Pastor Tom's Journal

 We Are All Getting Older and, Hopefully, Wiser.  That includes both spiritual and moral maturity. That involves an evolving understanding of ethics and how we apply the Bible to evolving social circumstances and questions of behavior in this world.  It is always general and it is always personal.  How Do We Know What Is Right?  We have to walk through it, and work through it. Paul the Aged teaches us 1. The lessons we learn and keep learning. 2. The living we lean into to learn. 3. The law of love that informs it all  Philemon New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition   Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To our beloved coworker Philemon, to our sister Apphia, to our fellow soldier Archippus, and to the church in your house:   Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always when I mention you in my prayers, because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward th...

  Order: https://amzn.to/4gTyIWP Download The-Complete-Works-of-Oswald-Chambers Oswald Chambers Scottish teacher "Oswald Chambers was born to devout parents in Aberdeen, Scotland. At age 16, Oswald Chambers was baptized and became a member of Rye Lane Baptist Chapel. Even as a teenager, Chambers was noted for his deep spirituality, and he participated in the evangelization of poor occupants of local lodging houses. Oswald married Gertrude in May 1910, and on May 24, 1913, Gertrude gave birth to their only child, Kathleen. In 1915, a year after the outbreak of World War I, Chambers was accepted as a YMCA chaplain. He was assigned to Zeitoun, Cairo, Egypt, where he ministered to Australian and New Zealand troops, who later participated in the Battle of Gallipoli. Soon his wooden-framed "hut" was packed with hundreds of soldiers listening attentively to his messages. Confronted by a soldier who said, "I can't stand religious people," Chambers replied, "Ne...

Jesus is the master of contradiction. To the one who skims the surface of superficial consideration, he is a contradiction within himself. To those whose only lenses on God is a moralistic and vindictive vision, he contradicts God. To those rooted in the rat race of winning at all costs, his approach contradicts reality. Yet, he keeps showing up. The paradoxical truths contained in his life and words are our only possibility of any unity of thinking. "You can accept Jesus, you can reject Jesus, but you cannot reasonably ignore him." - M. Scott Peck Those words by M. Scott Peck resonate in so many ways. At the same time, Jesus himself leaves us with what seem to be conflicting messages. They either knock us off balance or jerks us about with such definition that they restore the balance we never had. I tend to go with the second possibility. For instance: "Judge not." How do you reconcile Jesus' persistent call to repentance with the rather blatant command not to...