Jer 8:18-9:1
A sermon preached at Grace Baptist Church, Richmond VA 9/22/19
Category Archives: anger
A Time to Laugh, A Time to Cry
Sermon preached at Kilmarnock Baptist Church, Kilmarnock VA
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Sermon begins at 17:44
Wise Expenditure of Energy
“A fool expends all his [sic] energy, but a wise person keeps it in reserve” (Prov 29:11, my trans.)
To paraphrase the Bible: Experience teaches the aging and aged that some expenditures of energy simply do not merit the cost.
In January a few years ago, a colleague and I attended a conference in the Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida. We had made our flight arrangements separately, but ended up booked for the same return flight. I reached the airport first and went to the kiosk to print out my boarding pass. The kiosk computer informed me that I needed to consult a ticket Continue reading Wise Expenditure of Energy
Tireless Exertions
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. Eccl 1:4 RSV
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I was born in February of 1957, when the union still had only forty-eight states, three years after the US Supreme Court handed down the historic Brown v. Board of Education (347 U.S. 483), and just a few months before the first nine black students enrolled in Little Rock Arkansas schools implementing the ruling. Local sit-in campaigns began at a Woolworth Continue reading Tireless Exertions
What Now?
“For God did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of sound judgment” (2 Tim 1:7)
I went to vote first thing this morning on the way into the seminary for an early meeting. I cast my ballot. When I asked, the precinct workers reported that turnout was up somewhat over recent elections even at the early hour. I stuck my “I Voted” sticker on my lapel. I left. Continue reading What Now?
“Be Angry and Sin Not”
Eph 4:26 (Ps 4:5 [4])
My parents had a mixed marriage of sorts. My mother had Quaker and strict Methodist heritage; my father was (still is, he would say) a United States Marine. Mother taught me that I should avoid conflict, bear insult and injury with quiet grace, and, above all else, maintain control of my temper. In her view, anger was always and only as dangerous and Continue reading “Be Angry and Sin Not”