What we believe deeply impacts the way we live. For example, if I believe, like many, that all relatively decent people go to heaven, I’ll try to live a relatively decent life and vaguely hope it is good enough. On the other hand, if I believe that Jesus is the way,...
When you see and experience all that is happening in the world, what do you feel? War in Ukraine. Political fighting at home. Gun violence. Suffering and death. What do you feel? Angry? Sad? Disappointed? Hopeless? Reading the Psalms recently, I found a new word to...
Salvation starts with God. This is what Jesus says in John 6:44: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” When you read John in the original Greek, that word there that we translate as “draws,” everyplace else in the New Testament, and most...
In John 5:6 Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?” It is a great evangelism question because it prompts a bunch more like: · What does it mean to be “well?” · How do you define the “good life?” · Are you living it? · Is it marked by the Fruit of...
"What do you want?” Jesus asks this question of two disciples in John 1:38. It is an intriguing question coming from Jesus when we remember that He is God Almighty and able to do literally anything. So, what do you want from Jesus? Do you take the genie-in-the-bottle...
As many of you know, I’m very Socratic in my thinking and love questions, so when my friend and mentor Jim Singleton mentioned that there are six great “evangelism” questions in scripture, I took notes. One of these questions is in Genesis 3:9, where God asks Adam and...
It's summer-vacation season, but when it comes to our walk with Jesus, there's no such thing as time off. So, we want to help you stay connected even as you head out of town for a summer trip. Here are some ideas. Tune in to the First Pres livestream We livestream...
by Mary Duryea Why select Psalms, with 150 chapters, when there are 66 books to choose from, for a brief six-week study? That question echoed in my head as I kept coming back to the decision. It made much more sense to select a short book and do the whole thing....
Our community has suffered a great loss after an act of violence took the lives of a Bridgewater College police officer and a security officer. Today, we are praying this prayer as we mourn and lament. We awake today, Lord, wishing it was a bad dream. But the...
Raise your hand if you’ve played Wordle. Better yet, hit share and show us your squares. For those who haven’t gotten on board the global word craze, Wordle is an online word game that gives you six chances to guess a five letter word, with hints along the way about...