After a self-imposed period of reflective meditation in the wilderness (i.e. too absolutely flat chat to even think about posting), I'm back. But not, alas, to say anything profound. I'm after some advice.

I've been working on the text of a ‘Christmas tract’ that we (i.e. Matthias Media) are hoping to publish by early November. It's something for congregations to use in Christmas evangelism, to hand out at Christmas services, to use in Christmas letter-box drops, and so on. When we've done this in the past (and we've done it most years recently), we've tended to have a fairly strong Christmas theme to the tract: bouncing off a Christmas carol, or focusing on the birth of babies, and so on.

This time, I'm thinking of trying something a little different. And I'm after some feedback. Do you think it works? More particularly, does it work as something to hand out over the Christmas season when the name ‘Jesus’ creeps back into our popular culture however briefly. Any suggestions on how to improve it? So without further ado …

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This is the fifth post in Jean's series on women in the Bible. (Read the first, second, third and fourth.)

Deborah, judge of Israel, is a poster-girl for egalitarianism in Judges 4-5. She's undoubtedly female, and she's a leader of God's people: a judge who delivers God's rulings, and a prophetess who speaks God's words. Like the other judges, she's used by God to deliver his people when they turn from their idolatry and cry to him for rescue from their enemies. Her husband is virtually absent from her story and, if she had any children, they aren't mentioned. If the New Testament seems to say that women shouldn't teach or have authority in the church, surely Deborah shows that these restrictions are cultural and can be laid aside in our more enlightened society!

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(Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.)

The time has come to conclude the pastoral dimension of the question of forgiveness being linked to repentance. The final issue is whether we are doing the wrong thing by forgiving someone because then we simply sweep the sin under the carpet and don't challenge them, thereby removing the opportunity for them to repent. For those who have followed this discussion over the last three posts, you are probably in a position to see what my response is going to be. But we'll briefly spell it out anyway.

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In these Sola Saturday posts, we've been looking at past contributions to the old Briefing ‘People in Ministry’ column, which focused on evangelical ministry worked out in practice. Firstly, David McDonald told us about the impetus behind Canberra Christian Youth Convention. Last week, Ken Simpson talks about ministry to doctors. This week, Michael Blake explains how he uses school Scripture to reach parents:

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(Read parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.)

We come now to the third installment of our reflection upon pastoral issues and the fifth installment answering the question of whether forgiveness can or should only be extended when repentance has taken place.

Let's begin with an unusual, but not unheard-of, situation: someone sins against you; when challenged, they repent, but later withdraw that repentance either explicitly or by their actions. How are we supposed to address this situation if forgiveness is based on repentance?

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(Read parts 1, 2 and 3.)

We've been considering the question of whether forgiveness can or should occur without repentance. Last time around, we looked at family life. Let's turn from the everyday to the extreme. What do we say to the person who is outrageously sinned against? What do we say to the person who was abused as a child, the person who has been raped, the person who survives a murder attempt from a loved one, the person whose spouse commits adultery (and while we're at it, given that many people think that adultery is not sufficient grounds for divorce, the view that forgiveness can only occur when there has been repentance means that we're then left with the position that a spouse must not forgive an unrepentant adulterous spouse, but must not divorce them either—a view that people may want to champion, but they should still recognize it is somewhat weird pastoral advice), and the person who has been betrayed by someone close to them?

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If you've just joined us, in this next lot of Sola Saturday posts, we are looking at past contributions to the old Briefing ‘People in Ministry’ column, which focused on evangelical ministry worked out in practice.

Last week, David McDonald told us about the impetus behind Canberra Christian Youth Convention from several decades ago. This week, Ken Simpson talks about a ministry to doctors that also began in the late 80s.

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This is the sixth post in Peter Bolt's series on the New Atheists. (Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.)

Once upon a time, way back at the beginning, the Christian movement was charged with novelty. Nowadays, it is charged with antiquity. In both cases, its ‘timing’ apparently shows it is wrong.

The message of Jesus' resurrection was launched into the Graeco-Roman world, in which the antiquity of classical culture was paraded as a demonstration of its truth and a guarantee of the future of the Empire. The Christian message was criticized for being ‘novel’, and so a troublesome threat for the stability of that world. One of the charges levelled at Jesus before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was that he had misled the Jewish nation by claiming to be a king (Luke 23:2). When Jesus rose from the dead, he was proclaimed far and wide as ‘Lord and Christ’. When this new message about a king other than Caesar came to Thessalonica on its way to Athens, the crowds rioted, saying its preachers had “turned the world upside down” by this novelty (Acts 17:6).

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(Read parts 1 and 2.)

In this meta-series, we have been exploring the question of whether we (and God) can or should forgive someone when they have not repented. This time around, we are going to turn our attention to some difficult pastoral situations and ask how they work when we hold that forgiveness can only take place when there has been repentance.

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I grew up with one brother and no sisters. I love my brother, and never longed for a sister (unlike my daughter, who loves her three brothers, but has always wanted a twin sister). But I've always wondered what it would be like to have a sister.

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