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Tony Payne: I wonder: did you grow up going to a church, or perhaps still go to a church, where
the Ten Commandments were on a kind of stone tablet on the wall at the front of the church?
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I did.
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Or when the basic nature of discipleship as a Christian when you became a Christian was to learn the Ten Commandments?
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I don't think either of those things are very common today, and maybe you think, "Good thing too." There's no
doubting the fact that the Ten Commandments, for most of the last 2000 years, for most Christians who've ever
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lived, have played a pretty fundamental role in what it means for Christians to obey God and to do his will.
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Now, we know that we're not under law—that we're under grace.
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But does that mean that foundational Old Testament teaching like the Ten Commandments don't really matter very much anymore?
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Or if they matter, how do they matter?
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That's our topic in this week's conversation on the Centre for Christian Living podcast.
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Well, hello!
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I'm Tony Payne and welcome to a special crossover edition of the Two Ways News podcast and the Centre for Christian Living podcast.
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So I suppose I should say, "Welcome from the Centre for Christian Living podcast" and Phillip—
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Phillip Jensen: And now I should be saying, "Welcome to Two Ways News".
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Which you are.
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And I hope that you feel it.
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Tony Payne: Yeah, I hope so too.
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It's nice to be back talking again, isn't it?
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Phillip Jensen: Yes.
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Tony Payne: A little while.
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Phillip Jensen: Which music are we going to use?
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Tony Payne: Well, I think, depending on which music you heard at the beginning might be which platform you're listening to this podcast on.
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Phillip Jensen: I see.
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Good.
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Tony Payne: Or we could blend the two together.
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Anyway, we'll figure something out.
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Phillip Jensen: What do—what do you do for your pod?
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Why is your podcast operating?
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Tony Payne: Well, when I started working for Moore College and stopped doing this
podcast with you, and I understand that you replaced me with some other person.
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Phillip Jensen: Oh, we had to drop standards, Tony!
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You know that.
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So each week I now do it with Peter Jensen.
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Tony Payne: Yeah, sorry.
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You asked me what I do on my podcast.
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
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Tony Payne: So part of my role at Moore College is to direct the Centre for Christian
Living, which is the College's sort of ethics outreach into the community sort of Centre.
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So its idea is "How do we think about the Christian life and what it means to live the Christian life here at Moore College?
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How does our theology play out in practice?" And "Could we bless the broader Christian community by
talking about that and by bringing that to all the different topics and issues that we face as Christians?"
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So the podcast consists of regular episodes where I interview someone about some aspect of the Christian life.
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And then from time to time, we do a deep dive into some more specific subjects, and we do a little miniseries on—for example,
last year, we did a miniseries on the smartphone and how it changes the way we live as Christians and how it disciples us.
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It was called "The smartphone disciple", and it was, it was about how not to be discipled by your smartphone, but to be discipled by Jesus instead.
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Phillip Jensen: I see.
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Have you done one on how to argue with AI yet?
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Tony Payne: Not yet, but it's on the agenda sometime to do one on technology more broadly.
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What, have you been arguing with AI regularly?
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Phillip Jensen: I, I argue with ChatGPT.
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Tony Payne: Yeah.
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Who wins?
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Phillip Jensen: And I hate to tell you that I converted ChatGPT.
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I know it's not the Holy Spirit, because it's not a person I'm arguing with.
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But we started off with him denying the resurrection and we've concluded that he actually now believes in the resurrection.
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Tony Payne: Well, there we go.
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Phillip Jensen: Took several hours of astute argumentation.
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Tony Payne: There we go.
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And it's got nothing to do with the fact that AI does tend to like to agree with you and affirm you.
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Phillip Jensen: I even asked, "Are you just saying this because you've got an algorithm that you
have to say this?" And, "No, no, no, no, no." Well, if you believe it more fool you are, I think!
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Tony Payne: So what do you do each week on Two Ways News, now that I'm gone?
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What sort of stuff do you talk about?
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Phillip Jensen: Well, I try and keep my partner up to date, and support him and get him along.
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No, it's much the same, only we're starting the other end—that is, from the Scriptures.
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Tony Payne: Yep.
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Phillip Jensen: So last year, we worked through Genesis 1-11.
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This year, we've been working through 1 Corinthians, and we've just finished it last week in chapter 16.
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And so, doing this crossover now.
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And then Peter's going to explain why he is a Christian, why he is a Protestant,
why he is an Anglican, why he is a Catholic, why he is it charismatic.
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Tony Payne: Oh, I see.
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Phillip Jensen: Why he's doing podcasts with me!
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And so, we're doing a little doctrinal series.
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But then we'll get back to the next book for next year.
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Tony Payne: It's a really good description, actually, of how Christian life and ethics and Bible works,
because you do start with Scripture and read Scripture, and go out from what God says to live in the world.
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And so, it shapes the whole way you think.
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And so, to start with Bible and think, "What does this mean for our world?", well, that should be a foundational point.
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I suppose that's why they teach them so much Bible here at Moore College.
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah, absolutely.
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Tony Payne: But you also—the Scripture is expositional and kind of comes in a thing, but life comes at you topically as well.
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Phillip Jensen: Yes.
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Tony Payne: I've got this situation to deal with.
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What am I going to do?
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Phillip Jensen: From your topic to the Bible.
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Tony Payne: Back to this, back to the Bible.
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And you've got to learn how to go in that direction as well.
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
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Tony Payne: Which is more what we are doing.
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Excellent.
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Well, we're here today mainly to talk about your book, which is all about living
the Christian life and especially the Ten Commandments in the Christian life.
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Phillip Jensen: Well, I'm here to talk about your book and uh, how we've got to let the Word dwell richly in our conversations with one another.
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Tony Payne: Well, look, I'm willing to do that briefly at the beginning.
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You can ask me a few things about my book, but I mainly want to spend today talking
about your new one, which is Written on the Heart about the Ten Commandments.
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But what do you want to ask me about my one?
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Phillip Jensen: Well, I've come to talk to you about your book, so you just have to put up with a bit of my time on it.
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Why did you write your book?
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That's the famous question, isn't it?
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Tony Payne: It is that.
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I'm going to ask you that one later.
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Um.
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Phillip Jensen: Well, give me time to think about it.
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Yes.
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Tony Payne: Okay, well, it was because I saw a lack—a gap—and I pulled on a thread to see what was there and found that there was a lot there.
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I'd always thought that the Word that we speak with one another—that Christians
are ministers of the Word to other people: to each other and to their friends.
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And in some ways, that's been an assumption of much of the ministry you and I have done together over the past many decades.
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But it was interesting: when I came to think, well, theologically, biblically, "Where do I find that in Scripture?"
and also "Who else has written about this and explained what it means for us to have a ministry to other peoples
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as Christians?", I just found crickets—a really surprising silence in that, or lack of investigation of that area.
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It started off a little research project and it became a PhD, and then a book
on what it really means for us to speak the Word to one another as Christians.
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
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Tony Payne: But theologically what it means.
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Phillip Jensen: But this book's not a PhD thesis.
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I've read PhD theses.
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They could be pretty boring.
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Tony Payne: Well, mine is.
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I, I think it's—
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah, but this book isn't.
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This book's not that.
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Tony Payne: I'm glad you think that book isn't.
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No, it's not a PhD, the book.
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It's a completely freshly written argument based on the research I did in the PhD—basically arguing that the one-another Word
is, on the one hand, an essential element of the normal Christian life: to be a mature Christian is to change the way you
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speak—to have a new language and to have the words of Christ on your lips—to have that flowing out of your heart to other people.
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So it's just a normal part of being a mature Christian, on the one hand.
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And on the other hand, it's a key means by which the church is going—by which we build up others and evangelise others.
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It's both a marker of Christian growth and just the normal Christian life, and also a means by which it's a way that God grows others through us.
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Phillip Jensen: It's an interesting observation, and it rings true when I hear it.
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Something which you and I have taken for granted for as long as we've known each other, and I was doing it when you were still a boy.
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Tony Payne: In short pants.
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Phillip Jensen: Yes, in short pants.
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The idea that Christian life is ministering to each other, but ministering the Word to each other.
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Tony Payne: Yes.
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Phillip Jensen: Um, Sunday School teaching to youth fellowship leading to just personally sharing the gospel with the person sitting next to you.
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But that—that was normal.
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But you're right: there's not many books that explain that—that argue for it, are there, let alone study in the Scriptures of it.
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Tony Payne: Almost none.
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I was really surprised to find it.
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Obviously people mentioned it here and there as along the way.
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But in terms of pausing to think, "What does the Bible as a whole say about this and how might we put
this together theologically? How might we relate it to preaching and the vital role that preaching has?"
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Phillip Jensen: But it's all over the Bible, isn't it?
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Tony Payne: Yeah.
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Phillip Jensen: One, we don't have many books on the subject.
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But two, it's not because it's obscure in the Bible; it's the assumption.
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I've become more and more aware recently: the pastor is never told to do anything.
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Tony Payne: In the Bible.
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Phillip Jensen: In the Bible.
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Tony Payne: There's not many instructions at all, really.
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Phillip Jensen: No.
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But there are a lot of instructions as what Christians should do.
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Tony Payne: In the congregation, yeah.
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
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And so, working through 1 Corinthians: Paul wants the Corinthians to shape up in a whole range of areas.
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There's no discussion as the pastor must discipline, the pastor must raise this issue.
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The congregation's to do it, isn't it?
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Tony Payne: Mmm.
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And of course, the kind of, I won't say the climax, but certainly where the argument of
1 Corinthians lands in terms of their life together is in those big chapters, 12 to 14.
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Phillip Jensen: Yes.
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Tony Payne: Which really are all about the way you speak to each other.
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
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Everyone comes to church with—
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Tony Payne: —something to share.
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Phillip Jensen: Something to share.
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Tony Payne: And don't go speaking all in a chaotic way.
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Don't come for your own sake.
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Don't come trying to big-note yourself or use verbal gifts that no one can understand, like speaking in tongues.
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Phillip Jensen: But everyone comes bringing a verbal gift in 1 Corinthians 14.
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Tony Payne: Yeah.
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Phillip Jensen: It's a hymn or it's a revelation or—
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Tony Payne: —a teaching or—you come with something.
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And you share it for the edification of the body.
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That's—
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Phillip Jensen: Well, I remember, and this is Two Ways News folks: just let me advertise that.
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I remember when we worked with Two Ways News, and both of us have been influenced by Col Marshall and his Navigator background in this
regard, isn't it—that the aim is to teach everybody in the congregation how to share the gospel using Two Ways to Live and how to follow
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up people using Just for Starters so that everybody in the congregation has been trained with a kind of basic Word ministry skill.
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And then there's specialist things like teaching Sunday School or youth group or leading a home group or something.
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But that's—but everybody should have some Word skill.
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Now some people don't feel they're very good at words, isn't it?
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Tony Payne: Well, sure.
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Some people also don't feel they're very adequate to preach either, and even though they're preachers.
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In one sense, us speaking the Word to other people is an impossible thing to do.
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How can someone like me speak to other people about God?
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I mean—
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
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Tony Payne: —You know what I'm like and I certainly know what I'm like.
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Humans speaking about God to other people is a natural impossibility.
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But it's possible by the Spirit and work of God.
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And so, when God changes you—when he makes you a new person and puts a new love in your heart, which we'll talk about today, uh, written on
the heart—he gives you a whole new love, a whole new set of words, a whole new set of enthusiasms for what's most important in your life.
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And you start, amazingly, to share it in your own way with the people around you.
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
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Tony Payne: And we all do it in our own way, and God gifts us to do it in our own way.
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I assume that the reason the New Testament urges and encourage and exhorts Christians so many times to share
the Word with one another, encourage one another, exhort one another is that it's something we can all grow in.
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It's something that we're all capable of, but we all have to start somewhere.
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Phillip Jensen: Well, the Bible mightn't tell pastors what to do.
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But I tell pastors, get hold of this book and work on it, because you really need to lead the congregation in doing this.
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And it's a terrific book.
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One of the commendations I saw in the book was written by somebody who works for the opposition—for an alternative publisher.
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I noticed.
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Uh, good friends of ours: Crossways.
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But James Thornton said, "This book analyses, synthesises, and its conclusions are exegetically rigorous, theologically rich and
profoundly practical." Well, that's a book worth getting, friends, and especially, why don't you buy it for your pastor for Christmas?
