Tri-Annual Singing!
June 20, 2026
7:00pm - 8:30pm
An Exegesis of 1 Corinthians 7:10-11
In the first verse of 1 Corinthians 7, the apostle Paul began a discussion of questions asked him by the Corinthian Christians. “Now concerning the things of which you wrote me…” While the Corinthians no doubt had an exact knowledge of those questions, we do not. It is important that we deal carefully with the text of this chapter. The exegesis is a difficult one, and brethren have struggled with the passage for many years.
After discussing some general principles concerning the sexual aspect and obligations of marriage in the first seven verses, the apostle answered certain questions concerning special groups in verses 8-16. First, the unmarried, in verses 8 and 9 were given the advice to remain unmarried during the “present distress” (cf. vs. 26), unless their passion precluded such a celibate state.
Sermon: We Need Some Fire!
Sermon Title: We Need Some Fire!
The figure of fire is used on several occasions in the Bible, and a discussion of this figure is helpful in many areas of the Christian walk.
Sermon PowerPoint: Click Here.
Sermon Audio: Click Here.
Sermon: The Church of Apathy
Sermon Title: The Church of Apathy
Apathy is defined, and means of overcoming apathy are revealed in this lesson.
Sermon Powerpoint: Click Here.
Sermon Audio: Click Here.
An Exegesis of Luke 18:28-30
This section of scripture in Luke 18 recounts a conversation recorded by the physician between Jesus and his disciples. The exchange is also recorded by Matthew (chapter 19), and Mark (chapter 10).
The conversation immediately followed Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man desiring to know, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life” (vs. 18). When Jesus revealed his covetousness (putting his riches before service to God), the young man went away sorrowful. Jesus told his disciples that it was extremely difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, but “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God” (vs. 27). What is obviously established in this teaching is that nothing can come before God in our lives. This elicited a response from Peter contained in the text under consideration:
“Cruci-Fixin’s”
Muslims throughout the world are outraged at a set of cartoons published by a Danish newspaper (and later republished by a Norwegian paper), which depict the “prophet” Muhammad. As a general rule, the Muslim belief states that no images of Muhammad, or any other prophet, should be made. This is to help avoid idolatry. However, they were further outraged by the fact that Muhammad was demeaned in several of the cartoons; including one that showed Muhammad with a bomb for a turban. This outrage has ranged from silent discontent to the firebombing of Scandinavian embassies.
“Unity Events”
The way Wade Hodges sees it, a cappella churches of Christ and instrumental Christian Churches share too much in common not to treat each other like family.
But in Truitt Adair’s view, any attempt at unity that does not include an “honest discussion of the things that divide us” risks creating more division than reconciliation.
Such are the disparate views among church leaders 100 years after a 1906 federal religious census first reported the a cappella and instrumental churches as separate bodies…
An Exegesis of Matthew 19:1-9
The first nine verses of Matthew 19 make up as disputed a passage of scripture as any in our time. It is interesting to note that the conversation contained in the passage, a discourse between Jesus and some Pharisees who sought to “test” him, was likewise an outgrowth of great dispute among the Jews of that day.
There were two major schools of thought concerning divorce in the first century. One group, following the teaching of a rabbi named Hillel, contended that the law, (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), allowed a man to divorce his wife for any offense at all. The other main group, led by the teaching of a rabbi named Shammai, maintained (as reported by Albert Barnes in his commentary, page 194) “divorce was unlawful except in case of adultery.”
The Pharisees knew that whichever position Jesus took would bring objections from the “other” group. So, they asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” (vs. 3).
Seahawks Gospel Takes Hold
First, praise the Lord. Then, “Go Seahawks!”
After morning services Sunday, many South Sound churches will throw huge Super Bowl parties.
They’ll show the game on mammoth projection televisions normally used for worship lyrics. They’ll eat pizza and drink soda pop. And they’ll shout for the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL.
Some congregations are even shifting or canceling Sunday night services to accommodate the home team’s first appearance in the Super Bowl.
Sacrilege on the Sabbath? Not so, pastors say. The Super Bowl is a chance for churches to reach out to nonmembers and members consumed by the Seahawks, they say.
An Exegesis of Matthew 5:31-32
The fifth through the seventh chapters of Matthew provide a record of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” in Galilee, early on in His ministry.
Jesus spoke on numerous subjects, establishing His will for mankind. Again and again He said, “I say unto you.” As such, His teaching on these matters is to be studied carefully.
After discussing the sins of adultery and lust, Jesus taught, “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery” (5:31-32). In this passage, Jesus preempted the teaching of the law in establishing his own will.
Bush Presses Alito Nomination
President Bush gave Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito a broadcast boost Saturday, calling for a simple up-or-down Senate confirmation vote despite a blocking effort by some Democrats.
A final vote on whether to make the conservative federal appellate judge the nation’s 110th Supreme Court justice is scheduled for Tuesday unless opponents win an uphill battle to impose a filibuster.
“The Senate has a constitutional responsibility to hold an up-or-down vote on Judge Alito’s nomination,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “Throughout its 216-year history, the Senate has held an up-or-down vote on every Supreme Court nominee with majority Senate support.”
The president spoke as liberals led by Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, D-Mass., worked to deprive supporters of the 60 votes needed to limit debate. They faced resistance from some fellow Democrats as well as solid Republican opposition to the stalling tactic.
