Church Blog (Page 14)

Today is Halloween. In the US and many other countries, we associate that with a number of traditions: dressing up in costumes, going from house to house trick-or-treating, terrifying, uncanny things like ghosts and vampires. Some have accordingly objected to celebrating Halloween as wicked. Where did this holiday come from, anyway? To answer that, we need to understand that the day after is a holiday too: All Saints’ Day. This is a day set aside in the Roman Catholic Church…

John Fawcett was an 18th century British preacher, theologian, and hymn writer. He was born in Lidget Green, Yorkshire in 1739 to impoverished parents; by the age of 12, he was an orphan. He was then apprenticed to a tailor in the city of Bradford, where he worked long, hard hours. But in his spare time, he learned to read, eventually completing John Bunyan’s devotional classic Pilgrim’s Progress. A short time later, at 16 years old, he was alongside about…

For the past several months, we have been considering how to make moral choices on Wednesday evenings. Recently, we began discussing sexual ethics. There are few, if any, areas of culture that have experienced more rapid and dramatic change in recent years; there are few, if any, subjects that we are more uncomfortable addressing. (I suspect the title of this article alone caused a few raised eyebrows!) But the Bible far from embarrassed in tackling these issues. That should help…

This morning, we will conclude our study of the Gospel of Mark by looking at the resurrection narrative in Mark 16:1-8. Our focus will be on the meaning of the resurrection in the story rather than on the historical reality of the event. But its significance assumes as a given that it really did occur; the way that Mark and other writers speak about the resurrection will not let us get off the hook with metaphorical explanations that are popular…

In our sermon this morning, we will look at the burial of Jesus. Mark records that a number of women had followed Jesus from Galilee and were present at his death, and he names three specifically: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome (Mark 15:40-41). The two Marys see where he is buried (v. 47). And then all three of them go to anoint Jesus’ body on Sunday morning and find the tomb empty (16:1-8). They…

The first line of Psalm 22 is the only word spoken by Jesus from the cross in Mark’s Gospel (Mark 15:34). On the one hand, it is a lament out of the depths of despair, expressing the abandonment that Jesus felt on the cross; he identified with the sense of alienation the psalmist experienced. On the other hand, we should note that this psalm ends with vindication and restoration: the cry of distress is motivated by the confidence that God—my…

Alexander Campbell’s Address on War  In our Wednesday evening class on Christian ethics, we have spent the last couple of weeks looking at the issue of war and violence more generally. It comes as a surprise to most people to learn that, historically, there was a strong pacifist current of thought in churches of Christ up until the World Wars. More specifically, nearly all of the first generation of leaders in the Restoration Movement—including both Barton W. Stone and Alexander…

Our contemporary culture has a real problem with truth. The premodern view was that all knowledge was an attempt to seek after God; the 11th century theologian Anselm’s motto, “faith seeking understanding,’ sums up the idea well. Then the Enlightenment came and displaced God as irrelevant to our knowledge: human inquiry for the 300 or so years leading to World War 2 was focused upon an ever-increasing discovery of facts, rooted in an unbridled optimism that we could objectively define…

In our Wednesday night Bible study this past week, we talked about civil disobedience. With so much recent talk about mask mandates and vaccine passports—or state laws prohibiting such measures—and the strong feelings they stir in many people, this is a timely question. And that is just one current example; this is an issue that is felt even more keenly by Christians under oppressive regimes, like those now facing the prospect of persecution in Afghanistan. What guidance does Scripture offer…

We have been studying Christian ethics on Wednesday evenings for several weeks now, with an emphasis on how we can make moral choices when faced with dilemmas in life. Last week, we talked about capital punishment. In discussing the possibility of repentance and reformation of life, I mentioned how the case of Clyde Thompson had strongly influenced my views on the subject. I told his story in a Sunday night sermon some years ago, but it occurred to me afterward…

I published this in the bulletin here before, a little over 3 years ago. But in thinking about our call for Bible class teachers (and Bible class attendance!), it came to my mind again. Of course, it goes beyond just Bible class—with restarting our Wednesday evening services this summer, our new Sunday night routine, and numerous other opportunities for service as we try to reengage after an unusual last 18 months, there are constant announcements made and items in the…

Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived in the city-state of Athens in the 5th century B.C. Most of what we know about him is due to the writings of his most famous student, Plato. In the Apology, an account of Socrates’s defense against charges of corrupting the Athenian youth, Plato records how Socrates acquired his reputation for wisdom in the first place. As the story goes, one day a friend of Socrates inquired of the Oracle at Delphi if…