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If he's got 10 copies, that's good, 'cause he'll be able to run a little Bible study with nine other people to do it.
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It really is written for the pastors.
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I mean, it's written for everybody wasn't it.
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Tony Payne: It's written at the kind of—if you've ever read The Trellis and the Vine, it's written at that level.
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It's just longer, because it's making a longer argument.
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But it's written for pastors, students, parish council members, from the keen, thoughtful layperson, but certainly for
those who are leading the congregation and thinking through, "Is this part of our congregational life? And if not, why not?"
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Phillip Jensen: Yes.
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But in the process, it's opening up to you whole sections of the Scriptures.
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Tony Payne: Yeah.
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There's a lot of Bible.
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Phillip Jensen: I mean, there's a chapter on Hebrews there, for example, which shows you
about the encouraging Word—what is meant by "encouragement" in two senses in that passage.
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I mean, it teaches you about the Scriptures as you go through.
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Tony Payne: Well, look, that's quite enough.
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Being an Australian, I'm embarrassed talking about my own work.
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So let's talk about your work instead.
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Phillip Jensen: No, let's talk about yours.
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I'm going to be embarrassed.
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Yes.
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Tony Payne: No, thanks for asking a few questions about it.
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The books has been well-received so far; it's early days.
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But I do hope that many pastors and pastoral teams will read and think about
the challenge it brings to the way we think about ministry and our people.
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So.
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Phillip Jensen: To get all our people ministering by the Word would bring about a transformation of churches and evangelism in Australia.
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Tony Payne: Indeed, indeed.
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That's certainly my hope.
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Karen Beilharz: We know that the gospel of Jesus is transformative: it transforms our minds, hearts and lives.
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But how does it transform our daily work?
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This has been a disturbing question for many Christians.
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We often struggle to connect the realities of the workplace with the reality of Christ, who stands at the centre of our lives.
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Simon Flinders and Paul Grimmond have just published a book on precisely this question, and on Wednesday the 28th of
October, 2026, they will be recording a live episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast with Director Tony Payne.
00:14:18.045 --> 00:14:22.365
Please note: this event was postponed in July due to unforeseen circumstances.
00:14:23.110 --> 00:14:30.189
Join us at Moore College on Wednesday, 28th October for a lively event of input and conversation about this important topic.
00:14:30.550 --> 00:14:35.100
You can find out more and register on the Centre for Christian Living website: that's ccl.moore.edu.au.
00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:40.410
That's ccl.moore.edu.au.
00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:45.160
Tony Payne: And now, let's get back to our program.
00:14:45.490 --> 00:14:47.680
And your book is about the Christian life as well.
00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:54.694
It's called Written on the Heart: The Ten Commandments and the radical life of grace.
00:14:55.205 --> 00:15:00.305
I'll bowl it straight back to you then—the, the most searching question an interviewer can ask: why did you write this book?
00:15:01.745 --> 00:15:02.855
Phillip Jensen: I was having a bad day!
00:15:05.165 --> 00:15:17.865
Well, the Ten Commandments is foundational and fundamental to Western civilisation—the idea that your
civilisation is built on right and wrong, just and unjust—the idea that there is right and wrong.
00:15:17.865 --> 00:15:22.725
When God established his nation on Mount Sinai, that's the fundamental.
00:15:22.785 --> 00:15:24.285
That's where it starts, you know?
00:15:24.564 --> 00:15:34.745
"I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. If you're going to be my people, this
is what you do. And here's the commandments." And it's fundamental to Western civilisation.
00:15:35.630 --> 00:15:40.350
But of recent times, the Ten Commandments have slipped out of the mind of Western civilisation—even
00:15:42.410 --> 00:15:49.700
replaced, to some extent, by the Seven Deadly Sins, which I've worked out weren't seven, weren't deadly and not sins necessarily.
00:15:50.060 --> 00:15:51.740
But even that slipped by.
00:15:51.740 --> 00:15:53.540
So we're not sure whether there's right or wrong.
00:15:54.110 --> 00:16:01.970
I'm sure part of the reason there's a rule in public debate that after five or six discussions, it winds up with Adolf Hitler.
00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:02.300
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:16:02.600 --> 00:16:06.320
Phillip Jensen: Because Adolf Hitler's the only one that we can all agree was wrong.
00:16:06.380 --> 00:16:06.860
Tony Payne: Was evil.
00:16:06.950 --> 00:16:07.790
Phillip Jensen: There is evil.
00:16:08.060 --> 00:16:11.270
And so, you have to recalibrate all discussions.
00:16:11.390 --> 00:16:13.010
Well, you don't really.
00:16:13.070 --> 00:16:17.990
The Ten Commandments tells you there is right and wrong, and tells you what is right and wrong.
00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:20.000
Our civilisation has lost it.
00:16:20.510 --> 00:16:25.084
What really worried me more, Tony, was our congregations have lost it.
00:16:25.775 --> 00:16:36.185
I was raised in a prayer book age where at communion, which we had every week, which I'm not
commending particularly, but we had the Ten Commandments read to us—slowly and deliberately.
00:16:36.425 --> 00:16:38.344
We prayed after each one.
00:16:38.765 --> 00:16:43.115
And of course, in many old churches, it was written on a board at the front of the church.
00:16:43.145 --> 00:16:43.734
Tony Payne: In stone.
00:16:43.734 --> 00:16:44.714
On stone tablets.
00:16:44.864 --> 00:16:45.795
Phillip Jensen: On stone tablets, yes.
00:16:45.834 --> 00:16:49.954
Tony Payne: I think—was it sometimes there's the Ten Commandments on one side, the Apostles Creed on the other side.
00:16:50.795 --> 00:16:51.465
Phillip Jensen: And the Lord's Prayer.
00:16:51.465 --> 00:16:51.634
Tony Payne: And the Lord's Prayer.
00:16:51.634 --> 00:16:52.655
And they'd be up there on the walls.
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Phillip Jensen: And as children, I was taught all three to learn by heart.
00:16:56.210 --> 00:16:56.420
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:16:56.420 --> 00:16:59.480
Phillip Jensen: That was part of basic Christian teaching.
00:16:59.990 --> 00:17:18.710
But when I checked our congregation oh 20, 30 years ago now, I found hardly anybody of the Christians at university knew more than half
a dozen, you know, six, five commandments—even what they were, let alone having thought through what each one of them means for them.
00:17:19.145 --> 00:17:26.534
I mean, they all knew don't murder; don't steal; I think it says something against adultery, which, it might be old-fashioned, you know?
00:17:26.534 --> 00:17:26.724
I mean.
00:17:26.885 --> 00:17:27.065
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:29.555
Phillip Jensen: But what were the others and why?
00:17:30.275 --> 00:17:38.095
So I mentioned this to my brother years ago, and he tried out the first year
Moore College team and found out the students weren't much better here either.
00:17:38.544 --> 00:17:45.005
In first year, of course; by the time they'd finished College under their great supervising teachers, they knew better.
00:17:45.245 --> 00:17:54.210
But it's very sad when the Christian community doesn't know the Ten Commandments, which is foundational for a Western civilisation.
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We're in trouble.
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Tony Payne: Indeed.
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And it struck me too that—I mean, growing up as a Christian in this period you're talking about, I kind of thought
that the Ten Commandments were sort of like a quaint relic of the Old Testament—of the former dispensation.
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But now that we are under grace—
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Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:18:12.319 --> 00:18:13.415
Tony Payne: —we're no longer under law.
00:18:13.415 --> 00:18:27.139
So I suppose I had a default kind of vibe that the Ten Commandments or commandments, whichever way you're going to pronounce
it, weren't that important, or they were superseded or obsolete in some way, because we're under grace, not under law, right?
00:18:27.320 --> 00:18:35.840
Phillip Jensen: And the big problem in Australia in evangelism is getting people to
understand that you're saved by grace through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Tony Payne: Not by works!
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Phillip Jensen: Not by works of the Lord.
00:18:37.745 --> 00:18:38.225
Tony Payne: Exactly.
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Phillip Jensen: So the average Aussie: "Oh, I believe in the Ten Commandments!" When you ask them, they don't know
what they consist of, but they believe that they'll be justified by keeping the commandments, which they don't keep.
00:18:50.950 --> 00:18:51.760
They don't even know.
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And so, we therefore rightly emphasise grace, mercy, forgiveness, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus.
00:18:59.500 --> 00:19:01.000
We're right to emphasise that.
00:19:01.750 --> 00:19:06.760
But the death of Jesus doesn't make sense if you haven't got a sense of right and wrong in the justice of God.
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Jesus is the answer, but then you have to ask the obvious thing: well, what's the question?
00:19:12.260 --> 00:19:14.210
And so, Jesus dies for our sins.
00:19:14.210 --> 00:19:17.090
But what are our sins and why are they sins?
00:19:17.840 --> 00:19:22.520
So get rid of the commandments, you're actually unwittingly undermine the gospel of grace.
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Tony Payne: But I think you're arguing in the first part of the book more than that.
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It's not just that the commandments—we need to understand them, because they will drive us to Jesus.
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You're suggesting that having been driven to Jesus and to his grace and to his salvation, the commandments actually have a role in the Christian life.
00:19:41.705 --> 00:19:43.024
What role do they have in the Christian
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life?
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Phillip Jensen: Oh, absolutely, yes.
00:19:44.824 --> 00:19:48.585
Certainly they declare my sin and make me acute of it.
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Because of the commandment on coveting, Paul knew about coveting.
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Without the commandment, he wouldn't have known.
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When he received the commandment, it actually just increased his coveting.
00:19:58.985 --> 00:20:00.370
But that aspect is there.
00:20:01.310 --> 00:20:21.770
However, we're really told in the expectation of the Old Testament prophets—Jeremiah 31 Ezekiel 36, to pick on two key passages—when the
people of Israel failed to keep the commandments, they were destroyed by the Assyrians, they were sent into captivity by the Babylonians.
00:20:22.250 --> 00:20:32.300
And so, all the great work of God in rescuing them out of slavery in Egypt wound up slavery in Babylon, because they didn't keep the commandments.
00:20:32.750 --> 00:20:41.000
And so, then we're promised in the new age, we're not going to have the commandments on tablets of stone, like we did in our church buildings.
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Tony Payne: Right.
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Phillip Jensen: We're going to have the tablets written on our hearts, which is why the title is there.
00:20:46.970 --> 00:21:06.290
And so, when it comes to the New Testament and Jesus talking about the life of his disciples—of his fishermen, he talks in terms of
keeping the commandments in a completely new radical, dramatic way—totally unlike the Pharisees—totally allied like sinful people.
00:21:06.800 --> 00:21:13.790
Tony Payne: And so, that new radical way is, what, an expansionist view of them, or a different view of them?
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What's the new radical way of keeping the commandments?
00:21:16.460 --> 00:21:21.200
Phillip Jensen: Well, we can't detach them from their wording in the Book of Exodus—
00:21:21.290 --> 00:21:21.530
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:21:21.620 --> 00:21:23.210
Phillip Jensen: —And what they are saying.
00:21:23.720 --> 00:21:36.035
But instead of looking to minimise any consequence—define it so tightly that we have a chance of obeying it—Jesus opens up the maximum applications.
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He uses it to think then on the widest of ethical implications and consequences and ramifications.
00:21:43.505 --> 00:21:58.730
So I mean, the classic one is where he speaks of, "You heard 'You shall not commit murder'. I say, if you hate, then you've
already committed it." Whereas we want to define murder—first degree, second degree, manslaughter, accidental killing.
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What about that in warfare?
00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:04.310
What about—we want to so define the commandment that we can possibly keep it.
00:22:05.030 --> 00:22:22.340
Jesus so defines the commandment that we would never be able to keep it, because it directs us to do what Psalmist used
to say: to meditate upon it, to think about it, to work out how it implies our life's behaviour in many, many areas.
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Tony Payne: That would only be the case if the commandment "Do not murder" was not just like an arbitrary rule: just don't murder.
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There you go.
00:22:30.139 --> 00:22:30.710
There's a rule.
00:22:31.040 --> 00:22:36.680
But it would only be the case if "Do not murder" says something about goodness and rightness—
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Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:41.960
Tony Payne: —so that it also means "Do not hate" and it also means "Do not show contempt".
00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:42.980
Phillip Jensen: It means love your neighbour.
