RIDLEY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Deputy Principal
- Deputy Principal: Community, Lecturer in Old Testament
Andrew is an ordained Anglican minister who joined the faculty at Ridley in 2018. Prior to moving to Melbourne he worked with students at St Barnabas Broadway and in the residential colleges of Sydney University. In 2017 he followed his wife Steph (who is also an Anglican minister) to Melbourne to take up roles at City on a Hill Melbourne, where he served as Community Pastor.
Teaching Areas
Andrew teaches Old Testament and biblical interpretation and is passionate about helping students grow in their confidence handling the whole Bible as God's message to us.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer in Biblical Studies
Andrew is a life-long learner. Having planned to study at Ridley for a three-year degree, he has now been teaching in various capacities since 1997. He resists specialising, preferring to help students learn about reading and using both Testaments of Scripture.
With prior research on the sociology of the internet and experience in tertiary teaching and information technology, he is particularly passionate about our Ridley Online program. He also has experience with student ministry (AFES) and overseas missions (CMS).
Andrew is an active member of the Glen Waverley Anglican Church.
Teaching Areas
Old and New Testaments, Greek, and Mission
Job Titles:
- Principal
- Principal, Ridley College
Brian grew up in southwest Sydney and spent sixteen years studying and working overseas before returning to Australia in 2000. He has worked as an electrician's off-sider, a public servant, a school teacher, and a university and theological college lecturer. His ministry experience has ranged from student work and the local church to theological education, a field in which he has been serving for most of the last twenty years.
Brian's father was an Austrian Jew who became a Christian while living with his parents as a refugee in Shanghai. Brian was raised in a Christian family, but it wasn't until his university years that the Lord took hold of his life, and his faith and trust in Christ crucified and risen took root.
The family put a high value on education, and there have been several generations of ‘Dr Rosners'. Brian has three degrees from three different countries, culminating in a prize-winning Cambridge University PhD.
In the 1990s he worked as a lecturer in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where Professor Howard Marshall was the departmental chair. From 2001 he taught New Testament and Ethics and was Faculty Research Coordinator at Moore Theological College.
Brian is a New Testament scholar of international reputation, having contributed to many of the major journals and supervised over a dozen PhDs. He is a member of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (the international society of New Testament scholars), a member the Holman Christian Standard Bible Translation Oversight Committee, a Humboldt fellow in Germany, and is the author or editor of a dozen books.
Gregarious by nature, Brian is a great believer in the mutual benefits of collaborative endeavor. His publications include the co-edited New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, a co-edited book on theological education (The Trials of Theology), and the co-written 1 Corinthians commentary in the Eerdmans Pillar series. His current research and writing projects include a monograph on Paul and the law, various publications on the theme of being known by God and a book on preaching 1 Corinthians.
He is also passionate about promoting the gospel in the public sphere and is a fellow of The Centre for Public Christianity. In recent years his articles have appeared in The Age and The Australian and he has been interviewed on Compass and The Spirit of Things.
Brian is married to Natalie and has four children and one grandchild. As one known and loved by God, Brian seeks to find his adequacy in God as he serves as the Principal of Ridley College.
Teaching Areas
1 Corinthians, John, New Testament Introduction
Research Interests
Pauline Studies, 1 Corinthians, Personal Identity, Biblical Theology, Word Play in New Testament Greek.
More about Brian Rosner
Five minutes with Brian Rosner
What Makes a Good Biblical Scholar?
Hobbies and Interests
When he is not exploring how the grace of God teaches us to live, Brian enjoys bush-walking and golf (sometimes simultaneously).
David is married to Rachel, and they have three sons who are all married. David grew up in the UK and became a Christian in 1983 in his final year at high school.
Originally a medical Doctor, David worked in the NHS before training for ordination in the Church of England and serving in a local church. He and Rachel then studied at All Nations Christian College to prepare for overseas missions. They served in Nairobi as Crosslinks missionaries for nine years. David was Principal of Carlile College, an Anglican theological college that trained men and women from across East Africa for mission and evangelism. During his time as Principal, the College planted a classroom into the middle of the Kibera slum and began an urban mission training program for informal settlement church leaders. Since 2007 David has led CMS-Australia's training ministry, based at St Andrew's Hall next door to Ridley College.
Teaching Areas
Living Faiths; Mission Perspectives; Ministry in a Culturally Diverse Context.
Diane joined the Ridley team as Educational Designer in 2014, where she enjoys working with Ridley faculty and visiting scholars to create engaging online courses for students. She is interested in helping students to learn (and teachers to teach) well, particularly in distance and online education. Her PhD explored learning design for student spiritual formation in online education.
