Biographical Data
Graduated from Sydney Bible Training Institute
Secretary of the Missionary Fellowship (NSW)
Graduated from Moore Theological College
Served as minister of several parishes in
Sydney (assistant minister of one in
On the Faculty of Moore College (5 years) and
Director,
Dean of New Testament and Ethics,
Academic
Associate of the
Diploma in Religious Education (
B.Comm (University of NSW) (Majors in Accountancy and Economics)
B.A. (University of
B.D. (First Class Honours) (
M.A. (
Ph.D. (
Th.D. (South African Theological Seminary) (Thesis on sources and relationships of the Synoptic Gospels)
Bibliographical Data
Author of a dozen or so books and booklets, plus journal and magazine articles
Books available for purchase through any Christian bookstore
(or write/refer to impactincaus@gmail.com)
The Sin
We Treat as a Virtue : The Major Issue in Christ's
Teaching
(Published by Trafford Publishing; Available for Kindle or as a
paperback, from Amazon
and Koorong
Books.)
Yes, there is a sin we are treating as a
virtue. This sin is greed - sheer plain greed. Coveting.
The comfortable, respectable, sin. But the extremely
dangerous and damaging sin. It is condemned by the Tenth
Commandment. It is the sin Christ spoke against more often
and more vehemently than any other - he warned against it
in the strongest possible terms: Beware! Take care! Watch
out! It chokes the Word of God in your life, he said. It
hinders a person entering the Kingdom of God and deprives
them of eternal life. That is how serious it is. Paul said
that greed is a form of idolatry and can destroy a person.
He found this sin sneaky, tricky, and insidious. The risk
to us from this sin is all the worse because it is so
often not recognized as sin. It is so all-pervasive that
we do not actually see its deceitful danger. But
statistics show it is insidiously at work in the church,
seriously affecting its work and witness in the world. It
is a trap and a snare that can so easily catch us quite
unawares. Breaking free of it is in fact one of the most
difficult issues we face in our Christian lives. Can
anything be done about this? Yes! It is crucial that we
become aware of what the Bible says about it, and then
think through how to live our lives in accordance with
biblical teaching. This book will point to all the
relevant Scriptures. Can you afford not to heed what they
say? They just might save you from spiritual disaster.
Don't treat this lightly. Jesus didn't. Paul didn't.
For a detailed summary of
the issues and overview of the book see this survey.
Also available online is the introduction
and
chapter one, and the backcover
text.
Learn To Read the
Greek New Testament
(Published by SPCK Australia; Available from Amazon and Koorong Books.)
This self-teaching guide and classroom textbook takes complete
beginners in Greek, and leads them right through to where they
start reading the New Testament for themselves in the original
'koine' Greek - and understanding it. Now in its 5th edition,
completely revised and updated, this book has long been a
trailblazer in applying linguistic science to the
understanding and teaching of New Testament Greek. It is more
than an introduction to New Testament Greek. It contains more
than the elements, more than the basics of New Testament
Greek.
The
Ministry of Women in the Church
(Published by SPCK Australia [SparkLit]; Available
from Amazon and
Koorong Books.)
A large amount of the debate about women’s ministry results
from the fact that we do not always distinguish things that
differ. This book starts by drawing attention to two areas of
potential confusion in our thinking about the question of the
role of women in the church: The first is our frequent failure
to distinguish between authority and structure in the church
on the one hand, as distinct from gifts and ministry; the
second is that we mix up what Scripture says about the
relationship between husband and wife in marriage with
the question of the relationships between men and women in the
church. The teaching of Scripture is clear about
this, but often we are not: we fail to distinguish things that
differ.
Now available as an e-book... https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/602700
FIRST CORINTHIANS: An Exegetical and Explanatory Commentary
(Published by
Morning Star Publications, Northcote VIC 3070, and Wipf and
Stock,
This
commentary explores many of the issues in First Corinthians
that puzzle both readers and translators, and often lead to
misunderstanding and discord. Interestingly, the conclusions
reached mostly accord with the views held by the early Church
Fathers concerning the teaching of this Epistle, views which
are often overlooked these days. In particular, in keeping
with the early Church Fathers, the Reformers, most Scripture
expositors until recent times, and many present day exegetes,
this Commentary expounds the interpretation that “tongues”
refers to "languages", i.e. human languages spoken on earth.
The one major area where the Commentary parts company with
the Fathers of the first Christian centuries is in relation to
matters of sex and marriage, divorce and remarriage, and
attitudes to women generally. The commentary shows that Paul
is more affirming of sex, marriage, and remarriage, and women,
than many early writers (and some modern writers) have
understood him to be.
The Progressive
Publication of Matthew
(Published by Broadman and Holman,
The Progressive Publication of Matthew’s Gospel presents an
explanation of the relationship between Matthew, Mark and Luke
that shows how the Gospels have originated from documents
first written by the apostle Matthew.
For a detailed summary of some of the relationships see this conference paper: presented paper, diagrammatic summary (HTML). For a preview, read now the first chapter of this book: Chapter 1 (PDF).
Marriage and Divorce - The New Testament Teaching
(Published by Family Life Movement of Australia; available from Amazon and Koorong Books.)
Dr Powers has
identified the eleven different and mutually exclusive views
about divorce and remarriage which are (or have been) held in
the church. He examines each of these in relation to the
Scriptures, and looks at the question of how so many teachers
can look at the same passages in the Bible and come to so many
different conclusions as to what they mean.
Divorce
and Remarriage
(Published by Morning Star Publications, Northcote VIC 3070
Australia; available from Amazon and Koorong Books.)
This book has a more detailed focus on the teaching of Jesus
and the New Testament about the nature of marriage and the
issues of divorce and remarriage. It carefully discusses
Paul’s three-step procedure for when one is facing a sundered
marriage relationship, and the situation about remarriage, and
his statement that remarriage after a divorce is not a sin (1
Corinthians 7:28).
Also available in Indonesian as Perceraian & Perkawinan Kembali: Pensekatan Hukum dan Anugerah Allah dalam Alkitab (published by Yayasan Komunikasi BINA KASIH).
Hymns
I have written several hymns and metrical translations from the Psalms, which I will be putting up gradually.
Articles
I have written several articles, some of
which are available via Google
Scholar or Academia.edu
and others are available as posts on Blogger.
Gradually I will link them in here.
The Christian and Alcohol
Online version of article (html
with synopsis)
Online version of article (html
without synopsis)
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Related Links
If the Dr Powers you are after is the Australian Artificial Intelligence researcher, then you are wanting my son Prof. David M W Powers at Flinders University. David is co-inventor of the internationally acclaimed YourAmigo dynamic search technology with a web presence in China/Japan, the US, the UK/Germany/Spain , Australia, and now Brazil, as well as the Clevertar talking heads that provide help and advice to users. Alternately, you may be looking for my son Philip Powers, who runs 1M1 Records, which specializes in production and sales of CDs of the Film Music and Movie Soundtracks of Australasian films.