00:22:43.040 --> 00:22:46.040
Tony Payne: And then it means on the—on the claim: "Love your neighbour".
00:22:46.070 --> 00:22:46.399
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:22:46.730 --> 00:22:49.300
Tony Payne: Treasure and value the other person, and treat them well.
00:22:49.649 --> 00:22:51.290
It's a little short command: "Do not murder".
00:22:51.350 --> 00:23:02.540
But the more you meditate on it, pick over it, have it in your heart, as you might put it that way, the
more it teaches you about the nature of the world and of other people, and what right and wrong really is.
00:23:03.020 --> 00:23:11.659
Phillip Jensen: The summary, which the lawyer brought to Jesus and Jesus commends "Love your
God with all your heart, soul, strength, and love your neighbour as yourself", is brilliant.
00:23:12.409 --> 00:23:17.689
But the trouble is, unless you know the commandments, what does it mean to love my neighbour?
00:23:18.320 --> 00:23:33.900
When you see the commandments, as Jesus saw them and as the Spirit lays them—motivates our hearts to keep them—then
I can see loving my neighbour is not to covet his family, not to covet his donkeys, not to covet anything.
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Tony Payne: Yes.
00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:36.260
Phillip Jensen: But it's also not bearing false witness.
00:23:36.260 --> 00:23:37.700
It means not stealing.
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So each of the commandments actually can be put in a positive sense, if you like.
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I mean, "Do not covet" can be said in terms of "Be generous".
00:23:47.055 --> 00:23:48.845
Which opens up a whole road.
00:23:48.850 --> 00:23:49.370
Tony Payne: Be content.
00:23:49.370 --> 00:23:50.570
Be content with what you have.
00:23:50.570 --> 00:23:50.770
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:23:50.775 --> 00:23:51.425
Tony Payne: Be generous.
00:23:51.425 --> 00:23:53.525
Rather than wanting other people's things, give them your things.
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Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes.
00:23:54.515 --> 00:24:00.970
"Do not steal." Well, let the thief no longer steal, but work with honest hands so that he may give—
00:24:01.849 --> 00:24:02.465
Tony Payne: —to those in need.
00:24:02.465 --> 00:24:05.915
Phillip Jensen: Jesus' ethics doesn't contradict the Ten Commandments.
00:24:06.280 --> 00:24:09.580
He shows you what is really meant by the Ten Commandments.
00:24:10.150 --> 00:24:15.790
Tony Payne: One of the things I liked in the book: you start in Titus 2 and you talk about how the grace of God appears.
00:24:15.790 --> 00:24:17.140
It brings salvation.
00:24:17.140 --> 00:24:19.540
It teaches us to live a whole new life.
00:24:19.990 --> 00:24:28.300
It redeems us and cleanses us, and it finishes with this marvellous little
phrase: that we might be "zealots" or "zealous for" or "zealots for" good works.
00:24:28.420 --> 00:24:28.660
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:24:28.665 --> 00:24:40.775
Tony Payne: That the whole purpose of God's salvation of us and of Jesus making us his people is that
this new people, we'll have a new heart that longs to do the good—longs to work good in our lives.
00:24:40.775 --> 00:24:40.835
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:24:41.255 --> 00:24:46.535
Tony Payne: And that's the frame within which you start examining the commandments as lenses or windows into the good.
00:24:46.745 --> 00:24:51.095
Phillip Jensen: And isn't it interesting that he "cleanses us from lawlessness"—
00:24:51.125 --> 00:24:51.905
Tony Payne: Ah, yes!
00:24:52.385 --> 00:24:55.355
Phillip Jensen: —in order to live this zealous good life?
00:24:55.715 --> 00:24:58.595
Tony Payne: So the opposite of this good life is lawlessness.
00:24:58.595 --> 00:24:59.375
Phillip Jensen: Lawlessness.
00:24:59.375 --> 00:24:59.855
Yes.
00:24:59.885 --> 00:25:00.305
It's not—
00:25:00.305 --> 00:25:05.555
Tony Payne: Whereas the good life corresponds to, comes out of, reflects the good law of God.
00:25:05.555 --> 00:25:05.915
Phillip Jensen: That's right.
00:25:06.125 --> 00:25:06.720
Tony Payne: Yeah, yeah.
00:25:07.264 --> 00:25:09.335
Well, why don't we think of one example then?
00:25:09.395 --> 00:25:11.605
We won't go through all Ten Commandments and how you've—
00:25:11.705 --> 00:25:12.135
Phillip Jensen: No, you've got to buy the book.
00:25:12.135 --> 00:25:12.605
Tony Payne: Got to buy the book.
00:25:13.655 --> 00:25:14.014
Exactly.
00:25:14.014 --> 00:25:20.435
Phillip Jensen: In fact, I've found Tony, it's a kind of book where you need to read—so the first third's just about grace and law.
00:25:20.764 --> 00:25:22.295
Tony Payne: The conversation we've just had in some ways.
00:25:22.295 --> 00:25:24.695
Phillip Jensen: But two thirds of the book is going through the Ten Commandments.
00:25:25.265 --> 00:25:28.145
I've found it's better to go them one chapter at a week.
00:25:28.145 --> 00:25:28.715
Tony Payne: Yeah, yeah.
00:25:28.985 --> 00:25:30.185
Phillip Jensen: Because you got to meditate.
00:25:30.195 --> 00:25:30.975
You got to think about it.
00:25:31.025 --> 00:25:33.395
You got to work out what it means for you.
00:25:33.695 --> 00:25:38.405
And it's the kind of book to go through with a friend: read the same chapter, then have a conversation with each other.
00:25:38.405 --> 00:25:46.715
Tony Payne: So read the first bit and get the sense of this is how this fits into my
life and why it's so important to meditate on and really chew on the commandments.
00:25:46.804 --> 00:25:46.865
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:25:46.865 --> 00:25:48.095
Tony Payne: And then take some time to do that.
00:25:48.095 --> 00:25:54.845
Like the psalmist who, "I'll store up your word in my heart, your commands, your laws, that I might not sin against you." Indeed.
00:25:54.875 --> 00:25:56.044
Well, let's look at one then.
00:25:56.044 --> 00:25:56.794
Can we look at one?
00:25:56.885 --> 00:25:57.304
Phillip Jensen: Yeah, sure.
00:25:57.395 --> 00:25:58.415
Tony Payne: And what about Sabbath?
00:25:58.415 --> 00:25:59.465
Sabbath's a good test case.
00:25:59.495 --> 00:26:05.405
Phillip Jensen: Well, Sabbath's a good test case, 'cause it's the one I think
there's more controversy about in the Christian community than almost any other one.
00:26:06.125 --> 00:26:12.110
How do you keep the day, and which day do you keep and why, it's all spelled out in these—in the Sabbath.
00:26:12.110 --> 00:26:18.020
Not which day, because we will differ with that in Christian liberty, but that we take time off.
00:26:18.650 --> 00:26:32.450
However, what I notice is it's actually addressed to those in authority, because you're to make sure that
your family and your animals, to say nothing of your servants, your children, are all to have the Sabbath day.
00:26:33.380 --> 00:26:40.665
And so, I think it's addressed to our governments, who are desperate to do away with weekends, ' cause they want people working.
00:26:40.665 --> 00:26:43.155
They want industry to keep going all the time.
00:26:43.215 --> 00:26:45.735
Then they can do it with a 40-hour week.
00:26:45.735 --> 00:26:48.555
They can do it by getting different people to work on different days.
00:26:49.035 --> 00:26:51.885
But that undermines social cohesion.
00:26:52.245 --> 00:26:55.005
At the moment, we've got a Royal Commission on social cohesion.
00:26:55.005 --> 00:26:56.925
But they've got no idea how to create it.
00:26:57.615 --> 00:27:12.195
The Sabbath is a key part of creating social cohesion, because we all have the same day off with each other and could
spend time with each other—which, if everybody's working and there's no differentiation from one day to another,
00:27:12.855 --> 00:27:22.455
we actually undermine God's good creation where he took the day and we are to participate in his day together.
00:27:22.995 --> 00:27:24.765
I mean, there's lots in the Sabbath.
00:27:25.275 --> 00:27:30.555
I've found it the most challenging, the most interesting and, frankly, the greatest fun chapter to write.
00:27:31.035 --> 00:27:38.655
Tony Payne: Because our tendency is to want to ask all those, if I can put it this
way, Pharasaical-type questions, you know: "Exactly how many hours do we take off?"
00:27:38.745 --> 00:27:38.835
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:27:38.955 --> 00:27:41.325
Tony Payne: "Exactly when?" "What am I allowed to do on those days?"
00:27:41.355 --> 00:27:41.625
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:27:41.715 --> 00:27:54.580
Tony Payne: Uh, "Which day is it going to be?" So we try to—because law has the character of a specification,
and do this and do this in a particular way, we kind of try and bring it across into our situation
00:27:54.580 --> 00:27:59.500
that way and say, "We need a set of specifications that exactly codify precisely what's required."
00:27:59.500 --> 00:27:59.560
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:28:00.100 --> 00:28:02.469
Tony Payne: But that's not what Jesus does with the law.
00:28:02.530 --> 00:28:02.709
Phillip Jensen: No.
00:28:02.709 --> 00:28:03.324
Tony Payne: As we've just said.
00:28:03.905 --> 00:28:16.745
He says, "Look and chew on and understand what goodness and love the law is driving you to, and maximise that. Go for that. Think
of all the ways in which this liberates you to actually live differently, rather than trying to come up with a set of rules."
00:28:16.775 --> 00:28:17.285
Phillip Jensen: That's right.
00:28:17.675 --> 00:28:20.975
We think individualistically, rather than just corporately.
00:28:21.065 --> 00:28:21.245
Tony Payne: Yep.
00:28:21.245 --> 00:28:22.665
Phillip Jensen: Which comes out of the Sabbath one.
00:28:23.195 --> 00:28:26.264
How did the slave in the New Testament keep the Sabbath?
00:28:26.570 --> 00:28:26.839
Tony Payne: Only if—
00:28:26.839 --> 00:28:28.060
Phillip Jensen: If he's working for a non-Christian.
00:28:28.274 --> 00:28:29.355
Tony Payne: Only if he's—well, yes.
00:28:29.385 --> 00:28:29.865
That's true.
00:28:29.865 --> 00:28:31.814
If he's working for a non-Christian master, yes.
00:28:31.905 --> 00:28:32.324
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:28:32.324 --> 00:28:32.564
You see?
00:28:32.834 --> 00:28:45.584
We're not thinking out the reality of Christian living through the teaching of
Jesus on the Ten Commandments, motivated by the changed heart by the Spirit.
00:28:45.735 --> 00:28:50.475
So it's more than leading us to repentance of faith in coming to salvation.
00:28:50.879 --> 00:28:54.750
It also is leading us to living a different life, a holy life.
00:28:55.470 --> 00:29:08.970
Tony Payne: The Sabbath one is interesting too in that in the justification that's given for the command in Exodus 20, it
grounds it in the fact that God worked and rested—that there's something about if God worked and rested, you can work and rest.
00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:10.770
You and your household and everybody.
00:29:11.220 --> 00:29:18.840
It links it to something about the way God is and the way the world is, and not simply just an arbitrary kind of rule.
00:29:18.990 --> 00:29:26.940
Phillip Jensen: And you see it in the nutty discussions that people have about work/life balance, as if work is not part of life.
00:29:26.970 --> 00:29:28.950
How can you have a work/life balance?
00:29:28.950 --> 00:29:30.450
It's a silly discussion, really.
00:29:30.510 --> 00:29:30.690
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:29:30.990 --> 00:29:37.260
Phillip Jensen: But it's because they're not really talking in the terms the Scriptures are talking about in God and the Sabbath.
00:29:37.860 --> 00:29:39.960
We're not created to work seven days a week.
00:29:40.649 --> 00:29:42.780
And being a workaholic is a disaster.
00:29:43.230 --> 00:29:46.740
God has made it clear that we're not to be like that.
00:29:47.460 --> 00:29:55.950
But yet our society pushes us in that regard, or pushes us in the lazy regard, as the sluggard is condemned in the Book of Proverbs.
00:29:56.250 --> 00:29:57.240
Tony Payne: The command: it's interesting.
00:29:57.240 --> 00:29:59.400
The command says, "Six days you shall work."