She has previous experience as a Distance Education Coordinator for Sydney College of Divinity, with Macquarie Christian Studies Institute, as a student services manager and adviser and as an AFES staff worker at Macquarie University. She completed undergraduate degrees in politics and history at the Australian National University in Canberra and studied theology at Sydney Missionary and Bible College.
Diane met her husband David at ANU in Canberra where they both worked in Public Service roles for a few years before moving to live in Sydney. Diane and David have two young adult children and are involved in Macquarie Chapel Presbyterian church in Eastwood, Sydney. Diane enjoys the benefits of living in Sydney and regularly travelling to Melbourne which enables her to experience the unique aspects of each of these two cities.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Centre for Children 's and Youth Ministry
- Director, Centre for Children 's and Youth Ministry
Graham graduated from Macquarie University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Economics and worked for a short time as a business economist before entering Moore College in 1991. He is an ordained Anglican minister, and served as Assistant minister for children's, youth and family ministry at St Michael's Anglican Cathedral in Wollongong from 1995 to 1999.
From 2000 to 2013 Graham was the founding Dean and then Principal of Youthworks College in Sydney, an Anglican college for children's and youth ministry. At Youthworks Graham taught systematic theology, youth ministry and spiritual life as well as providing overall leadership to the College community. He completed a Master of Adult Education and eLearning degree at Sydney University of Technology in 2002, and a Master of Theology from Moore College in 2011. Graham's doctoral thesis for the University of Queensland explored the dynamics of Bible engagement for teenage spiritual formation in a culture of expressive individualism.
Graham is the Executive Administrator of the International Association for the Study of Youth Ministry, and member of the British and Irish Association of Practical Theology, and the Association of Youth Ministry Educators. With his wife Kate, Graham attends St Jude's Anglican Church in Parkville, where he serves as a volunteer youth leader.
Teaching Areas
Graham teaches in various areas of practical theology, including guided spiritual formation, field education, and children's and youth ministry.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer in Hebrew
- Lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament
Jill was born in Melbourne and completed some of her school years in Sydney. She graduated with a BA at the University of Western Australia and ministered with her husband Len in Perth and the WA Wheatbelt. Jill and Len spent a year on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory with CMS, learning from and supporting Aboriginal leaders. They then spent ten years in Hong Kong leading an international church and participating in marriage ministry and city-wide evangelism in preparation for the 1997 return to Chinese sovereignty.
Jill studied theology at Ridley, and concurrently trained as a spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition. She was ordained in the Diocese of Melbourne in 2006. She has lectured at Ridley since 2005, was appointed to Ridley faculty in 2016, and is lecturing in Hebrew and Old Testament. Jill was awarded her PhD on ‘The Re-presentation of David in Psalms 140-143' in 2016. She is co-editor of Grounded in the Body, in Time and Place, in Scripture: Papers by Australian Women Scholars in the Evangelical Tradition, is currently revising her dissertation for publication, and preparing to write a commentary on Jeremiah for the series, The Bible in God's World. She has been a convener of the Evangelical Women in Academia conference and the Ridley Women's Writing Groups Network. She is a member of Tyndale Fellowship, ETS, IBR, SBL, and the Logia Advisory Board.
Teaching Areas
Hebrew, Old Testament.
Jill Firth, ‘Of the Shaping and Smashing of Pottery: Grace and Judgment in the Book of Jeremiah.' Tyndale Old Testament Study Group, Cambridge, July, 2019.
Jill Firth, ‘"Save me from my pursuers, for they are too strong for me": The Re-presentation of David in Psalms 140-143.' ETS Psalms and Hebrew Poetry section, San Antonio (15 November 2016).
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Public Christianity
John's story is eclectic. Starting out as a professional singer-songwriter, he now works as an author, speaker, historian, and media presenter. He was the Founding Director of the Centre for Public Christianity (2007-17). He has published 15 books, two of which became television documentaries, with a third, For the Love of God: How the Church is Better and Worse Than you Ever Imagined, released in Australian cinemas in June 2018. He teaches a course on the Historical Jesus at the University of Sydney, Australia, and researches the origins of Christianity in the Roman empire. He is an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney, and during 2017-19 he is a Visiting Academic in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford. In all that he does, whether in the media or the church, creative or academic, he strives to be a public advocate for the Christian faith in doubting times. Having lost his father in a plane crash at 9, John is sympathetic to the sorrows and questions of our world and values his wife and three children above all other gifts of this life.
