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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? I did. Or when the basic nature of discipleship as a Christian when you became a Christian was to learn the Ten Commandments? 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. Now, we know that we're not under law—that we're under grace. But does that mean that foundational Old Testament teaching like the Ten Commandments don't really matter very much anymore? 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. Well, hello! I'm Tony Payne and welcome to a special crossover edition of the Two Ways News podcast and the Centre for Christian Living podcast. 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". Which you are. And I hope that you feel it. Tony Payne: Yeah, I hope so too.

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It's nice to be back talking again, isn't it? Phillip Jensen: Yes. Tony Payne: A little while. 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. Phillip Jensen: I see. Good. Tony Payne: Or we could blend the two together.

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Anyway, we'll figure something out. Phillip Jensen: What do—what do you do for your pod? Why is your podcast operating? 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! You know that. So each week I now do it with Peter Jensen. Tony Payne: Yeah, sorry.

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You asked me what I do on my podcast. Phillip Jensen: Yeah. 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. 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?" So the podcast consists of regular episodes where I interview someone about some aspect of the Christian life. 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. 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. Have you done one on how to argue with AI yet? Tony Payne: Not yet, but it's on the agenda sometime to do one on technology more broadly. What, have you been arguing with AI regularly?

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Phillip Jensen: I, I argue with ChatGPT. Tony Payne: Yeah. Who wins? 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. But we started off with him denying the resurrection and we've concluded that he actually now believes in the resurrection. Tony Payne: Well, there we go. Phillip Jensen: Took several hours of astute argumentation.

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Tony Payne: There we go. And it's got nothing to do with the fact that AI does tend to like to agree with you and affirm you. 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! 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? Phillip Jensen: Well, I try and keep my partner up to date, and support him and get him along. No, it's much the same, only we're starting the other end—that is, from the Scriptures. Tony Payne: Yep.

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Phillip Jensen: So last year, we worked through Genesis 1-11. This year, we've been working through 1 Corinthians, and we've just finished it last week in chapter 16. And so, doing this crossover now. 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. Phillip Jensen: Why he's doing podcasts with me! And so, we're doing a little doctrinal series. 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. And so, it shapes the whole way you think. And so, to start with Bible and think, "What does this mean for our world?", well, that should be a foundational point. I suppose that's why they teach them so much Bible here at Moore College.

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Phillip Jensen: Yeah, absolutely. Tony Payne: But you also—the Scripture is expositional and kind of comes in a thing, but life comes at you topically as well. Phillip Jensen: Yes. Tony Payne: I've got this situation to deal with.

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What am I going to do? Phillip Jensen: From your topic to the Bible. Tony Payne: Back to this, back to the Bible. And you've got to learn how to go in that direction as well.

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Phillip Jensen: Yeah. Tony Payne: Which is more what we are doing. Excellent. 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. Tony Payne: Well, look, I'm willing to do that briefly at the beginning. 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. 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. Why did you write your book? That's the famous question, isn't it? Tony Payne: It is that.

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I'm going to ask you that one later. Um. Phillip Jensen: Well, give me time to think about it. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Phillip Jensen: Yeah. Tony Payne: But theologically what it means.

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Phillip Jensen: But this book's not a PhD thesis. I've read PhD theses. They could be pretty boring. Tony Payne: Well, mine is.

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I, I think it's— Phillip Jensen: Yeah, but this book isn't. This book's not that. Tony Payne: I'm glad you think that book isn't.

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No, it's not a PhD, the book. 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 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. 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. 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. Phillip Jensen: It's an interesting observation, and it rings true when I hear it. 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. Phillip Jensen: Yes, in short pants. The idea that Christian life is ministering to each other, but ministering the Word to each other. 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. But that—that was normal. 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. Tony Payne: Almost none.

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I was really surprised to find it. Obviously people mentioned it here and there as along the way. 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?" Phillip Jensen: But it's all over the Bible, isn't it?

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Tony Payne: Yeah. Phillip Jensen: One, we don't have many books on the subject. But two, it's not because it's obscure in the Bible; it's the assumption. 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. Phillip Jensen: In the Bible. Tony Payne: There's not many instructions at all, really. Phillip Jensen: No.