00:29:59.730 --> 00:30:00.120
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:30:00.120 --> 00:30:00.630
Tony Payne: Do your work.
00:30:01.104 --> 00:30:01.915
Six days.
00:30:01.975 --> 00:30:02.784
There's plenty to do.
00:30:03.384 --> 00:30:12.894
But the seventh day is the day for—for ceasing from work and for rejoicing in the fruit
of your labour and in thankfulness to the God who's made all this possible for you.
00:30:13.134 --> 00:30:13.945
Phillip Jensen: With each other.
00:30:14.394 --> 00:30:15.624
Tony Payne: Yes, it's a corporate thing, isn't it.
00:30:15.624 --> 00:30:15.834
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:30:15.894 --> 00:30:20.665
Tony Payne: We think of Sabbath as an individualistic kind of "I've got to have my me time".
00:30:21.254 --> 00:30:26.895
Some of us who are introverts find that particularly important—especially, I suppose, if our work is very people-focused.
00:30:27.199 --> 00:30:29.625
A bit of—a bit of quiet me time is very refreshing.
00:30:30.165 --> 00:30:30.584
Phillip Jensen: Yeah, it is.
00:30:30.584 --> 00:30:32.235
Tony Payne: But it is a social commandment as well.
00:30:32.354 --> 00:30:32.625
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:30:32.985 --> 00:30:40.635
Tony Payne: So that's just one small taste of how you tease out the meaning of the
commandment for our life—for our culture and society, as well as for our lives.
00:30:41.054 --> 00:30:45.465
Now, I'll ask you for it in a second where we're going to get hold of this book and what to do about that.
00:30:45.465 --> 00:30:47.175
There's one final thing I wanted to ask you, though.
00:30:47.534 --> 00:30:56.054
It's been a feature of your teaching and writing over the years that you not only
put forward the truth and explain it, but also contrast it with the alternative.
00:30:56.264 --> 00:31:10.215
And I like the way at the end of this book, you had a little appendix contrasting our Christian approach to morality and to
goodness and rightness that the Ten Commandments plays into—with atheistic ethics—with the ethics that we bump up against every day.
00:31:10.695 --> 00:31:12.495
And the contrast is very stark, isn't it?
00:31:12.645 --> 00:31:13.875
Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes.
00:31:14.115 --> 00:31:18.735
You feel the contrast in the content of ethics—in what we're told.
00:31:18.975 --> 00:31:23.534
We're told, "Do not commit adultery." Our society is very unsure of that now.
00:31:23.534 --> 00:31:29.804
In fact, there's a website that encourages people and enables people to commit adultery.
00:31:30.284 --> 00:31:31.395
That's not frowned upon.
00:31:31.395 --> 00:31:32.895
There's no restriction on that.
00:31:33.254 --> 00:31:35.595
So our society is confused about content.
00:31:36.044 --> 00:31:43.034
But much more importantly, our society is confused about the basis of ethics.
00:31:43.064 --> 00:31:43.215
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:31:43.395 --> 00:31:44.294
Phillip Jensen: Where it comes from.
00:31:44.774 --> 00:31:54.840
And if you do away with God—if you see the world is just but an accident that has happened—then actually, there is no basis for ethics.
00:31:54.870 --> 00:32:00.690
If this world is just this world, then there's no right, there's no wrong; there's just this world.
00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:24.870
And so, the ethical poverty of atheism needs to be exposed, because people are very moralistic, but the basis of their moralism is totally
vacuous—unless your morality comes out of the one who made you and more, who's died for you and risen again, and is one day going to judge you.
00:32:25.630 --> 00:32:28.560
Tony Payne: Phillip, thanks for writing this book, and I could say I really enjoyed reading it.
00:32:28.620 --> 00:32:31.520
But I didn't read it, because I sort of helped you write it back then.
00:32:31.595 --> 00:32:32.215
Phillip Jensen: You certainly did.
00:32:32.315 --> 00:32:33.420
That's why it was readable.
00:32:34.530 --> 00:32:37.440
Tony Payne: I was involved in helping you shape it at different points along the way.
00:32:37.830 --> 00:32:41.760
But as per usual, the ideas and the structure was yours, and it's a marvellous book.
00:32:41.760 --> 00:32:45.930
And it can be obtained, oh, as they say, from all good bookshops everywhere.
00:32:46.190 --> 00:32:50.090
Both of these new books—my one and your one—are put out by our good friends at Matthias Media.
00:32:50.150 --> 00:32:57.950
So you can go to their website: matthiasmedia.com in the States or matthiasmedia.com.au here in Australia to find out all about these two titles.
00:32:58.250 --> 00:33:00.740
But Phillip, it's been fun to get back together and talk again.
00:33:00.925 --> 00:33:01.820
Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes!
00:33:01.820 --> 00:33:05.300
I'm still talking to a grey-haired man, but this one's younger than me.
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:08.510
Tony Payne: Well, that's a pleasure for you, in any case.
00:33:08.629 --> 00:33:08.870
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:33:09.800 --> 00:33:15.200
Tony Payne: And for me: it's nice to be in a room where I'm not the oldest man, which is the case here at Moore College in most of my classes.
00:33:15.590 --> 00:33:20.389
Well, thanks again, Phillip, for talking and having me back, or for you being on or whatever's happening here in this conversation.
00:33:20.570 --> 00:33:23.780
Phillip Jensen: Well, we're in Two Ways News as well, so I'm going to lead in prayer.
00:33:23.780 --> 00:33:24.860
Tony Payne: That's a great way to finish.
00:33:24.950 --> 00:33:34.400
Phillip Jensen: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege we have of writing and
publishing books—the privilege we have of buying them and reading them and learning from them.
00:33:34.790 --> 00:33:44.855
We do pray, Heavenly Father, that through these two publications, that your people
will study your Word more carefully and be able to put your Word into practice.
00:33:44.875 --> 00:33:46.555
And we pray for this in Jesus' name.
00:33:46.555 --> 00:33:46.675
Amen.
00:34:02.635 --> 00:34:07.160
Tony Payne: Well, thanks for joining us on this episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast from Moore College.
00:34:07.885 --> 00:34:13.284
For a whole lot more from the Centre for Christian Living, just head over to the CCL website at ccl.moore.edu.au,
00:34:16.824 --> 00:34:27.685
where you'll find a stack of resources, including every past podcast episode all the way
back to 2017, videos from our live events and articles that we published through the Centre.
00:34:28.375 --> 00:34:35.635
And while you're there on the website, we also have an opportunity for you
to make a tax-deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Centre.
00:34:37.489 --> 00:34:45.139
We'd also love you to subscribe to the podcast and to leave a review so that people can discover our podcast and our other resources.
00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:51.349
And we always love and benefit from receiving your feedback and questions: please get in touch.
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:56.639
You can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au.
00:34:57.229 --> 00:35:10.490
Many thanks to Karen Beilharz from the Communications Team here at Moore College for all her work in transcribing and
editing and producing this podcast; to James West for music; and to you, dear listeners, for joining us each week.
00:35:10.550 --> 00:35:11.330
Thank you for listening.
00:35:11.840 --> 00:35:12.529
I'm Tony Payne.
00:35:13.189 --> 00:35:13.649
'Bye for now.
NOTE
This file was generated by Descript <www.descript.com>
00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:14.300
Tony Payne: I wonder: did you grow up going to a church, or perhaps still go to a church, where
the Ten Commandments were on a kind of stone tablet on the wall at the front of the church?
00:00:14.450 --> 00:00:14.870
I did.
00:00:15.770 --> 00:00:22.070
Or when the basic nature of discipleship as a Christian when you became a Christian was to learn the Ten Commandments?
00:00:22.670 --> 00:00:34.940
I don't think either of those things are very common today, and maybe you think, "Good thing too." There's no
doubting the fact that the Ten Commandments, for most of the last 2000 years, for most Christians who've ever
00:00:34.940 --> 00:00:42.950
lived, have played a pretty fundamental role in what it means for Christians to obey God and to do his will.
00:00:43.820 --> 00:00:46.640
Now, we know that we're not under law—that we're under grace.
00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:54.440
But does that mean that foundational Old Testament teaching like the Ten Commandments don't really matter very much anymore?
00:00:54.860 --> 00:00:56.870
Or if they matter, how do they matter?
00:00:57.560 --> 00:01:02.025
That's our topic in this week's conversation on the Centre for Christian Living podcast.
00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:17.870
Well, hello!
00:01:17.870 --> 00:01:26.130
I'm Tony Payne and welcome to a special crossover edition of the Two Ways News podcast and the Centre for Christian Living podcast.
00:01:26.130 --> 00:01:29.910
So I suppose I should say, "Welcome from the Centre for Christian Living podcast" and Phillip—
00:01:29.925 --> 00:01:32.580
Phillip Jensen: And now I should be saying, "Welcome to Two Ways News".
00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:33.750
Which you are.
00:01:33.870 --> 00:01:34.980
And I hope that you feel it.
00:01:35.160 --> 00:01:35.940
Tony Payne: Yeah, I hope so too.
00:01:35.940 --> 00:01:37.770
It's nice to be back talking again, isn't it?
00:01:37.800 --> 00:01:38.039
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:01:38.039 --> 00:01:38.490
Tony Payne: A little while.
00:01:38.490 --> 00:01:39.780
Phillip Jensen: Which music are we going to use?
00:01:39.810 --> 00:01:45.300
Tony Payne: Well, I think, depending on which music you heard at the beginning might be which platform you're listening to this podcast on.
00:01:45.610 --> 00:01:45.810
Phillip Jensen: I see.
00:01:45.854 --> 00:01:46.145
Good.
00:01:46.630 --> 00:01:47.700
Tony Payne: Or we could blend the two together.
00:01:47.780 --> 00:01:48.870
Anyway, we'll figure something out.
00:01:48.929 --> 00:01:50.700
Phillip Jensen: What do—what do you do for your pod?
00:01:50.700 --> 00:01:52.710
Why is your podcast operating?
00:01:52.800 --> 00:01:59.930
Tony Payne: Well, when I started working for Moore College and stopped doing this
podcast with you, and I understand that you replaced me with some other person.
00:02:00.170 --> 00:02:01.940
Phillip Jensen: Oh, we had to drop standards, Tony!
00:02:01.940 --> 00:02:02.480
You know that.
00:02:04.130 --> 00:02:06.380
So each week I now do it with Peter Jensen.
00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:07.020
Tony Payne: Yeah, sorry.
00:02:07.030 --> 00:02:08.420
You asked me what I do on my podcast.
00:02:08.420 --> 00:02:08.480
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:02:08.480 --> 00:02:16.425
Tony Payne: So part of my role at Moore College is to direct the Centre for Christian
Living, which is the College's sort of ethics outreach into the community sort of Centre.
00:02:16.425 --> 00:02:21.885
So its idea is "How do we think about the Christian life and what it means to live the Christian life here at Moore College?
00:02:21.915 --> 00:02:32.445
How does our theology play out in practice?" And "Could we bless the broader Christian community by
talking about that and by bringing that to all the different topics and issues that we face as Christians?"
00:02:32.445 --> 00:02:38.535
So the podcast consists of regular episodes where I interview someone about some aspect of the Christian life.
00:02:39.075 --> 00:02:51.885
And then from time to time, we do a deep dive into some more specific subjects, and we do a little miniseries on—for example,
last year, we did a miniseries on the smartphone and how it changes the way we live as Christians and how it disciples us.
00:02:51.885 --> 00:02:59.055
It was called "The smartphone disciple", and it was, it was about how not to be discipled by your smartphone, but to be discipled by Jesus instead.
00:02:59.355 --> 00:02:59.835
Phillip Jensen: I see.
00:02:59.835 --> 00:03:01.845
Have you done one on how to argue with AI yet?
00:03:02.595 --> 00:03:06.835
Tony Payne: Not yet, but it's on the agenda sometime to do one on technology more broadly.
00:03:06.835 --> 00:03:09.055
What, have you been arguing with AI regularly?
00:03:09.090 --> 00:03:10.375
Phillip Jensen: I, I argue with ChatGPT.
00:03:11.395 --> 00:03:11.695
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:03:11.695 --> 00:03:12.355
Who wins?
00:03:12.355 --> 00:03:15.674
Phillip Jensen: And I hate to tell you that I converted ChatGPT.
00:03:15.825 --> 00:03:18.815
I know it's not the Holy Spirit, because it's not a person I'm arguing with.