Students will receive a significant boost as John teaches on-campus and online in a wide range of subjects. John's approach will bring a ‘public Christianity twist' to those subjects. This means that under John students will study the New Testament and Church History in order to better engage with contemporary society. He will teach an approach to evangelism and apologetics that works in a post-Christian context.
Job Titles:
- Senior Lecturer in
- Senior Lecturer in Old Testament
Lindsay grew up in Sydney, working as a lawyer for five years, prior to undertaking studies at Moore Theological College. During his church ministry in Campbelltown, NSW, he was also a part-time school chaplain and AFES Associate Staffworker.
He is strongly committed to the importance of theological education, good biblical preaching and student ministry as strategic priorities in the spread of the gospel and the building up of God's people.
Lindsay has been at Ridley since 1991, and regularly teaches at colleges in south and southeast Asia. Lindsay is married to Clarissa (who specialises in conflict mediation) and they have 3 adult children. He worships at St John's, West Brunswick.
Teaching Areas
Old Testament, Hebrew and Ethics.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer in New Testament and Research Associate
Mark's childhood was punctuated by family postings to Kenya and Papua New Guinea, experiences which contributed to his love of travel and cultural diversity. Canberra was his home base for university (where he studied Classics and Law) and a brief career in public policy, then in 2002 Mark and his wife Louise came to Melbourne to study at Bible College of Victoria. Mark was ordained as an Anglican minister in 2005 and served in local parishes in eastern Melbourne for three years. Mark and Louise then served with CMS in Indonesia from 2010-2015. Mark was a lecturer in New Testament at Aletheia Theological Seminary and was involved in training Indonesian pastors in biblical preaching through Langham Preaching.
Upon return to Melbourne in 2016, Mark commenced a PhD at Ridley focusing on missional hermeneutics in the letter to the Ephesians (completed in 2020). He led St John's Blackburn as interim minister for three years, exploring ways of renewing ministry and outreach. In 2019 he joined the ministry staff of St Alfred's Blackburn North. He currently leads the ministry at St Alfred's partner church, St Luke's Vermont.
Mark and Louise have two teenage boys.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Principal
- Deputy Principal: Academic, Chair, Postgraduate Research Studies
Michael grew up in Brisbane before joining the Army and serving as a paratrooper, intelligence operator, and then chaplain's assistant. It was during his time in the military that he came to faith from a non-Christian background, and soon after felt a call to ministry. He graduated with a BMin from Malyon College (2001) and Honours and PhD from the University of Queensland (2002, 2005). Michael taught New Testament at the Highland Theological College in Scotland (2005-9) before joining Brisbane School of Theology as lecturer in Theology (2010-12). He joined the faculty at Ridley as lecturer in Theology in 2013 and served as Academic Dean before taking on the Deputy Principal: Academic role in July 2023.
Michael describes himself as a "biblical theologian" who endeavours to bring together biblical studies and systematic theology. He believes that the purpose of the church is to "gospelize," that is to preach, promote, and practise the Gospel-story of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the author of over 30 books, including the award winning volumes The Gospel of Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus, Evangelical Theology, and with N.T. Wright, The New Testament in its World.
Michael is married to Naomi and they have four children.
Teaching Areas
New Testament, Systematic Theology, Research Methods
Job Titles:
- Dean of the Anglican Institute
- Dean, Anglican Institute
Rhys studied German at the Universities of Melbourne and Cologne, graduating with an MA, before commencing theological studies at Ridley where he gained his MTh on Austrian revivals of the eighteenth century.
Rhys joined the Faculty at Ridley in 2004, after working in both parish and student ministry. He was ordained priest in the Diocese of Melbourne in 1997, and has served on the ministry teams of both small and large Melbourne Anglican parishes, including Heidelberg and Carlton, as well as Prahran and Brimbank. His heart for student ministry began with involvement in the AFES while as an undergraduate, and continued as Anglican Chaplain amongst tertiary students at Latrobe University and then at the University of Melbourne while in parish ministry.
Teaching Areas
Church History and Theology and Christian Worship.
Leading students in the Anglican Institute seeking ordination, and to oversee the daily Chapel services.
Leading study tours to the sites of the German and Swiss Reformations.
Research Interests
Rhys's primary academic interest lies in the texts and teaching of Jonathan Edwards, the eighteenth-century leader of the Great Awakening in colonial North America. He has been on several occasions a Visiting Fellow in the Yale Divinity School, and leads the Jonathan Edwards Center for Australia, housed at Ridley, which sponsors the study of evangelical history and provides an international cohort of Edwards scholars as colleagues. Rhys counts among his other heroes Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Billy Graham. He also serves on the General Synod Liturgy Commission, the General Synod Doctrine Commission, and currently is a Canon at St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne. A besetting sin is to travel overseas to visit friends and sites of historical interest.
