A sermon preached at Southminster’s Sabbath Service on November 22, 2014 Ruth 1:1-19 Tonight we are at the end of a church year. Each liturgical year starts with the first Sunday of Advent, so this is New Year’s Eve for church. A time to pause and reflect on the year that has been and a…
Judges 2:6-12, 16-19 A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho November 16, 2014 In our Year of the Bible readings, you won’t read the Book of Judges until Advent, so I’m preaching it a little early. But I wanted us to spend some time with this book. Judges helps us see a…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho on November 2, 2014. 1 John 3:1-3 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved,…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian in Boise, ID on October 25, 2014. Deut 34 This weekend is when we remember the Protestant Reformation. Almost 500 years ago, Martin Luther posted some complaints about the medieval church on Twitter. No, on his Facebook page. No, that’s not quite right either. He wrote them down on…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho October 12, 2014 Matthew 22:1-14 Our passage today is a continuation of Jesus’ answering questions about his authority. “When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are…
Isaiah 5:1-7 Matthew 21:33-46 A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian on October 5, 2014 In the mid 8th century BCE, it was a lousy time to be an Israelite. The kingdom has been divided into Northern and Southern factions. Neither of them is militarily strong enough to defend themselves from the Assyrians. The Assyrians had…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho Sept 21, 2014 Matthew 20:1-16 Before we look at what this parable might possibly mean for us today, I’d like to take a few minutes first and consider what it tells us about the economic reality of Jesus’ day. There are people standing idle, desperate…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho September 7, 2014 Matt 18:15-22 The word that is translated as “church” in this passage is the word “ecclesia”, which means “called out of”. It was a term from Greek politics. It was the name of the assembly of citizens who came together to vote…
A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho Aug 24, 2014 Exodus 1:8–2:10 Romans 12:1-8 I wonder if Pharaoh ever had second thoughts about killing the Hebrew peoples’ boy babies instead of their girl babies. Because if you read this story, the men aren’t much of a problem to Pharaoh. They are slaves.…
A sermon preached at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho on Aug 17, 2014 Genesis 12:1-9 2 Corinthians 5: 1-7, 16-21 I prayed long and hard about which text to read this morning. And I kept returning to the story of Abram. This text is from the early narrative of our ancestors. He’ll go on…
Glass Overflowing 