ONE SOLITARY LIFE from a sermon in 1926 by Dr. James Allan Francis speaking about Jesus Christ Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

  April 24th at 6:15 AM – Sunrise Service at Perryville Park (Directions: Take the road beside the Perryville Volunteer Fire House on Rt. 7 back through the woods.  Allow for extra minutes to reach the normal spot close to the point.)

  The case of Florida pastor Terry Jones presents Christians with an easy judgment but a difficult dilemma. This publicity-seeking pastor of a tiny congregation deserves to be condemned in every way for his act of putting the Qur’an “on trial” and for then burning a copy in a staged act of inflammatory showmanship. The judgment is the easy part. The difficult dimension of this is the fact that even our condemnation gives this pastor what he most desires — public attention.

Pastor John Scripture Reference: Matthew 25:31-46

 But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah. Jeremiah 23:14 (ESV)

 The Shepherd, written in the mid-second century, may very well have been the most popular book produced by the early Church. Within its pages, readers found guidance for holy living. Its author, Hermas, considered wealth a particularly dangerous stumbling block for Christians. He recorded a vision of angels building a church and casting out several round stones. When he asked what the round stones represented, his guide answered: “These are those who have faith indeed, but they also have the riches of the world . . . For as a round stone cannot become square unless portions be cut off […]

  In the early twentieth century less than 1% of all marriages in Britain ended in divorce, and, because of the expense involved, divorces were largely confined to the upper classes. By the 1920s, however, there was increased agitation in some sections of parliament and the press for easier and cheaper divorce laws. The prolific Christian writer, G. K. Chesterton replied to this in a series of articles, published in 1920 as a book, entitled The Superstition of Divorce, which, as this extract shows, pointed out that the advocates of easier divorce are as delusional as those who believe that […]

Pastor Chris Scripture Reference: Matthew 16:13-26

10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. 11 When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes? 12 Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep. Ecclesiastes 5:10-12 (ESV)

  With pet rabbits at his feet and a quill pen in hand,1 William Cowper (pronounced Cooper) once again turned praise to God into verse. The smell of smoke from John Newton’s pipe lingered in the tiny shed, which Cowper had dubbed his Sulking Room. Soon, Newton would again traverse the so-called Guinea Field, which lay between their homes,2 for yet another smoking session, a pot of tea, and a meeting of the minds.