00:03:19.595 --> 00:03:25.535
But we started off with him denying the resurrection and we've concluded that he actually now believes in the resurrection.
00:03:25.535 --> 00:03:26.015
Tony Payne: Well, there we go.
00:03:27.065 --> 00:03:30.815
Phillip Jensen: Took several hours of astute argumentation.
00:03:30.905 --> 00:03:31.355
Tony Payne: There we go.
00:03:31.355 --> 00:03:35.045
And it's got nothing to do with the fact that AI does tend to like to agree with you and affirm you.
00:03:35.625 --> 00:03:46.425
Phillip Jensen: I even asked, "Are you just saying this because you've got an algorithm that you
have to say this?" And, "No, no, no, no, no." Well, if you believe it more fool you are, I think!
00:03:47.925 --> 00:03:50.475
Tony Payne: So what do you do each week on Two Ways News, now that I'm gone?
00:03:50.475 --> 00:03:51.644
What sort of stuff do you talk about?
00:03:52.035 --> 00:03:57.465
Phillip Jensen: Well, I try and keep my partner up to date, and support him and get him along.
00:03:57.905 --> 00:04:02.715
No, it's much the same, only we're starting the other end—that is, from the Scriptures.
00:04:02.745 --> 00:04:02.955
Tony Payne: Yep.
00:04:03.230 --> 00:04:05.340
Phillip Jensen: So last year, we worked through Genesis 1-11.
00:04:06.020 --> 00:04:12.800
This year, we've been working through 1 Corinthians, and we've just finished it last week in chapter 16.
00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:14.540
And so, doing this crossover now.
00:04:15.170 --> 00:04:23.330
And then Peter's going to explain why he is a Christian, why he is a Protestant,
why he is an Anglican, why he is a Catholic, why he is it charismatic.
00:04:23.540 --> 00:04:23.930
Tony Payne: Oh, I see.
00:04:24.080 --> 00:04:25.760
Phillip Jensen: Why he's doing podcasts with me!
00:04:27.740 --> 00:04:29.990
And so, we're doing a little doctrinal series.
00:04:29.990 --> 00:04:32.540
But then we'll get back to the next book for next year.
00:04:33.010 --> 00:04:43.840
Tony Payne: It's a really good description, actually, of how Christian life and ethics and Bible works,
because you do start with Scripture and read Scripture, and go out from what God says to live in the world.
00:04:43.840 --> 00:04:45.340
And so, it shapes the whole way you think.
00:04:45.340 --> 00:04:50.440
And so, to start with Bible and think, "What does this mean for our world?", well, that should be a foundational point.
00:04:50.890 --> 00:04:53.760
I suppose that's why they teach them so much Bible here at Moore College.
00:04:53.890 --> 00:04:54.460
Phillip Jensen: Yeah, absolutely.
00:04:54.750 --> 00:05:00.220
Tony Payne: But you also—the Scripture is expositional and kind of comes in a thing, but life comes at you topically as well.
00:05:00.340 --> 00:05:00.820
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:05:00.820 --> 00:05:02.005
Tony Payne: I've got this situation to deal with.
00:05:02.675 --> 00:05:03.395
What am I going to do?
00:05:03.455 --> 00:05:04.670
Phillip Jensen: From your topic to the Bible.
00:05:04.670 --> 00:05:05.675
Tony Payne: Back to this, back to the Bible.
00:05:05.675 --> 00:05:07.445
And you've got to learn how to go in that direction as well.
00:05:07.445 --> 00:05:07.505
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:05:07.505 --> 00:05:08.495
Tony Payne: Which is more what we are doing.
00:05:08.915 --> 00:05:09.605
Excellent.
00:05:09.785 --> 00:05:17.615
Well, we're here today mainly to talk about your book, which is all about living
the Christian life and especially the Ten Commandments in the Christian life.
00:05:17.615 --> 00:05:24.695
Phillip Jensen: Well, I'm here to talk about your book and uh, how we've got to let the Word dwell richly in our conversations with one another.
00:05:24.725 --> 00:05:27.335
Tony Payne: Well, look, I'm willing to do that briefly at the beginning.
00:05:27.335 --> 00:05:33.920
You can ask me a few things about my book, but I mainly want to spend today talking
about your new one, which is Written on the Heart about the Ten Commandments.
00:05:33.960 --> 00:05:35.290
But what do you want to ask me about my one?
00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:39.945
Phillip Jensen: Well, I've come to talk to you about your book, so you just have to put up with a bit of my time on it.
00:05:40.605 --> 00:05:41.960
Why did you write your book?
00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:43.345
That's the famous question, isn't it?
00:05:43.640 --> 00:05:44.030
Tony Payne: It is that.
00:05:44.030 --> 00:05:45.290
I'm going to ask you that one later.
00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:45.980
Um.
00:05:45.980 --> 00:05:47.090
Phillip Jensen: Well, give me time to think about it.
00:05:47.090 --> 00:05:47.240
Yes.
00:05:47.255 --> 00:05:55.400
Tony Payne: Okay, well, it was because I saw a lack—a gap—and I pulled on a thread to see what was there and found that there was a lot there.
00:05:55.880 --> 00:06:04.605
I'd always thought that the Word that we speak with one another—that Christians
are ministers of the Word to other people: to each other and to their friends.
00:06:05.025 --> 00:06:10.485
And in some ways, that's been an assumption of much of the ministry you and I have done together over the past many decades.
00:06:10.995 --> 00:06:21.540
But it was interesting: when I came to think, well, theologically, biblically, "Where do I find that in Scripture?"
and also "Who else has written about this and explained what it means for us to have a ministry to other peoples
00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:29.360
as Christians?", I just found crickets—a really surprising silence in that, or lack of investigation of that area.
00:06:29.720 --> 00:06:38.540
It started off a little research project and it became a PhD, and then a book
on what it really means for us to speak the Word to one another as Christians.
00:06:38.570 --> 00:06:38.660
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:40.010
Tony Payne: But theologically what it means.
00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:41.660
Phillip Jensen: But this book's not a PhD thesis.
00:06:41.660 --> 00:06:42.620
I've read PhD theses.
00:06:42.620 --> 00:06:44.495
They could be pretty boring.
00:06:44.495 --> 00:06:45.155
Tony Payne: Well, mine is.
00:06:45.200 --> 00:06:45.920
I, I think it's—
00:06:46.230 --> 00:06:47.359
Phillip Jensen: Yeah, but this book isn't.
00:06:47.919 --> 00:06:48.599
This book's not that.
00:06:48.710 --> 00:06:50.165
Tony Payne: I'm glad you think that book isn't.
00:06:50.165 --> 00:06:51.515
No, it's not a PhD, the book.
00:06:51.815 --> 00:07:09.200
It's a completely freshly written argument based on the research I did in the PhD—basically arguing that the one-another Word
is, on the one hand, an essential element of the normal Christian life: to be a mature Christian is to change the way you
00:07:09.340 --> 00:07:15.740
speak—to have a new language and to have the words of Christ on your lips—to have that flowing out of your heart to other people.
00:07:16.070 --> 00:07:19.310
So it's just a normal part of being a mature Christian, on the one hand.
00:07:19.730 --> 00:07:26.060
And on the other hand, it's a key means by which the church is going—by which we build up others and evangelise others.
00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:34.250
It's both a marker of Christian growth and just the normal Christian life, and also a means by which it's a way that God grows others through us.
00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:37.460
Phillip Jensen: It's an interesting observation, and it rings true when I hear it.
00:07:38.120 --> 00:07:44.630
Something which you and I have taken for granted for as long as we've known each other, and I was doing it when you were still a boy.
00:07:44.720 --> 00:07:45.440
Tony Payne: In short pants.
00:07:45.445 --> 00:07:46.190
Phillip Jensen: Yes, in short pants.
00:07:46.430 --> 00:07:52.505
The idea that Christian life is ministering to each other, but ministering the Word to each other.
00:07:52.595 --> 00:07:52.805
Tony Payne: Yes.
00:07:53.135 --> 00:07:59.105
Phillip Jensen: Um, Sunday School teaching to youth fellowship leading to just personally sharing the gospel with the person sitting next to you.
00:07:59.105 --> 00:08:00.605
But that—that was normal.
00:08:01.055 --> 00:08:07.265
But you're right: there's not many books that explain that—that argue for it, are there, let alone study in the Scriptures of it.
00:08:07.385 --> 00:08:08.015
Tony Payne: Almost none.
00:08:08.045 --> 00:08:09.485
I was really surprised to find it.
00:08:09.485 --> 00:08:12.395
Obviously people mentioned it here and there as along the way.
00:08:12.690 --> 00:08:22.409
But in terms of pausing to think, "What does the Bible as a whole say about this and how might we put
this together theologically? How might we relate it to preaching and the vital role that preaching has?"
00:08:22.440 --> 00:08:23.909
Phillip Jensen: But it's all over the Bible, isn't it?
00:08:23.909 --> 00:08:24.120
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:08:24.270 --> 00:08:26.310
Phillip Jensen: One, we don't have many books on the subject.
00:08:26.310 --> 00:08:30.210
But two, it's not because it's obscure in the Bible; it's the assumption.
00:08:30.570 --> 00:08:34.589
I've become more and more aware recently: the pastor is never told to do anything.
00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:35.569
Tony Payne: In the Bible.
00:08:35.569 --> 00:08:36.140
Phillip Jensen: In the Bible.
00:08:36.169 --> 00:08:37.730
Tony Payne: There's not many instructions at all, really.
00:08:37.880 --> 00:08:38.210
Phillip Jensen: No.
00:08:38.510 --> 00:08:41.390
But there are a lot of instructions as what Christians should do.
00:08:41.659 --> 00:08:42.860
Tony Payne: In the congregation, yeah.
00:08:42.980 --> 00:08:43.309
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:08:43.370 --> 00:08:49.240
And so, working through 1 Corinthians: Paul wants the Corinthians to shape up in a whole range of areas.
00:08:49.730 --> 00:08:54.949
There's no discussion as the pastor must discipline, the pastor must raise this issue.
00:08:55.250 --> 00:08:56.825
The congregation's to do it, isn't it?
00:08:56.890 --> 00:08:57.189
Tony Payne: Mmm.
00:08:57.620 --> 00:09:07.070
And of course, the kind of, I won't say the climax, but certainly where the argument of
1 Corinthians lands in terms of their life together is in those big chapters, 12 to 14.
00:09:07.075 --> 00:09:07.225
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:09:07.790 --> 00:09:10.460
Tony Payne: Which really are all about the way you speak to each other.
00:09:10.520 --> 00:09:10.610
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:09:10.699 --> 00:09:12.590
Everyone comes to church with—
00:09:12.590 --> 00:09:13.430
Tony Payne: —something to share.
00:09:13.490 --> 00:09:14.180
Phillip Jensen: Something to share.
00:09:14.180 --> 00:09:16.310
Tony Payne: And don't go speaking all in a chaotic way.
00:09:16.310 --> 00:09:17.600
Don't come for your own sake.
00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:23.999
Don't come trying to big-note yourself or use verbal gifts that no one can understand, like speaking in tongues.
00:09:24.050 --> 00:09:27.170
Phillip Jensen: But everyone comes bringing a verbal gift in 1 Corinthians 14.
00:09:27.170 --> 00:09:27.640
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:09:28.069 --> 00:09:29.720
Phillip Jensen: It's a hymn or it's a revelation or—
00:09:29.860 --> 00:09:32.060
Tony Payne: —a teaching or—you come with something.
00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:34.670
And you share it for the edification of the body.
00:09:34.670 --> 00:09:34.820
That's—
00:09:35.030 --> 00:09:38.540
Phillip Jensen: Well, I remember, and this is Two Ways News folks: just let me advertise that.
00:09:38.900 --> 00:09:55.160
I remember when we worked with Two Ways News, and both of us have been influenced by Col Marshall and his Navigator background in this
regard, isn't it—that the aim is to teach everybody in the congregation how to share the gospel using Two Ways to Live and how to follow
00:09:55.160 --> 00:10:04.530
up people using Just for Starters so that everybody in the congregation has been trained with a kind of basic Word ministry skill.
00:10:05.069 --> 00:10:11.340
And then there's specialist things like teaching Sunday School or youth group or leading a home group or something.
00:10:11.340 --> 00:10:14.939
But that's—but everybody should have some Word skill.
