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,
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)
B.Ward Powers |
Email: ward@bwardpowers.info |
259A |
International Tel: +612 9590-3944 |
PETERSHAM NSW 2049 |
Australian Phone: (02) 9590-3944 |
AUSTRALIA |
Australian |
A participant for many years in email/web groups relating to current issues, New Testament Greek, and the application of Bible teaching to modern society. He welcomes and values feedback from readers by email.
Author of a dozen or so books and booklets, plus journal and magazine articles
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).
A Christian Perspective on the Planet: Climate Change, Population, and Poverty
We are its appointed workers, its guardians, its caretakers.
Click here for an extract from the book.
Coming soon...
I have written several hymns and metrical translations from the Psalms, which I will be putting up gradually.
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.
Online version of article (html with synopsis)
Online version of article (html
without synopsis)
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. 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.