In 1963 my father applied for me to become a member of the Sydney Cricket Ground. In 1980 my membership was granted and I attended my first fixture—the Rugby League Grand final between Canterbury-Bankstown and the mighty Eastern Suburbs Roosters, won by Canterbury, 18-4.
After 43 years, in 2023, I resigned my membership. I had not lost my interest in cricket or the occasional league game, I just was tired of being lectured about racism, gay pride and climate change at opening ceremonies by woke sportsmen and administrators.
‘Stick to your knitting’, is a saying from a management manual of the 1980’s. It applies to how I was feeling: play the game don’t use the game to push your ethical or political viewpoint. As a retiree who owns shares I think the same about our public companies which get involved in all sorts of campaigns that have nothing to do with their business. Stick to your knitting!
So today I am going to take my own advice and stick to my knitting.
I have been very fortunate to have received a tertiary education in theology at Moore Theological College and in Ancient History at Macquarie University.
As a historian, let me take you to Crete in the first century. Cretans were known for their prowess as archers. This made them valuable as mercenaries in various armies. They were also quite good at piracy.
The Romans recognised Crete as a strategic place but also a trouble spot, it took three Legions of Roman soldiers, 15000 men, three years to conquer Crete.
In Titus 1:12 the Apostle Paul quotes a Cretan prophet as saying, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons’. There is a view that there was no wildlife on Crete and the locals made up for it.
As a theologian, come to the letter to Titus in the New Testament. Paul, after conducting a short evangelistic campaign on Crete, is leaving his young associate Titus to get the young church in order. In 2:12 Paul talks of people renouncing, ‘ungodliness and worldly passions and living self-controlled, godly and upright lives in the present age’.
How do we get from 1:12, evil beasts, to 2:12, upright lives?
This is a big question. Our governments think it is by having expensive reviews and royal commissions, or appointing undersecretaries for behavioural change, as they have done recently in Victoria. All the social indicators are unhealthy in Australia and indicate that 1:12 rather than 2:12 is an apt description of our society.
History provides an indicator as to where transformation comes from. Crete is an example of a society moving from 1:12 to 2:12.
In 1902 the American evangelist and Bible teacher, R.A. Torrey visited Melbourne. It has been estimated that out of a population of 500,000, Torrey reached 250,000. The societal impact was enormous.
Similarly, in Wales about the same time and in the US and UK in earlier times, dreadful social conditions were turned around by people having an encounter with Jesus Christ as God’s powerful gospel was preached.
In 1959, 130,000 people packed the MCG to hear the American evangelist Billy Graham and filled the SCG and the neighbouring Sydney Showgrounds to hear him.
I went to Bible College in Sydney in 1969, and there were 4 times as many men in my year as there were the year before. The reason? Billy Graham had conducted a two week campaign in Sydney the year before, in 1968. The theologian knows that the gospel is God’s powerful instrument of transformation.
Look again at Titus, what had happened? 2:11 says that, ‘the grace of God appeared bringing salvation for all people’. Paul and Titus preached what God had done. God did not shout advice from afar but in Jesus Christ He appeared on earth to save, to redeem, to purify, to call out a people of His own who are zealous for good works. He is the God who changes and makes us new through His Holy Spirit (Titus 3:4-7).
My wife of 53 years and I, for our first date, went to the movie musical Paint your Wagon. In one scene a young 16 year old boy is delivered to a saloon and brothel and told, “Here is the boy, you return him as a man.”
That is typical Hollywood nonsense, as though illicit behaviour is character building. The perversity of our culture is evident in that those who govern make it more and more difficult for our children to have access to these life transforming truths and they call it being progressive!
Read the history of the mutineers off HMS Bounty, initially a drunken and debauched community on Pitcairn Island until John Adams and Ned Young made a discovery in Captain Bligh’s trunk.
The community was thereby transformed, so that when it was discovered in 1808, it was an ideal society. Their discovery—a copy of the KJV Bible and the 1662 Anglican Prayer Book.
Preach, share, witness to the need to repent and turn to Christ the Saviour and thus be transformed. The only sure way from 1:12 to 2:12 is by having an encounter with Jesus Christ.
Theology asserts, history confirms!
David Cook