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But there are a lot of instructions as what Christians should do. Tony Payne: In the congregation, yeah. Phillip Jensen: Yeah. 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. The congregation's to do it, isn't it? Tony Payne: Mmm. 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. Tony Payne: Which really are all about the way you speak to each other. Phillip Jensen: Yeah. Everyone comes to church with—

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Tony Payne: —something to share. Phillip Jensen: Something to share. Tony Payne: And don't go speaking all in a chaotic way. 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. Phillip Jensen: But everyone comes bringing a verbal gift in 1 Corinthians 14. Tony Payne: Yeah. 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. And you share it for the edification of the body. That's— 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 up people using Just for Starters so that everybody in the congregation has been trained with a kind of basic Word ministry skill. And then there's specialist things like teaching Sunday School or youth group or leading a home group or something. 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? Tony Payne: Well, sure. Some people also don't feel they're very adequate to preach either, and even though they're preachers. 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? I mean— Phillip Jensen: Yeah. 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. But it's possible by the Spirit and work of God. 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. And you start, amazingly, to share it in your own way with the people around you.

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Phillip Jensen: Yeah. Tony Payne: And we all do it in our own way, and God gifts us to do it in our own way. 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. 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. But I tell pastors, get hold of this book and work on it, because you really need to lead the congregation in doing this. And it's a terrific book. 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. Uh, good friends of ours: Crossways. 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? 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. I mean, it's written for everybody wasn't it. 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. 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?" Phillip Jensen: Yes. But in the process, it's opening up to you whole sections of the Scriptures. Tony Payne: Yeah.

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There's a lot of Bible. 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. I mean, it teaches you about the Scriptures as you go through. Tony Payne: Well, look, that's quite enough.

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Being an Australian, I'm embarrassed talking about my own work. So let's talk about your work instead. Phillip Jensen: No, let's talk about yours. I'm going to be embarrassed.

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Yes. Tony Payne: No, thanks for asking a few questions about it. The books has been well-received so far; it's early days. 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. Phillip Jensen: To get all our people ministering by the Word would bring about a transformation of churches and evangelism in Australia. Tony Payne: Indeed, indeed. 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. But how does it transform our daily work? This has been a disturbing question for many Christians. 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. Please note: this event was postponed in July due to unforeseen circumstances. Join us at Moore College on Wednesday, 28th October for a lively event of input and conversation about this important topic. You can find out more and register on the Centre for Christian Living website: that's ccl.moore.edu.au.

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That's ccl.moore.edu.au. Tony Payne: And now, let's get back to our program. And your book is about the Christian life as well. It's called Written on the Heart: The Ten Commandments and the radical life of grace.

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I'll bowl it straight back to you then—the, the most searching question an interviewer can ask: why did you write this book? Phillip Jensen: I was having a bad day! 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. When God established his nation on Mount Sinai, that's the fundamental.

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That's where it starts, you know? "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. But of recent times, the Ten Commandments have slipped out of the mind of Western civilisation—even replaced, to some extent, by the Seven Deadly Sins, which I've worked out weren't seven, weren't deadly and not sins necessarily.

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But even that slipped by. So we're not sure whether there's right or wrong. 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. Tony Payne: Yeah.

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Phillip Jensen: Because Adolf Hitler's the only one that we can all agree was wrong. Tony Payne: Was evil. Phillip Jensen: There is evil. And so, you have to recalibrate all discussions.

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Well, you don't really. The Ten Commandments tells you there is right and wrong, and tells you what is right and wrong. Our civilisation has lost it. What really worried me more, Tony, was our congregations have lost it.

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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. We prayed after each one. And of course, in many old churches, it was written on a board at the front of the church. Tony Payne: In stone.

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On stone tablets. Phillip Jensen: On stone tablets, yes. Tony Payne: I think—was it sometimes there's the Ten Commandments on one side, the Apostles Creed on the other side. Phillip Jensen: And the Lord's Prayer.

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Tony Payne: And the Lord's Prayer. And they'd be up there on the walls. Phillip Jensen: And as children, I was taught all three to learn by heart. Tony Payne: Yeah.

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Phillip Jensen: That was part of basic Christian teaching. 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. 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? I mean.

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Tony Payne: Yeah. Phillip Jensen: But what were the others and why? 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. In first year, of course; by the time they'd finished College under their great supervising teachers, they knew better.

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But it's very sad when the Christian community doesn't know the Ten Commandments, which is foundational for a Western civilisation. We're in trouble. Tony Payne: Indeed. 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— Phillip Jensen: Yeah. Tony Payne: —we're no longer under law. 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?

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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. Tony Payne: Not by works! Phillip Jensen: Not by works of the Lord. 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. They don't even know. And so, we therefore rightly emphasise grace, mercy, forgiveness, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus. We're right to emphasise that.

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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. Jesus is the answer, but then you have to ask the obvious thing: well, what's the question? And so, Jesus dies for our sins. But what are our sins and why are they sins?

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So get rid of the commandments, you're actually unwittingly undermine the gospel of grace. Tony Payne: But I think you're arguing in the first part of the book more than that. It's not just that the commandments—we need to understand them, because they will drive us to Jesus. 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.

