anything reliable from the bible with our fallen minds. And we cannot even initiate in prayer (not at this fundamental moment that will define faith) - since again what idea would we raise before God that we could be sure was not fallen? The only thing we can do - based on our initial encounter with God - is hope that God will continue to reveal himself to us- and the way we show that this is our only hope is to turn away from both faulty fleshly understanding - and our commitment to dead works. (We know what happens when a person does this - it results in a person being assured of God's forgiveness - and of his continuing self-revelation - in the form of the in dwelling Spirit). Which leads me at last to Phillip Jensen’s book on the Holy Spirit. The only thing I want to say about Phillip Jensen’s book is that if it matches his decades of ministry it will be an attempt to summarise the activity and nature of the Holy Spirit by exercising confidence in his fallen mind - by turning first to the bible. ANY person who intended to behave differently would ensure that their book explained the primacy of the Spirit over the word. If his book doesn’t attempt to guide its readers to rightly understand the place of the Spirit in faith as compared with the word then it leaves Sydney Anglicans - and others - in as much of a Pharisaical trap as it has been in for as long as I have been alive - and longer (I’m 59). When - when is it going to end? When will Sydney Anglicans stop misleading people in both what they say and how they act about the place of the bible in faith? And the place of the Spirit? The bible is the only authoritative AGENT of the Spirit - however this is a very different thing to the bible being the only means by which the Spirit is able to teach us. When we are not in front of the bible our experience should be that God is CONSTANTLY teaching us scripture. In the past scripture didn’t exist to be an agent of the Spirit. If we choose to start with the bible instead of by WALKING BY THE SPIRIT (Galatians 5:16) our conclusions will lead us into slavery - our self-generated revelation will cause us to walk away from God. How do we walk by the Spirit? By recognising - as the disciples did after Jesus died and rose - that there isn't a single thing we can do to draw near to God - or to remain faithful - he must initiate. We cannot read the bible - or initiate in prayer - until God's Spirit reveals through our faith what is the best way to express faith in him AT EACH MOMENT (recognising that as God does this he shows us that there are areas where we are free to act - and areas where we are not - we don't wait on God to tell us whether to wear our blue undies instead of the red ones). We must stop exercising faith in ALL dead works - and in ALL dead knowledge. PS What I have written here should not lead anyone to conclude that it is never possible for a Christian to make judgements about God. The issue is only that we should not judge God when he has the right to first judge us (he has this right whenever his perfect character reveals our unrepentance). For an example of someone making appropriate judgements about God's character read Acts 10:34-35 - where Peter concludes that if GOD HIMSELF allowed only some people to come to him he would be behaving with partiality. There is a right time and a wrong time to approach the bible confident that we are able to understand what it says. PPS The purpose of the word of God is not that we know the word of God. The purpose of the word of God is that we be pointed to Jesus - that we become intimate with him. (I mention this because anyone whose thinking on this point is wrong will resist any teaching that reveals that the word of God is a servant to the Spirit instead of the only means by which God can be known - and relate with people.

I’m sorry but the panels or the guys idea about mental health is a totally uneducated option if you look at the suicide statistics for young people. Depression and anxiety is really serious and needs to be addressed with a GP and Psychologically and sometimes with the help of a Psychiatrist. Especially with men having the highest suicide rate in Australia. Just my opinion. God bless