Alito, a former federal prosecutor and Reagan administration lawyer, would replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She is the court’s first female justice and the swing vote on several 5-4 rulings that maintained abortion rights, preserved affirmative action and limited the application of the death penalty.
Washington AP
USAToday.com
Analysis:
Those who have been following the confirmation hearings for the President’s nomination to the Supreme Court are aware that opponents to Judge Alito’s confirmation are most concerned with his views on abortion.
Pro-abortion advocates are afraid that the Supreme Court’s Roe V Wade decision of 1973, granting women the right to abortion, may be revisited by a more conservative court in the future. They wanted Alito on record saying that the decision is “settled law”, to pressure him to uphold the spirit of the decision as other cases are presented to the court. To his credit, Alito refused to do so, and it looks like his confirmation is imminent.
The departure of the senate from the traditional decorum and bipartisanship of previous confirmations shows just how important this is to pro-abortion advocates. Abortion rights remains a litmus test for many in America, even today.
The Bible clearly reveals that abortion is sinful, as it affirms that a fetus is human life. Here the words of the Psalmist, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well” (Psalm 139:13-14).
‘Brokeback Mountain’ Receives
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – “Brokeback Mountain” is moseying along the Academy Awards trail, its four Golden Globe wins – best drama among them – positioning the cowboy love story for Oscar glory.
Homosexual and transsexual themes dominated Monday’s Golden Globes with the key wins by “Brokeback Mountain,” plus acting honors for the film biography “Capote” and the gender-bending “Transamerica.”…
…The four Globes for “Brokeback Mountain,” the story of old ranch-hand buddies who conceal an ongoing homosexual affair from their families, included the directing award for Ang Lee.
The fact that “Brokeback Mountain” has found eager audiences across the country, including the conservative heartland, shows that Americans are willing to embrace stories of love in all forms, Lee said.
Strong Drink
“Wine is a mocker, Strong drink is a brawler, And whoever is led astray by it is not wise”
~ Proverbs 20:1
We live in a time where social drinking is considered acceptable by the worldly, and is even championed by some in the Lord’s church. There has been much said and written about the words used for wine in both the Hebrew and Greek language, but I have read little about the phrase “strong drink” found several times in the Old Testament, and once (with regard to John the Baptist) in the New Testament, in Luke (1:15).
The Hebrew word shekar, is found 24 times in the Old Testament (according to Strong’s Concordance), and is translated “strong drink” (22 times), “strong wine” (1 time), and “drunkards” (1 time). The word is defined by Genesius in his Hebrew Dictionary as “strong drink, intoxicating liquor, whether wine or intoxicating liquor like wine made from barley, or distilled from honey or dates.” Strong defines the term as “an intoxicant; i.e. intensely alcoholic liquor.
The root from which the term shekar derives, (shakar), means “to become tipsy; to be filled with drink abundantly; to become drunk” (Strong’s); and it shares it’s root with Hebrew terms shikkerown, the name of a town in Palestine which literally means drunkenness, and shikkarown, translated drunkenness.
‘God’ Isn’t Only Source of Morality
OSAMA BIN LADEN’S quotation that “Islam is the only source of the rulings and laws” (editorial, Jan. 4) is frightening in its total rejection of the principle of separation of church and state. But we should not forget that his ideology is founded on the belief, which is central to most all deistic religions, that “God” is the only true source of morality and moral behavior.
That erroneous idea is a potentially dangerous source of rigidity and absolutism in moral thinking and behavior, and readily leads to efforts to impose one’s own group’s “true” morality on others, or to regard the “infidel other” as not worthy of the beneficence of that morality.
As is all too obvious these days, wars are fought under the self-righteous and self-justifying conviction that “God is on our side.”
The rational, secular view of morality is that it is generated only in human minds and is shaped over time in the real world by negotiating competing needs and shared benefits. There is no “Big Daddy” or “Big Mommy” up there, or out there, to tell us how to behave, or to punish us with natural disasters if we go astray. There is, however, good reason to believe that, along with murderous aggressivity, some fundamental altruistic urges have been built into the human genome by Darwinian evolution.
Given a framework of secular civil laws and enforcement, human compassion, conscience, and “the Golden Rule” of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” will take us a good long way.
RICHARD H. WOLFF
The Boston Globe
Analysis:
The Preceding opinion piece which appeared in the Boston Globe on January 10, proclaims the typical secularist attitude toward morality.
Comet Mission Returns Home
Faster than a speeding bullet — actually, more than 10 times faster than a speeding bullet, Stardust will conclude its 7-year, 4.63 billion kilometer (2.88 billion mile) round-trip journey to comet Wild 2 Sunday, January 15, Pacific Standard Time (PST), making an historic re-entry in the wee morning hours to drop its precious comet cargo in the Utah desert well before dawn…
…”We are star stuff.”
Carl Sagan liked to remind people of that. Now, just a little more than a decade after the passing of The Planetary Society co-founder, Stardust is coming home with a bona fide sample of star stuff and the concept is being revisited in a very real way.
The “Shall Nots” Of John
One of the primary motivations to become a Christian is the reception of myriad spiritual blessings when one has that relationship with God and His Son. We speak of the hope of eternal life, the forgiveness of sins, the peace which passes understanding, the fellowship of God’s people, and heaven, the place of eternal rest and happiness.
While such positive motivations lead us to obedience to the gospel, and zeal in the Christian walk, there are other equally valid reasons to be a child of God. Some of these could be grouped into the category of “What We Escape” because of our faith. Notice a few of these things, as found in the gospel of John.