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What role do they have in the Christian life? Phillip Jensen: Oh, absolutely, yes. 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. Without the commandment, he wouldn't have known. When he received the commandment, it actually just increased his coveting. But that aspect is there.

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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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Tony Payne: And so, that new radical way is, what, an expansionist view of them, or a different view of them? What's the new radical way of keeping the commandments?

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Phillip Jensen: Well, we can't detach them from their wording in the Book of Exodus— Tony Payne: Yeah. Phillip Jensen: —And what they are saying. 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. 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. What about that in warfare? What about—we want to so define the commandment that we can possibly keep it.

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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. 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. There you go. There's a rule.

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But it would only be the case if "Do not murder" says something about goodness and rightness— Phillip Jensen: Yes. Tony Payne: —so that it also means "Do not hate" and it also means "Do not show contempt". Phillip Jensen: It means love your neighbour.

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Tony Payne: And then it means on the—on the claim: "Love your neighbour". Phillip Jensen: Yes. Tony Payne: Treasure and value the other person, and treat them well. It's a little short command: "Do not murder".

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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. 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. But the trouble is, unless you know the commandments, what does it mean to love my neighbour? 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. Phillip Jensen: But it's also not bearing false witness. It means not stealing. 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". Which opens up a whole road. Tony Payne: Be content. Be content with what you have.

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Phillip Jensen: Yes. Tony Payne: Be generous. Rather than wanting other people's things, give them your things. Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes.

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"Do not steal." Well, let the thief no longer steal, but work with honest hands so that he may give— Tony Payne: —to those in need. Phillip Jensen: Jesus' ethics doesn't contradict the Ten Commandments. He shows you what is really meant by the Ten Commandments.

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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. It brings salvation. It teaches us to live a whole new life. 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.

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Phillip Jensen: Yeah. 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. Phillip Jensen: Yeah. Tony Payne: And that's the frame within which you start examining the commandments as lenses or windows into the good.

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Phillip Jensen: And isn't it interesting that he "cleanses us from lawlessness"— Tony Payne: Ah, yes! Phillip Jensen: —in order to live this zealous good life? Tony Payne: So the opposite of this good life is lawlessness.

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Phillip Jensen: Lawlessness. Yes. It's not— Tony Payne: Whereas the good life corresponds to, comes out of, reflects the good law of God.

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Phillip Jensen: That's right. Tony Payne: Yeah, yeah. Well, why don't we think of one example then? We won't go through all Ten Commandments and how you've—

00:25:11.710 - 00:25:20.440

Phillip Jensen: No, you've got to buy the book. Tony Payne: Got to buy the book. Exactly. 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.

00:25:20.760 - 00:25:28.720

Tony Payne: The conversation we've just had in some ways. Phillip Jensen: But two thirds of the book is going through the Ten Commandments. I've found it's better to go them one chapter at a week. Tony Payne: Yeah, yeah.

00:25:28.990 - 00:25:38.410

Phillip Jensen: Because you got to meditate. You got to think about it. You got to work out what it means for you. And it's the kind of book to go through with a friend: read the same chapter, then have a conversation with each other.

00:25:38.410 - 00:25:54.850

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. Phillip Jensen: Yeah. Tony Payne: And then take some time to do that. 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.

00:25:54.880 - 00:25:58.420

Well, let's look at one then. Can we look at one? Phillip Jensen: Yeah, sure. Tony Payne: And what about Sabbath?

00:25:58.420 - 00:26:18.020

Sabbath's a good test case. 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. How do you keep the day, and which day do you keep and why, it's all spelled out in these—in the Sabbath. Not which day, because we will differ with that in Christian liberty, but that we take time off.

00:26:18.650 - 00:26:45.740

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. And so, I think it's addressed to our governments, who are desperate to do away with weekends, ' cause they want people working. They want industry to keep going all the time. Then they can do it with a 40-hour week.

00:26:45.740 - 00:26:56.930

They can do it by getting different people to work on different days. But that undermines social cohesion. At the moment, we've got a Royal Commission on social cohesion. But they've got no idea how to create it.

00:26:57.620 - 00:27:30.560

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, we actually undermine God's good creation where he took the day and we are to participate in his day together. I mean, there's lots in the Sabbath. I've found it the most challenging, the most interesting and, frankly, the greatest fun chapter to write.

00:27:31.040 - 00:27:41.630

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?" Phillip Jensen: Yes. Tony Payne: "Exactly when?" "What am I allowed to do on those days?" Phillip Jensen: Yes.