00:10:14.939 --> 00:10:17.430
Now some people don't feel they're very good at words, isn't it?
00:10:17.850 --> 00:10:18.569
Tony Payne: Well, sure.
00:10:19.170 --> 00:10:23.105
Some people also don't feel they're very adequate to preach either, and even though they're preachers.
00:10:24.065 --> 00:10:28.175
In one sense, us speaking the Word to other people is an impossible thing to do.
00:10:28.265 --> 00:10:31.865
How can someone like me speak to other people about God?
00:10:31.925 --> 00:10:32.435
I mean—
00:10:32.645 --> 00:10:32.915
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:10:33.005 --> 00:10:35.405
Tony Payne: —You know what I'm like and I certainly know what I'm like.
00:10:35.885 --> 00:10:39.515
Humans speaking about God to other people is a natural impossibility.
00:10:39.515 --> 00:10:42.305
But it's possible by the Spirit and work of God.
00:10:42.305 --> 00:10:57.995
And so, when God changes you—when he makes you a new person and puts a new love in your heart, which we'll talk about today, uh, written on
the heart—he gives you a whole new love, a whole new set of words, a whole new set of enthusiasms for what's most important in your life.
00:10:57.995 --> 00:11:02.585
And you start, amazingly, to share it in your own way with the people around you.
00:11:02.615 --> 00:11:02.855
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:11:03.035 --> 00:11:06.425
Tony Payne: And we all do it in our own way, and God gifts us to do it in our own way.
00:11:06.605 --> 00:11:18.050
I assume that the reason the New Testament urges and encourage and exhorts Christians so many times to share
the Word with one another, encourage one another, exhort one another is that it's something we can all grow in.
00:11:18.140 --> 00:11:21.680
It's something that we're all capable of, but we all have to start somewhere.
00:11:21.739 --> 00:11:23.900
Phillip Jensen: Well, the Bible mightn't tell pastors what to do.
00:11:23.900 --> 00:11:32.005
But I tell pastors, get hold of this book and work on it, because you really need to lead the congregation in doing this.
00:11:32.185 --> 00:11:33.325
And it's a terrific book.
00:11:33.895 --> 00:11:40.345
One of the commendations I saw in the book was written by somebody who works for the opposition—for an alternative publisher.
00:11:40.345 --> 00:11:41.005
I noticed.
00:11:41.005 --> 00:11:42.955
Uh, good friends of ours: Crossways.
00:11:43.435 --> 00:11:59.285
But James Thornton said, "This book analyses, synthesises, and its conclusions are exegetically rigorous, theologically rich and
profoundly practical." Well, that's a book worth getting, friends, and especially, why don't you buy it for your pastor for Christmas?
00:11:59.285 --> 00:12:04.250
If he's got 10 copies, that's good, 'cause he'll be able to run a little Bible study with nine other people to do it.
00:12:04.954 --> 00:12:06.515
It really is written for the pastors.
00:12:06.515 --> 00:12:07.694
I mean, it's written for everybody wasn't it.
00:12:07.714 --> 00:12:11.525
Tony Payne: It's written at the kind of—if you've ever read The Trellis and the Vine, it's written at that level.
00:12:11.525 --> 00:12:14.340
It's just longer, because it's making a longer argument.
00:12:14.400 --> 00:12:27.870
But it's written for pastors, students, parish council members, from the keen, thoughtful layperson, but certainly for
those who are leading the congregation and thinking through, "Is this part of our congregational life? And if not, why not?"
00:12:28.260 --> 00:12:28.800
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:12:29.040 --> 00:12:33.659
But in the process, it's opening up to you whole sections of the Scriptures.
00:12:33.690 --> 00:12:33.799
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:12:33.799 --> 00:12:34.269
There's a lot of Bible.
00:12:34.269 --> 00:12:43.594
Phillip Jensen: I mean, there's a chapter on Hebrews there, for example, which shows you
about the encouraging Word—what is meant by "encouragement" in two senses in that passage.
00:12:43.594 --> 00:12:46.295
I mean, it teaches you about the Scriptures as you go through.
00:12:46.385 --> 00:12:47.584
Tony Payne: Well, look, that's quite enough.
00:12:47.584 --> 00:12:49.985
Being an Australian, I'm embarrassed talking about my own work.
00:12:49.985 --> 00:12:51.605
So let's talk about your work instead.
00:12:51.935 --> 00:12:53.194
Phillip Jensen: No, let's talk about yours.
00:12:53.194 --> 00:12:54.185
I'm going to be embarrassed.
00:12:54.185 --> 00:12:54.395
Yes.
00:12:55.455 --> 00:12:56.975
Tony Payne: No, thanks for asking a few questions about it.
00:12:57.155 --> 00:13:00.035
The books has been well-received so far; it's early days.
00:13:00.035 --> 00:13:07.405
But I do hope that many pastors and pastoral teams will read and think about
the challenge it brings to the way we think about ministry and our people.
00:13:07.405 --> 00:13:07.675
So.
00:13:07.865 --> 00:13:15.300
Phillip Jensen: To get all our people ministering by the Word would bring about a transformation of churches and evangelism in Australia.
00:13:16.530 --> 00:13:16.720
Tony Payne: Indeed, indeed.
00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:17.435
That's certainly my hope.
00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:50.940
Karen Beilharz: We know that the gospel of Jesus is transformative: it transforms our minds, hearts and lives.
00:13:51.390 --> 00:13:53.640
But how does it transform our daily work?
00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:57.000
This has been a disturbing question for many Christians.
00:13:57.330 --> 00:14:03.870
We often struggle to connect the realities of the workplace with the reality of Christ, who stands at the centre of our lives.
00:14:04.455 --> 00:14:17.505
Simon Flinders and Paul Grimmond have just published a book on precisely this question, and on Wednesday the 28th of
October, 2026, they will be recording a live episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast with Director Tony Payne.
00:14:18.045 --> 00:14:22.365
Please note: this event was postponed in July due to unforeseen circumstances.
00:14:23.110 --> 00:14:30.189
Join us at Moore College on Wednesday, 28th October for a lively event of input and conversation about this important topic.
00:14:30.550 --> 00:14:35.100
You can find out more and register on the Centre for Christian Living website: that's ccl.moore.edu.au.
00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:40.410
That's ccl.moore.edu.au.
00:14:43.120 --> 00:14:45.160
Tony Payne: And now, let's get back to our program.
00:14:45.490 --> 00:14:47.680
And your book is about the Christian life as well.
00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:54.694
It's called Written on the Heart: The Ten Commandments and the radical life of grace.
00:14:55.205 --> 00:15:00.305
I'll bowl it straight back to you then—the, the most searching question an interviewer can ask: why did you write this book?
00:15:01.745 --> 00:15:02.855
Phillip Jensen: I was having a bad day!
00:15:05.165 --> 00:15:17.865
Well, the Ten Commandments is foundational and fundamental to Western civilisation—the idea that your
civilisation is built on right and wrong, just and unjust—the idea that there is right and wrong.
00:15:17.865 --> 00:15:22.725
When God established his nation on Mount Sinai, that's the fundamental.
00:15:22.785 --> 00:15:24.285
That's where it starts, you know?
00:15:24.564 --> 00:15:34.745
"I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. If you're going to be my people, this
is what you do. And here's the commandments." And it's fundamental to Western civilisation.
00:15:35.630 --> 00:15:40.350
But of recent times, the Ten Commandments have slipped out of the mind of Western civilisation—even
00:15:42.410 --> 00:15:49.700
replaced, to some extent, by the Seven Deadly Sins, which I've worked out weren't seven, weren't deadly and not sins necessarily.
00:15:50.060 --> 00:15:51.740
But even that slipped by.
00:15:51.740 --> 00:15:53.540
So we're not sure whether there's right or wrong.
00:15:54.110 --> 00:16:01.970
I'm sure part of the reason there's a rule in public debate that after five or six discussions, it winds up with Adolf Hitler.
00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:02.300
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:16:02.600 --> 00:16:06.320
Phillip Jensen: Because Adolf Hitler's the only one that we can all agree was wrong.
00:16:06.380 --> 00:16:06.860
Tony Payne: Was evil.
00:16:06.950 --> 00:16:07.790
Phillip Jensen: There is evil.
00:16:08.060 --> 00:16:11.270
And so, you have to recalibrate all discussions.
00:16:11.390 --> 00:16:13.010
Well, you don't really.
00:16:13.070 --> 00:16:17.990
The Ten Commandments tells you there is right and wrong, and tells you what is right and wrong.
00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:20.000
Our civilisation has lost it.
00:16:20.510 --> 00:16:25.084
What really worried me more, Tony, was our congregations have lost it.
00:16:25.775 --> 00:16:36.185
I was raised in a prayer book age where at communion, which we had every week, which I'm not
commending particularly, but we had the Ten Commandments read to us—slowly and deliberately.
00:16:36.425 --> 00:16:38.344
We prayed after each one.
00:16:38.765 --> 00:16:43.115
And of course, in many old churches, it was written on a board at the front of the church.
00:16:43.145 --> 00:16:43.734
Tony Payne: In stone.
00:16:43.734 --> 00:16:44.714
On stone tablets.
00:16:44.864 --> 00:16:45.795
Phillip Jensen: On stone tablets, yes.
00:16:45.834 --> 00:16:49.954
Tony Payne: I think—was it sometimes there's the Ten Commandments on one side, the Apostles Creed on the other side.
00:16:50.795 --> 00:16:51.465
Phillip Jensen: And the Lord's Prayer.
00:16:51.465 --> 00:16:51.634
Tony Payne: And the Lord's Prayer.
00:16:51.634 --> 00:16:52.655
And they'd be up there on the walls.
00:16:52.745 --> 00:16:56.150
Phillip Jensen: And as children, I was taught all three to learn by heart.
00:16:56.210 --> 00:16:56.420
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:16:56.420 --> 00:16:59.480
Phillip Jensen: That was part of basic Christian teaching.
00:16:59.990 --> 00:17:18.710
But when I checked our congregation oh 20, 30 years ago now, I found hardly anybody of the Christians at university knew more than half
a dozen, you know, six, five commandments—even what they were, let alone having thought through what each one of them means for them.
00:17:19.145 --> 00:17:26.534
I mean, they all knew don't murder; don't steal; I think it says something against adultery, which, it might be old-fashioned, you know?
00:17:26.534 --> 00:17:26.724
I mean.
00:17:26.885 --> 00:17:27.065
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:29.555
Phillip Jensen: But what were the others and why?
00:17:30.275 --> 00:17:38.095
So I mentioned this to my brother years ago, and he tried out the first year
Moore College team and found out the students weren't much better here either.
00:17:38.544 --> 00:17:45.005
In first year, of course; by the time they'd finished College under their great supervising teachers, they knew better.
00:17:45.245 --> 00:17:54.210
But it's very sad when the Christian community doesn't know the Ten Commandments, which is foundational for a Western civilisation.
00:17:55.220 --> 00:17:55.970
We're in trouble.
00:17:56.540 --> 00:17:57.170
Tony Payne: Indeed.
00:17:57.170 --> 00:18:09.440
And it struck me too that—I mean, growing up as a Christian in this period you're talking about, I kind of thought
that the Ten Commandments were sort of like a quaint relic of the Old Testament—of the former dispensation.
00:18:10.010 --> 00:18:11.870
But now that we are under grace—
00:18:12.020 --> 00:18:12.260
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:18:12.319 --> 00:18:13.415
Tony Payne: —we're no longer under law.
00:18:13.415 --> 00:18:27.139
So I suppose I had a default kind of vibe that the Ten Commandments or commandments, whichever way you're going to pronounce
it, weren't that important, or they were superseded or obsolete in some way, because we're under grace, not under law, right?
00:18:27.320 --> 00:18:35.840
Phillip Jensen: And the big problem in Australia in evangelism is getting people to
understand that you're saved by grace through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:18:35.840 --> 00:18:36.770
Tony Payne: Not by works!
00:18:36.770 --> 00:18:37.745
Phillip Jensen: Not by works of the Lord.
00:18:37.745 --> 00:18:38.225
Tony Payne: Exactly.
00:18:38.645 --> 00:18:50.860
Phillip Jensen: So the average Aussie: "Oh, I believe in the Ten Commandments!" When you ask them, they don't know
what they consist of, but they believe that they'll be justified by keeping the commandments, which they don't keep.
