Pastor Chris Scripture Reference: Matthew 5:13-16

  CECIL COUNTY HEALTHY MARRIAGE INITIATIVE 10 GREAT DATES 48OO West Pulaski Highway, Perryville, Maryland(First Baptist Church, Perryville) Next date is February 18, 2011 at 6pm

  Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker says he is unconvinced by the theory of intelligent design. He argues, “Our own bodies are riddled with quirks no competent engineer would have planned,” such as “a retina installed backward”1 and “goose bumps that uselessly try to warm us by fluffing up long-gone fur.” What is more, Pinker adds, is that “the moral design of nature is as bungled as its engineering design. What twisted sadist would have invented a parasite that blinds millions of people or a gene that covers babies with excruciating blisters?” Consequently, Pinker concludes, there must be no “white-coated technician […]

  24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives all to mankind life and breath and everything . . . 29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. Acts 17:24-25, 29 (ESV)

  The First Baptist Church of Perryville will offer two days of prayer for north american missions on March 4 & 5.  Prayer guides will be available for your use.  The church will be open from 5-8 PM on Friday and 8 – 11 AM on Saturday.  Come when it is convenient.  Leave when you are finished.  Most people enjoy 30 or more minutes in prayer.    A prayer captain will be available at the door to answer any of your questions.

  In March 1848, the well-known Hartford pastor Horace Bushnell gained a remarkable honor: he received invitations to deliver prestigious theological addresses at New England’s most famous educational institutions: Andover Seminary, Harvard, and Yale. The three schools, long since engaged in pitched theological battles with each other, all derived their inheritance from Puritanism. But times had changed. Harvard had become Unitarian while Andover and Yale argued over who was the rightful heir to Jonathan Edwards’ Calvinist legacy. In his addresses to these disputants, Bushnell lectured his audiences with the following message: your doctrinal quarrels are unnecessary; it is time we […]

Pastor Chris Scripture references: Matthew 5:1-12; 4:17, 23-25; Luke 9:46

 Thomas Becon was chaplain to Thomas Cranmer in England during the Reformation. He studied under Hugh Latimer and went on to become one of the most influential English writers of his time on marriage, also translating the important works on the subject by the continental reformers Bullinger and Bucer. In this extract from his Booke of Matrimonie, he argues that marriage is the foundation of society (common weal), a school for righteous leaders.

  In America and Britain roughly half of all marriages end in divorce.1 While few pretend this is easy for the children, conventional wisdom holds that there is nothing worse for them than growing up amid marital discord; furthermore, if the divorce is reasonably amicable and the children stay in touch with both parents, the damage will be limited.2 However, according to a recent American survey, even the so-called “good divorces” typically result in psychological damage to the children, who experience more stress, loneliness, and inner confusion than those whose parents stayed married.