00:27:41.720 - 00:28:02.470

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 that way and say, "We need a set of specifications that exactly codify precisely what's required." Phillip Jensen: Yeah. Tony Payne: But that's not what Jesus does with the law.

00:28:02.530 - 00:28:17.290

Phillip Jensen: No. Tony Payne: As we've just said. 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." Phillip Jensen: That's right.

00:28:17.680 - 00:28:26.260

We think individualistically, rather than just corporately. Tony Payne: Yep. Phillip Jensen: Which comes out of the Sabbath one. How did the slave in the New Testament keep the Sabbath?

00:28:26.570 - 00:28:29.870

Tony Payne: Only if— Phillip Jensen: If he's working for a non-Christian. Tony Payne: Only if he's—well, yes. That's true.

00:28:29.870 - 00:28:45.580

If he's working for a non-Christian master, yes. Phillip Jensen: Yes. You see? 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.

00:28:45.740 - 00:29:10.770

So it's more than leading us to repentance of faith in coming to salvation. It also is leading us to living a different life, a holy life. 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. You and your household and everybody.

00:29:11.220 - 00:29:30.450

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. 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. How can you have a work/life balance? It's a silly discussion, really.

00:29:30.510 - 00:29:42.780

Tony Payne: Yeah. Phillip Jensen: But it's because they're not really talking in the terms the Scriptures are talking about in God and the Sabbath. We're not created to work seven days a week. And being a workaholic is a disaster.

00:29:43.230 - 00:29:59.400

God has made it clear that we're not to be like that. 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. Tony Payne: The command: it's interesting. The command says, "Six days you shall work."

00:29:59.730 - 00:30:02.780

Phillip Jensen: Yes. Tony Payne: Do your work. Six days. There's plenty to do.

00:30:03.380 - 00:30:15.830

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. Phillip Jensen: With each other. Tony Payne: Yes, it's a corporate thing, isn't it. Phillip Jensen: Yeah.

00:30:15.890 - 00:30:30.580

Tony Payne: We think of Sabbath as an individualistic kind of "I've got to have my me time". Some of us who are introverts find that particularly important—especially, I suppose, if our work is very people-focused. A bit of—a bit of quiet me time is very refreshing. Phillip Jensen: Yeah, it is.

00:30:30.580 - 00:30:45.470

Tony Payne: But it is a social commandment as well. Phillip Jensen: Yeah. 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. 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.

00:30:45.470 - 00:31:12.500

There's one final thing I wanted to ask you, though. 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. 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. And the contrast is very stark, isn't it?

00:31:12.650 - 00:31:29.800

Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes. You feel the contrast in the content of ethics—in what we're told. We're told, "Do not commit adultery." Our society is very unsure of that now. In fact, there's a website that encourages people and enables people to commit adultery.

00:31:30.280 - 00:31:43.030

That's not frowned upon. There's no restriction on that. So our society is confused about content. But much more importantly, our society is confused about the basis of ethics.

00:31:43.060 - 00:32:00.690

Tony Payne: Yeah. Phillip Jensen: Where it comes from. 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. 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 - 00:32:32.220

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. Tony Payne: Phillip, thanks for writing this book, and I could say I really enjoyed reading it. But I didn't read it, because I sort of helped you write it back then. Phillip Jensen: You certainly did.

00:32:32.320 - 00:32:45.930

That's why it was readable. Tony Payne: I was involved in helping you shape it at different points along the way. But as per usual, the ideas and the structure was yours, and it's a marvellous book. And it can be obtained, oh, as they say, from all good bookshops everywhere.

00:32:46.190 - 00:33:01.820

Both of these new books—my one and your one—are put out by our good friends at Matthias Media. 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. But Phillip, it's been fun to get back together and talk again. Phillip Jensen: Yes, yes!

00:33:01.820 - 00:33:15.200

I'm still talking to a grey-haired man, but this one's younger than me. Tony Payne: Well, that's a pleasure for you, in any case. Phillip Jensen: Yes. 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 - 00:33:34.400

Well, thanks again, Phillip, for talking and having me back, or for you being on or whatever's happening here in this conversation. Phillip Jensen: Well, we're in Two Ways News as well, so I'm going to lead in prayer. Tony Payne: That's a great way to finish. 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 - 00:34:07.160

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. And we pray for this in Jesus' name. Amen. Tony Payne: Well, thanks for joining us on this episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast from Moore College.

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For a whole lot more from the Centre for Christian Living, just head over to the CCL website at ccl.moore.edu.au, 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. 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. 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 - 00:35:11.330

And we always love and benefit from receiving your feedback and questions: please get in touch. You can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au. 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. Thank you for listening.

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I'm Tony Payne. 'Bye for now.