In our first sermon on Genesis we said that the Bible is not a science book. We cannot expect the biblical writers to see creation as science understands the universe today. Ancient people basically understood the world as it appears. For example, it looks like the sun goes around the… Continue reading
During the Great Depression and World War II, the U. S. government had a program designed to teach farmers and households more efficient and productive ways of farming and gardening. Most of the population back then was rural, and the survival of many families depended on their ability to produce… Continue reading
(This sermon was delivered on a July 4. I took this opportunity to talk about a greater freedom than what we cherish in our country. The freedom we have in Christ is paradoxical. A paradox is something which on the surface seems to be a contradiction, but on deeper reflection… Continue reading
These words from Genesis are very familiar to us. They have been read from outer space by astronauts as they circled the earth. Perhaps these words are too familiar. When anything is too familiar, we have a tendency to take it for granted. It ceases to amaze us. Scholars tell… Continue reading
(26 minutes) Go into any “Christian” bookstore and you will find many books on the “end times” and the “last things”—books on the Rapture, heaven and hell, the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and Armageddon as well as books with charts predicting the order and nature of what will come… Continue reading
Few passages in Scripture trouble Western contemporary Christians more than these verses from the Book of Acts. On the one side we have those who insist that the pattern found here (where everything is held in common) must be the practice of the faithful church—a sort of spiritual communism. Anything… Continue reading
(This is a Fathers’ Day sermon I preached years ago. What I remember most about this sermon was the response of men of all ages. Some wept. Others deeply pondered their lives. Some men reflected on their own experience as a father while others began to look at their fathers… Continue reading
If you had been one of the Gospel writers, how would you have ended your Gospel? Mark ends his Gospel with the women running from an empty tomb and from the announcement that Jesus has been raised from the dead. “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for… Continue reading
Introduction to the “First Things”: Genesis, Ancient Near Eastern Traditions, and Historical Context The opening chapters of Genesis raise a lot of questions for many people. How do we square the earth being made in 6 days with what we now know about the age and progression of the universe?… Continue reading
Introduction to the “First Things”: Genesis and Science For centuries the opening chapters of Genesis have provided a battleground on which the church and science have viciously fought. There was a time when the church persecuted those who believed that the earth circled the sun. The church, based on teachings… Continue reading