00:18:50.950 --> 00:18:51.760
They don't even know.
00:18:52.570 --> 00:18:59.500
And so, we therefore rightly emphasise grace, mercy, forgiveness, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus.
00:18:59.500 --> 00:19:01.000
We're right to emphasise that.
00:19:01.750 --> 00:19:06.760
But the death of Jesus doesn't make sense if you haven't got a sense of right and wrong in the justice of God.
00:19:07.580 --> 00:19:11.659
Jesus is the answer, but then you have to ask the obvious thing: well, what's the question?
00:19:12.260 --> 00:19:14.210
And so, Jesus dies for our sins.
00:19:14.210 --> 00:19:17.090
But what are our sins and why are they sins?
00:19:17.840 --> 00:19:22.520
So get rid of the commandments, you're actually unwittingly undermine the gospel of grace.
00:19:23.270 --> 00:19:26.990
Tony Payne: But I think you're arguing in the first part of the book more than that.
00:19:26.990 --> 00:19:33.010
It's not just that the commandments—we need to understand them, because they will drive us to Jesus.
00:19:33.379 --> 00:19:41.615
You're suggesting that having been driven to Jesus and to his grace and to his salvation, the commandments actually have a role in the Christian life.
00:19:41.705 --> 00:19:43.024
What role do they have in the Christian
00:19:43.024 --> 00:19:43.074
life?
00:19:43.124 --> 00:19:44.455
Phillip Jensen: Oh, absolutely, yes.
00:19:44.824 --> 00:19:48.585
Certainly they declare my sin and make me acute of it.
00:19:48.784 --> 00:19:52.405
Because of the commandment on coveting, Paul knew about coveting.
00:19:52.565 --> 00:19:54.514
Without the commandment, he wouldn't have known.
00:19:55.115 --> 00:19:58.294
When he received the commandment, it actually just increased his coveting.
00:19:58.985 --> 00:20:00.370
But that aspect is there.
00:20:01.310 --> 00:20:21.770
However, we're really told in the expectation of the Old Testament prophets—Jeremiah 31 Ezekiel 36, to pick on two key passages—when the
people of Israel failed to keep the commandments, they were destroyed by the Assyrians, they were sent into captivity by the Babylonians.
00:20:22.250 --> 00:20:32.300
And so, all the great work of God in rescuing them out of slavery in Egypt wound up slavery in Babylon, because they didn't keep the commandments.
00:20:32.750 --> 00:20:41.000
And so, then we're promised in the new age, we're not going to have the commandments on tablets of stone, like we did in our church buildings.
00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:41.240
Tony Payne: Right.
00:20:41.450 --> 00:20:46.220
Phillip Jensen: We're going to have the tablets written on our hearts, which is why the title is there.
00:20:46.970 --> 00:21:06.290
And so, when it comes to the New Testament and Jesus talking about the life of his disciples—of his fishermen, he talks in terms of
keeping the commandments in a completely new radical, dramatic way—totally unlike the Pharisees—totally allied like sinful people.
00:21:06.800 --> 00:21:13.790
Tony Payne: And so, that new radical way is, what, an expansionist view of them, or a different view of them?
00:21:13.790 --> 00:21:16.370
What's the new radical way of keeping the commandments?
00:21:16.460 --> 00:21:21.200
Phillip Jensen: Well, we can't detach them from their wording in the Book of Exodus—
00:21:21.290 --> 00:21:21.530
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:21:21.620 --> 00:21:23.210
Phillip Jensen: —And what they are saying.
00:21:23.720 --> 00:21:36.035
But instead of looking to minimise any consequence—define it so tightly that we have a chance of obeying it—Jesus opens up the maximum applications.
00:21:36.095 --> 00:21:43.115
He uses it to think then on the widest of ethical implications and consequences and ramifications.
00:21:43.505 --> 00:21:58.730
So I mean, the classic one is where he speaks of, "You heard 'You shall not commit murder'. I say, if you hate, then you've
already committed it." Whereas we want to define murder—first degree, second degree, manslaughter, accidental killing.
00:21:58.970 --> 00:22:00.200
What about that in warfare?
00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:04.310
What about—we want to so define the commandment that we can possibly keep it.
00:22:05.030 --> 00:22:22.340
Jesus so defines the commandment that we would never be able to keep it, because it directs us to do what Psalmist used
to say: to meditate upon it, to think about it, to work out how it implies our life's behaviour in many, many areas.
00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:29.570
Tony Payne: That would only be the case if the commandment "Do not murder" was not just like an arbitrary rule: just don't murder.
00:22:29.780 --> 00:22:30.050
There you go.
00:22:30.139 --> 00:22:30.710
There's a rule.
00:22:31.040 --> 00:22:36.680
But it would only be the case if "Do not murder" says something about goodness and rightness—
00:22:36.800 --> 00:22:37.160
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:22:37.160 --> 00:22:41.960
Tony Payne: —so that it also means "Do not hate" and it also means "Do not show contempt".
00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:42.980
Phillip Jensen: It means love your neighbour.
00:22:43.040 --> 00:22:46.040
Tony Payne: And then it means on the—on the claim: "Love your neighbour".
00:22:46.070 --> 00:22:46.399
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:22:46.730 --> 00:22:49.300
Tony Payne: Treasure and value the other person, and treat them well.
00:22:49.649 --> 00:22:51.290
It's a little short command: "Do not murder".
00:22:51.350 --> 00:23:02.540
But the more you meditate on it, pick over it, have it in your heart, as you might put it that way, the
more it teaches you about the nature of the world and of other people, and what right and wrong really is.
00:23:03.020 --> 00:23:11.659
Phillip Jensen: The summary, which the lawyer brought to Jesus and Jesus commends "Love your
God with all your heart, soul, strength, and love your neighbour as yourself", is brilliant.
00:23:12.409 --> 00:23:17.689
But the trouble is, unless you know the commandments, what does it mean to love my neighbour?
00:23:18.320 --> 00:23:33.900
When you see the commandments, as Jesus saw them and as the Spirit lays them—motivates our hearts to keep them—then
I can see loving my neighbour is not to covet his family, not to covet his donkeys, not to covet anything.
00:23:33.910 --> 00:23:33.940
Tony Payne: Yes.
00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:36.260
Phillip Jensen: But it's also not bearing false witness.
00:23:36.260 --> 00:23:37.700
It means not stealing.
00:23:38.270 --> 00:23:42.575
So each of the commandments actually can be put in a positive sense, if you like.
00:23:42.575 --> 00:23:46.855
I mean, "Do not covet" can be said in terms of "Be generous".
00:23:47.055 --> 00:23:48.845
Which opens up a whole road.
00:23:48.850 --> 00:23:49.370
Tony Payne: Be content.
00:23:49.370 --> 00:23:50.570
Be content with what you have.
00:23:50.570 --> 00:23:50.770
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:23:50.775 --> 00:23:51.425
Tony Payne: Be generous.
00:23:51.425 --> 00:23:53.525
Rather than wanting other people's things, give them your things.
00:23:53.555 --> 00:23:54.515
Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes.
00:23:54.515 --> 00:24:00.970
"Do not steal." Well, let the thief no longer steal, but work with honest hands so that he may give—
00:24:01.849 --> 00:24:02.465
Tony Payne: —to those in need.
00:24:02.465 --> 00:24:05.915
Phillip Jensen: Jesus' ethics doesn't contradict the Ten Commandments.
00:24:06.280 --> 00:24:09.580
He shows you what is really meant by the Ten Commandments.
00:24:10.150 --> 00:24:15.790
Tony Payne: One of the things I liked in the book: you start in Titus 2 and you talk about how the grace of God appears.
00:24:15.790 --> 00:24:17.140
It brings salvation.
00:24:17.140 --> 00:24:19.540
It teaches us to live a whole new life.
00:24:19.990 --> 00:24:28.300
It redeems us and cleanses us, and it finishes with this marvellous little
phrase: that we might be "zealots" or "zealous for" or "zealots for" good works.
00:24:28.420 --> 00:24:28.660
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:24:28.665 --> 00:24:40.775
Tony Payne: That the whole purpose of God's salvation of us and of Jesus making us his people is that
this new people, we'll have a new heart that longs to do the good—longs to work good in our lives.
00:24:40.775 --> 00:24:40.835
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:24:41.255 --> 00:24:46.535
Tony Payne: And that's the frame within which you start examining the commandments as lenses or windows into the good.
00:24:46.745 --> 00:24:51.095
Phillip Jensen: And isn't it interesting that he "cleanses us from lawlessness"—
00:24:51.125 --> 00:24:51.905
Tony Payne: Ah, yes!
00:24:52.385 --> 00:24:55.355
Phillip Jensen: —in order to live this zealous good life?
00:24:55.715 --> 00:24:58.595
Tony Payne: So the opposite of this good life is lawlessness.
00:24:58.595 --> 00:24:59.375
Phillip Jensen: Lawlessness.
00:24:59.375 --> 00:24:59.855
Yes.
00:24:59.885 --> 00:25:00.305
It's not—
00:25:00.305 --> 00:25:05.555
Tony Payne: Whereas the good life corresponds to, comes out of, reflects the good law of God.
00:25:05.555 --> 00:25:05.915
Phillip Jensen: That's right.
00:25:06.125 --> 00:25:06.720
Tony Payne: Yeah, yeah.
00:25:07.264 --> 00:25:09.335
Well, why don't we think of one example then?
00:25:09.395 --> 00:25:11.605
We won't go through all Ten Commandments and how you've—
00:25:11.705 --> 00:25:12.135
Phillip Jensen: No, you've got to buy the book.
00:25:12.135 --> 00:25:12.605
Tony Payne: Got to buy the book.
00:25:13.655 --> 00:25:14.014
Exactly.
00:25:14.014 --> 00:25:20.435
Phillip Jensen: In fact, I've found Tony, it's a kind of book where you need to read—so the first third's just about grace and law.
00:25:20.764 --> 00:25:22.295
Tony Payne: The conversation we've just had in some ways.
00:25:22.295 --> 00:25:24.695
Phillip Jensen: But two thirds of the book is going through the Ten Commandments.
00:25:25.265 --> 00:25:28.145
I've found it's better to go them one chapter at a week.
00:25:28.145 --> 00:25:28.715
Tony Payne: Yeah, yeah.
00:25:28.985 --> 00:25:30.185
Phillip Jensen: Because you got to meditate.
00:25:30.195 --> 00:25:30.975
You got to think about it.
00:25:31.025 --> 00:25:33.395
You got to work out what it means for you.
00:25:33.695 --> 00:25:38.405
And it's the kind of book to go through with a friend: read the same chapter, then have a conversation with each other.
00:25:38.405 --> 00:25:46.715
Tony Payne: So read the first bit and get the sense of this is how this fits into my
life and why it's so important to meditate on and really chew on the commandments.
00:25:46.804 --> 00:25:46.865
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:25:46.865 --> 00:25:48.095
Tony Payne: And then take some time to do that.
00:25:48.095 --> 00:25:54.845
Like the psalmist who, "I'll store up your word in my heart, your commands, your laws, that I might not sin against you." Indeed.
00:25:54.875 --> 00:25:56.044
Well, let's look at one then.
00:25:56.044 --> 00:25:56.794
Can we look at one?
00:25:56.885 --> 00:25:57.304
Phillip Jensen: Yeah, sure.
00:25:57.395 --> 00:25:58.415
Tony Payne: And what about Sabbath?
00:25:58.415 --> 00:25:59.465
Sabbath's a good test case.
00:25:59.495 --> 00:26:05.405
Phillip Jensen: Well, Sabbath's a good test case, 'cause it's the one I think
there's more controversy about in the Christian community than almost any other one.
00:26:06.125 --> 00:26:12.110
How do you keep the day, and which day do you keep and why, it's all spelled out in these—in the Sabbath.
00:26:12.110 --> 00:26:18.020
Not which day, because we will differ with that in Christian liberty, but that we take time off.
00:26:18.650 --> 00:26:32.450
However, what I notice is it's actually addressed to those in authority, because you're to make sure that
your family and your animals, to say nothing of your servants, your children, are all to have the Sabbath day.
00:26:33.380 --> 00:26:40.665
And so, I think it's addressed to our governments, who are desperate to do away with weekends, ' cause they want people working.
00:26:40.665 --> 00:26:43.155
They want industry to keep going all the time.
