The following links are to the Revised Common Lectionary commentary pages of Howard Wallace and Bill Loader, and are suggested as preparation for hearing the readings in worship for the Sunday indicated above.
Acts 11:1-18 see also By the Well podcast on this text
Our study groups return in 2025, with online read-and-discuss groups meeting each quarter for 4-8 weeks.
FIRST QUARTER
SECOND QUARTER
THIRD QUARTER – TBA
FOURTH QUARTER – TBA
You might also be interested in our Quarterly Conversations on the Quarterly Essay
The following is a mostly complete list of study group materials we’ve used over the last decade or so…
2014
Lent: Bruce Barber — four presentations on “Beginning at the beginning, or Why is it like this?
May-July: William Cavanaugh, Theopolitical imagination
November: William Cavanaugh, Being consumed
2015
Lent: Reformation Questions for the contemporary church
2nd Quarter: Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel [Not the easiest read]
2016
Lent: Called to Holiness in Australia
August: Rowan Williams, Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer
2017
Lent: Bruce Barber, The Lord’s Prayer
2018
Paula Gooder: on The Joy of the Gospel
August 2015: Northrop Frye, The Great Code
2019
Lent: Rowan Williams The Spirit in the desert – audio of lectures
2020
Lent: Rowan Williams The sign and the sacrifice
April-Dec Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures (Christine Hayes, Yale)
2021
Lent: Three studies on Mark’s Gospel (at St Mary’s)
Oct-?Feb 2022: Introduction to the New Testament (Dale Martin, Yale)
2022
Lent: Called to Community (video resource)
May-June 2022: Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as resistance
July-Aug: Miroslav Volf, Free of charge: giving and forgiving in a culture stripped of grace.
Oct-Nov: Rowan Williams, Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life.
2023
Lent: Rowan Williams, Meeting God in Paul
July-Aug: David Ford, The shape of living
Oct-Nov: Andrew Root and Blair Bertrand, When church stops working: a future for your congregation beyond more money, programs and innovation.
2024
Lent: Samuel Wells, A cross in the heart of God
Aug-Sept: Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies
Oct-Nov: Angles on world Christianity
2025
Lent: Rowan Williams, Christ on trial
May-June: Miroslav Volf A public faith
Other occasional studies have included
Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom: How the church is to behave if freedom, justice and a Christian nation are bad ideas.
These weekly “People to Commemorate” posts are a kind of calendar for the commemoration of the saints, reproduced here from a Uniting Church Assembly document which can be found in full here. They are intended for copying and pasting into congregational pew sheets on the Sunday closest to the nominated date.
Images (where provided) are of icons by Peter Blackwood; click on the image to download a high resolution copy of the image.
Matthias filled the place left vacant by Judas Iscariot after his betrayal of Jesus subsequent demise (Acts 1:23-26). Peter depicts his death as foreshadowed in scripture and then points to the need to replace him as apostle with someone who had been with them throughout Jesus’ ministry. “So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias” (Acts 1:23). Having prayed, they cast lots, and Matthias was chosen. The author, Luke, assumes that praying and doing the equivalent of tossing a coin would achieve the desired outcome. We hear nothing more of Matthias. Luke’s story of Matthias reflects his view that there were (and needed to be) twelve apostles, almost certainly as symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel. Limiting who could be called an apostle to the twelve stands in some tension with Paul’s view, who claimed also to be an apostle (1 Cor 9:1). In his day some denied his right to be so, possibly because they understood “apostle” as Luke or Luke’s source had done, although Luke also knew stories which called Paul and Barnabas “apostles” (14:14). Otherwise we know nothing of Mattias except for sayings attributed to him as part of a Gospel or Tradition of Matthias believed to have been composed early in the second century.
Simon, named as one of the twelve disciples, is sometimes called the “Cananean”, an Aramaic word (Matt 10:4; Mark 3:18), which Luke translates as “Zealot” (Luke 6:13; Acts 1:13). A group called “Zealots” were part of the uprising against Rome in Jerusalem which Rome crushed in 70 CE, but the term could also be used for zealous devout Jews, although readers of the gospels which appeared after 70 CE may well have understood him to have been a sympathiser with those who resisted Rome. He is not to be confused with Simon Peter, Simon the brother of Jesus (Mark 6:3), Simon of Cyrene (Mark 15:21), Simon the magician (Acts 8:9), or Simon the tanner (Acts 9:43).
Jude (also called Judas) was one of Jesus’ brothers along with James (Jacob), Joses (Joseph), and Simon (Simeon, not “the Zealot”). He is not to be confused with the two disciples with that name among the twelve: Judas Iscariot and “Judas, son of James” (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; John 14:22), nor with Judas of Damascus (Acts 9:11), nor with “Judas called Barsabbas” (Acts 15:22). Mark tells us that he and his family once wanted to take Jesus home because they thought he was beside himself (3:20-21) and that his family did not accept him (6:4). The image of Jesus’ family in Matthew and Luke is more positive. Eventually we find his brother James running the church in Jerusalem, but also Jude being attributed with leadership and penning the Letter of Jude. He may have done so, although many conclude that it was more likely written in his name much later like the Letter attributed to James.
William Loader
Some works have commenced in the church, including upgrading of the fluorescent lighting and repair of exit signs, installing some hanging points to the walls for seasonally coloured ‘drops’, cleaning, and adjustment of speaker locations. The moveable scaffolding stand for this work will still be in place on Sunday, occupying the children’s table and play-pen area. please take care around it.
The following links are to the Revised Common Lectionary commentary pages of Howard Wallace and Bill Loader, and are suggested as preparation for hearing the readings in worship for the Sunday indicated above.
Acts 9:1-6 (7-20) see also By the Well podcast on this text
The Master, Dr Stewart Gill OAM, warmly invites you to attend the Queen’s College Anzac Commemoration Chapel Service, with Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC, Fellow of Queen’s College
“Anzac: The Guns Are Not Yet Silent”
DATE: Sunday 28 April 2019
TIME: 6:30pm
VENUE: Queen’s College Chapel
The following links are to the Revised Common Lectionary commentary pages of Howard Wallace and Bill Loader, and are suggested as preparation for hearing the readings in worship for the Sunday indicated above.
The Master, Dr Stewart Gill OAM, warmly invites you to attend the Queen’s College Anzac Commemoration Chapel Service, with Professor Geoffrey Blainey AC, Fellow of Queen’s College
“Anzac: The Guns Are Not Yet Silent”
DATE: Sunday 28 April 2019
TIME: 6:30pm
VENUE: Queen’s College Chapel