God's Communication

This teaching stream explores God’s Communication to humankind and why it has certainty.

Our contemporary culture of instantaneous communication — FB, Instagram, Twitter and Blogging — merely reflects humankind made in God’s image. God is the consummate communicator. His communication is both relational and rational, revealed in the person of Christ and his Gospel.

The Nativity of Christ: Its Historical Context and Cultural Implications

December 11, 2019 by David Orton

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage … [Read more...]

This Great Salvation: Foundations of the Faith

October 16, 2019 by W. J. Ern Baxter (1914-1993)

The relativistic individualism of an experience-driven culture has tragically produced an experience-driven Christianity that elevates spiritual experience over sound doctrine, opening up God's people to a multitude of deceptions. While many Christians are concerned, and rightly so, about the marginalisation of Christianity from the public square, far more insidious and urgent … [Read more...]

Romans: Re-Creation by the Spirit—Paradise Restored, Part 5d

September 15, 2019 by David Orton

EXPOSITION: Chapter 8:1-39 Romans 8: The Climax of the Covenant As explained in the Introduction to this section (Chs. 5-8), this chapter reiterates and consummates Ch. 5. In the meantime, Chs. 6 and 7 have addressed the hurdles of sin and the law to the universal reign of grace introduced in Ch. 5 but now fully explicated in Ch. 8. The four chapters form a chiastic ring … [Read more...]

5 Books on the Victorious Christian Hope for History

August 3, 2019 by Virginia Orton

The devastating effects of certain defective eschatological scenarios in the contemporary church are seen in the retreat and decline of the Christian faith and social order in our time. Eschatology is not merely a narrow view of ‘the end’ but concerns more fully the entire direction and goal of God’s purpose in history. It therefore has a profound influence on a … [Read more...]

Romans: The Problem of the Law, Part 5c

August 2, 2019 by David Orton

EXPOSITION: Chapter 7:1-25 Before he can unpack the full cosmic purpose of the Gospel in ch. 8, Paul continues his solution to the dual problem of sin and the law. Having addressed sin in ch. 6, he now focusses on the law, although, he has already introduced its solution in 6:14, sowing the seed that we are no longer “under law but under grace”, before diverting to his … [Read more...]