00:26:43.215 --> 00:26:45.735
Then they can do it with a 40-hour week.
00:26:45.735 --> 00:26:48.555
They can do it by getting different people to work on different days.
00:26:49.035 --> 00:26:51.885
But that undermines social cohesion.
00:26:52.245 --> 00:26:55.005
At the moment, we've got a Royal Commission on social cohesion.
00:26:55.005 --> 00:26:56.925
But they've got no idea how to create it.
00:26:57.615 --> 00:27:12.195
The Sabbath is a key part of creating social cohesion, because we all have the same day off with each other and could
spend time with each other—which, if everybody's working and there's no differentiation from one day to another,
00:27:12.855 --> 00:27:22.455
we actually undermine God's good creation where he took the day and we are to participate in his day together.
00:27:22.995 --> 00:27:24.765
I mean, there's lots in the Sabbath.
00:27:25.275 --> 00:27:30.555
I've found it the most challenging, the most interesting and, frankly, the greatest fun chapter to write.
00:27:31.035 --> 00:27:38.655
Tony Payne: Because our tendency is to want to ask all those, if I can put it this
way, Pharasaical-type questions, you know: "Exactly how many hours do we take off?"
00:27:38.745 --> 00:27:38.835
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:27:38.955 --> 00:27:41.325
Tony Payne: "Exactly when?" "What am I allowed to do on those days?"
00:27:41.355 --> 00:27:41.625
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:27:41.715 --> 00:27:54.580
Tony Payne: Uh, "Which day is it going to be?" So we try to—because law has the character of a specification,
and do this and do this in a particular way, we kind of try and bring it across into our situation
00:27:54.580 --> 00:27:59.500
that way and say, "We need a set of specifications that exactly codify precisely what's required."
00:27:59.500 --> 00:27:59.560
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:28:00.100 --> 00:28:02.469
Tony Payne: But that's not what Jesus does with the law.
00:28:02.530 --> 00:28:02.709
Phillip Jensen: No.
00:28:02.709 --> 00:28:03.324
Tony Payne: As we've just said.
00:28:03.905 --> 00:28:16.745
He says, "Look and chew on and understand what goodness and love the law is driving you to, and maximise that. Go for that. Think
of all the ways in which this liberates you to actually live differently, rather than trying to come up with a set of rules."
00:28:16.775 --> 00:28:17.285
Phillip Jensen: That's right.
00:28:17.675 --> 00:28:20.975
We think individualistically, rather than just corporately.
00:28:21.065 --> 00:28:21.245
Tony Payne: Yep.
00:28:21.245 --> 00:28:22.665
Phillip Jensen: Which comes out of the Sabbath one.
00:28:23.195 --> 00:28:26.264
How did the slave in the New Testament keep the Sabbath?
00:28:26.570 --> 00:28:26.839
Tony Payne: Only if—
00:28:26.839 --> 00:28:28.060
Phillip Jensen: If he's working for a non-Christian.
00:28:28.274 --> 00:28:29.355
Tony Payne: Only if he's—well, yes.
00:28:29.385 --> 00:28:29.865
That's true.
00:28:29.865 --> 00:28:31.814
If he's working for a non-Christian master, yes.
00:28:31.905 --> 00:28:32.324
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:28:32.324 --> 00:28:32.564
You see?
00:28:32.834 --> 00:28:45.584
We're not thinking out the reality of Christian living through the teaching of
Jesus on the Ten Commandments, motivated by the changed heart by the Spirit.
00:28:45.735 --> 00:28:50.475
So it's more than leading us to repentance of faith in coming to salvation.
00:28:50.879 --> 00:28:54.750
It also is leading us to living a different life, a holy life.
00:28:55.470 --> 00:29:08.970
Tony Payne: The Sabbath one is interesting too in that in the justification that's given for the command in Exodus 20, it
grounds it in the fact that God worked and rested—that there's something about if God worked and rested, you can work and rest.
00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:10.770
You and your household and everybody.
00:29:11.220 --> 00:29:18.840
It links it to something about the way God is and the way the world is, and not simply just an arbitrary kind of rule.
00:29:18.990 --> 00:29:26.940
Phillip Jensen: And you see it in the nutty discussions that people have about work/life balance, as if work is not part of life.
00:29:26.970 --> 00:29:28.950
How can you have a work/life balance?
00:29:28.950 --> 00:29:30.450
It's a silly discussion, really.
00:29:30.510 --> 00:29:30.690
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:29:30.990 --> 00:29:37.260
Phillip Jensen: But it's because they're not really talking in the terms the Scriptures are talking about in God and the Sabbath.
00:29:37.860 --> 00:29:39.960
We're not created to work seven days a week.
00:29:40.649 --> 00:29:42.780
And being a workaholic is a disaster.
00:29:43.230 --> 00:29:46.740
God has made it clear that we're not to be like that.
00:29:47.460 --> 00:29:55.950
But yet our society pushes us in that regard, or pushes us in the lazy regard, as the sluggard is condemned in the Book of Proverbs.
00:29:56.250 --> 00:29:57.240
Tony Payne: The command: it's interesting.
00:29:57.240 --> 00:29:59.400
The command says, "Six days you shall work."
00:29:59.730 --> 00:30:00.120
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:30:00.120 --> 00:30:00.630
Tony Payne: Do your work.
00:30:01.104 --> 00:30:01.915
Six days.
00:30:01.975 --> 00:30:02.784
There's plenty to do.
00:30:03.384 --> 00:30:12.894
But the seventh day is the day for—for ceasing from work and for rejoicing in the fruit
of your labour and in thankfulness to the God who's made all this possible for you.
00:30:13.134 --> 00:30:13.945
Phillip Jensen: With each other.
00:30:14.394 --> 00:30:15.624
Tony Payne: Yes, it's a corporate thing, isn't it.
00:30:15.624 --> 00:30:15.834
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:30:15.894 --> 00:30:20.665
Tony Payne: We think of Sabbath as an individualistic kind of "I've got to have my me time".
00:30:21.254 --> 00:30:26.895
Some of us who are introverts find that particularly important—especially, I suppose, if our work is very people-focused.
00:30:27.199 --> 00:30:29.625
A bit of—a bit of quiet me time is very refreshing.
00:30:30.165 --> 00:30:30.584
Phillip Jensen: Yeah, it is.
00:30:30.584 --> 00:30:32.235
Tony Payne: But it is a social commandment as well.
00:30:32.354 --> 00:30:32.625
Phillip Jensen: Yeah.
00:30:32.985 --> 00:30:40.635
Tony Payne: So that's just one small taste of how you tease out the meaning of the
commandment for our life—for our culture and society, as well as for our lives.
00:30:41.054 --> 00:30:45.465
Now, I'll ask you for it in a second where we're going to get hold of this book and what to do about that.
00:30:45.465 --> 00:30:47.175
There's one final thing I wanted to ask you, though.
00:30:47.534 --> 00:30:56.054
It's been a feature of your teaching and writing over the years that you not only
put forward the truth and explain it, but also contrast it with the alternative.
00:30:56.264 --> 00:31:10.215
And I like the way at the end of this book, you had a little appendix contrasting our Christian approach to morality and to
goodness and rightness that the Ten Commandments plays into—with atheistic ethics—with the ethics that we bump up against every day.
00:31:10.695 --> 00:31:12.495
And the contrast is very stark, isn't it?
00:31:12.645 --> 00:31:13.875
Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes.
00:31:14.115 --> 00:31:18.735
You feel the contrast in the content of ethics—in what we're told.
00:31:18.975 --> 00:31:23.534
We're told, "Do not commit adultery." Our society is very unsure of that now.
00:31:23.534 --> 00:31:29.804
In fact, there's a website that encourages people and enables people to commit adultery.
00:31:30.284 --> 00:31:31.395
That's not frowned upon.
00:31:31.395 --> 00:31:32.895
There's no restriction on that.
00:31:33.254 --> 00:31:35.595
So our society is confused about content.
00:31:36.044 --> 00:31:43.034
But much more importantly, our society is confused about the basis of ethics.
00:31:43.064 --> 00:31:43.215
Tony Payne: Yeah.
00:31:43.395 --> 00:31:44.294
Phillip Jensen: Where it comes from.
00:31:44.774 --> 00:31:54.840
And if you do away with God—if you see the world is just but an accident that has happened—then actually, there is no basis for ethics.
00:31:54.870 --> 00:32:00.690
If this world is just this world, then there's no right, there's no wrong; there's just this world.
00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:24.870
And so, the ethical poverty of atheism needs to be exposed, because people are very moralistic, but the basis of their moralism is totally
vacuous—unless your morality comes out of the one who made you and more, who's died for you and risen again, and is one day going to judge you.
00:32:25.630 --> 00:32:28.560
Tony Payne: Phillip, thanks for writing this book, and I could say I really enjoyed reading it.
00:32:28.620 --> 00:32:31.520
But I didn't read it, because I sort of helped you write it back then.
00:32:31.595 --> 00:32:32.215
Phillip Jensen: You certainly did.
00:32:32.315 --> 00:32:33.420
That's why it was readable.
00:32:34.530 --> 00:32:37.440
Tony Payne: I was involved in helping you shape it at different points along the way.
00:32:37.830 --> 00:32:41.760
But as per usual, the ideas and the structure was yours, and it's a marvellous book.
00:32:41.760 --> 00:32:45.930
And it can be obtained, oh, as they say, from all good bookshops everywhere.
00:32:46.190 --> 00:32:50.090
Both of these new books—my one and your one—are put out by our good friends at Matthias Media.
00:32:50.150 --> 00:32:57.950
So you can go to their website: matthiasmedia.com in the States or matthiasmedia.com.au here in Australia to find out all about these two titles.
00:32:58.250 --> 00:33:00.740
But Phillip, it's been fun to get back together and talk again.
00:33:00.925 --> 00:33:01.820
Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes!
00:33:01.820 --> 00:33:05.300
I'm still talking to a grey-haired man, but this one's younger than me.
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:08.510
Tony Payne: Well, that's a pleasure for you, in any case.
00:33:08.629 --> 00:33:08.870
Phillip Jensen: Yes.
00:33:09.800 --> 00:33:15.200
Tony Payne: And for me: it's nice to be in a room where I'm not the oldest man, which is the case here at Moore College in most of my classes.
00:33:15.590 --> 00:33:20.389
Well, thanks again, Phillip, for talking and having me back, or for you being on or whatever's happening here in this conversation.
00:33:20.570 --> 00:33:23.780
Phillip Jensen: Well, we're in Two Ways News as well, so I'm going to lead in prayer.
00:33:23.780 --> 00:33:24.860
Tony Payne: That's a great way to finish.
00:33:24.950 --> 00:33:34.400
Phillip Jensen: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the privilege we have of writing and
publishing books—the privilege we have of buying them and reading them and learning from them.
00:33:34.790 --> 00:33:44.855
We do pray, Heavenly Father, that through these two publications, that your people
will study your Word more carefully and be able to put your Word into practice.
00:33:44.875 --> 00:33:46.555
And we pray for this in Jesus' name.
00:33:46.555 --> 00:33:46.675
Amen.
00:34:02.635 --> 00:34:07.160
Tony Payne: Well, thanks for joining us on this episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast from Moore College.
00:34:07.885 --> 00:34:13.284
For a whole lot more from the Centre for Christian Living, just head over to the CCL website at ccl.moore.edu.au,
00:34:16.824 --> 00:34:27.685
where you'll find a stack of resources, including every past podcast episode all the way
back to 2017, videos from our live events and articles that we published through the Centre.
00:34:28.375 --> 00:34:35.635
And while you're there on the website, we also have an opportunity for you
to make a tax-deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Centre.
00:34:37.489 --> 00:34:45.139
We'd also love you to subscribe to the podcast and to leave a review so that people can discover our podcast and our other resources.
00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:51.349
And we always love and benefit from receiving your feedback and questions: please get in touch.
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:56.639
You can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au.
00:34:57.229 --> 00:35:10.490
Many thanks to Karen Beilharz from the Communications Team here at Moore College for all her work in transcribing and
editing and producing this podcast; to James West for music; and to you, dear listeners, for joining us each week.
00:35:10.550 --> 00:35:11.330
Thank you for listening.
00:35:11.840 --> 00:35:12.529
I'm Tony Payne.
00:35:13.189 --> 00:35:13.649
'Bye for now.