Hobbies & Interests
His commitment to mentoring means he drinks too much coffee, which leads him to dream of one day writing a book entitled The Best Book in the History of the World on Mentoring.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer in Christian Thought
Scott is a Ridley graduate and an ordained Anglican minister. He was brought up by missionary parents in Argentina and has wide-ranging ministry experience in several countries. His PhD is in Systematic Theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he was supervised by former Ridley Principal, Rev Dr Graham Cole, and worked as Dr Don Carson's Teaching and Research Assistant. Scott is also a former nurse and has written extensively on how we can relate psychological science and theology for the sake of human flourishing in our churches, including Dawn of Sunday: The Trinity and Trauma-Safe Churches, and God of All Comfort: A Trinitarian Response to the Horrors of this World.
Scott is a globally engaged scholar and a strong student mentor.
Along with teaching Theology, Church History, and Philosophy of religion, he also contributes to our online learning program.
Teaching Areas
Theology, early Christianity, philosophy of religion, mental health.
Research Interests
Scott is published and also regularly presents papers on topics such as early Christianity in Roman contexts, and philosophical responses to the problem of evil. He is currently working on The Cambridge Companion to the Apostolic Fathers (with Michael F. Bird) and The Relevant Trinity (forthcoming, Lexam Press).
Program Lead: Graduate Certificate of Professional Pastoral Supervision and Associate Dean, Anglican Institute
Job Titles:
- Library / Ridley Alumni Association
- Library Membership
Job Titles:
- Media Production Specialist
Job Titles:
- Management Accountant
- Chief Financial Officer, Ridley College
Job Titles:
- Finance Team / Chief Financial Officer
Job Titles:
- Administrative Assistant
- Receptionist
Job Titles:
- Partner Deloitte Touche Tomatsu
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Lecturer
- Assistant Faculty
Bec grew up in Melbourne, with a father who was an Anglican minister. Faith in God and knowing him in his word and through his people was important to her from a young age. After high school, she studied civil engineering, where she was involved as a student leader in Christian Union.
Bec worked as a structural engineer for over a decade. During this time she had three children, helped mentor students with CU, and was involved at church in children's ministry, youth ministry, Bible studies, preaching, mentoring, and pastoral care. She is on the leadership team at Hampton Park Baptist Church. Undertaking an MDiv at Ridley allowed her to explore her passion for learning and teaching, and has led to her appointment as Assistant Faculty while she undertakes a PhD.
Bec loves to help Christians understand more of who God is, and to grow in their understanding of his word and of good theology, so that they can love him, trust him, and worship him more.
Job Titles:
- Business Systems Analyst
- Finance
Job Titles:
- Admissions Officer
- Moodle Administrator
Job Titles:
- Marketing & Communications / Marketing Manager
Job Titles:
- Assistant Registrars
- Student Admissions Officer /
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Lecturer
- Associate Lecturer, Christian Thought
Hannah comes to Ridley most recently from studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where she obtained a Masters in Analytic and Exegetical Theology, and is currently completing doctoral studies in Theology.
Before the move with her family to Scotland, Hannah served as Assistant Curate at St. Michael's Anglican Church, North Carlton. She has a Bachelor of Arts with honours in Philosophy from Monash University, a Master of Divinity from Ridley College, and was ordained in the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne in 2015.
Growing up in the Anglican church in Melbourne, it was at a youth camp during high school that Hannah heard God's call to study theology and serve the church. Since then she has served in ministry in various churches across Melbourne, particularly with young adults, and with children and families. Hannah was involved in the establishment of the Ridley Women's Preaching Network, and currently serves as Director of Logia St Andrews, seeking to support and develop women students there.
Hannah is married to Tom, who trained as an economist and works as a consultant. They have two primary-aged children.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer in Professional Supervision
Len joined the Faculty at Ridley in 2008, after 12 years as a CMS missionary in Groote Eylandt and Hong Kong and 7 years as Principal of St Andrew's Hall, the CMS Australia Training College. Len trained at Ridley and was ordained in the Diocese of Perth in 1975. From 2018-2019 Len tough the Diploma of Ministry for Christian leaders and congregation members from recently arrived immigrant communities whose first language was not English.
Len is a Supervisor Member of the Australasian Association of Supervisors with experience in mission, church leadership, and cross-cultural theological education. Len has recently focussed on ministry supervision and coaching, lecturing in professional supervision since 2020.
Job Titles:
- Master of Divinity, Graduate Diploma of Divinity, Bachelor of Education