If you ask a group of children a question in Sunday School and no one knows the answer, there is a 75% chance that someone will holler out ‘Jesus’, certain there’s at least a decent chance that Jesus isn’t the entirely wrong answer, even if it isn’t exactly what the...

The time has come for me to measure the cultural sophistication of my new congregation. I think I can do it with a simple question. Here it is: “How many of you know Michael Scott?” Raise your hand. For those of you who sit in the land of cultural darkness and do not...

Good News for All Peopleby: Dr. Mike Ruffin (guest preacher) God sent Jesus to Israel. It would have been easy for the early Jewish Christians to conclude from that fact that God had sent Jesus only to Israel. After all, Jesus had pretty much confined his ministry to...

The irony is, the one to whom God first tried to give the Immanuel gift didn’t want it! It was a gift meant for Ahaz, the king of Judah -- albeit a craven and corrupt king -- but God sent him the prophet Isaiah at a time when this king happened to be worried. Ahaz had...

Most of you know that in the great movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey’s Uncle Billy, his erratic, absent-minded, often tipsy assistant, misplaces $8,000 in the lap of their family nemesis, Henry Potter, as cruel, mean, avaricious and hard-hearted a villain as...