Letter from the Pastor

          All of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments. We have heard about them all our lives. Many of us could recite most of them from memory. They are the moral and ethical foundation upon which our society is based. Without them, it would be impossible for people to live together in peace and harmony.  But there is another set of laws that are even more basic than the Ten Commandments. We could call these the “Twin Commandments”.          The first is a quotation from the book Deuteronomy in the Old Testament: […]

            For all of us, life can be and should be an exciting experience.  It does not have to be dull, drab, or boring.  When I say this I am, of course, not speaking in absolutes.  None of us would expect, or even want, continuous excitement.            Nevertheless, all of us, saint or sinner alike, do live for those times and places when life is exciting.  And we more or less endure that which lies in between.  In this we are all the same.  The difference between us is found in the ways and means […]

          One of the pet words of our day is tolerance.  It is a good word, but we have tried to stretch it over too great an area of life.  Sometimes we have  applied it too often where it does not belong.            Tolerance, in one sense, implies the compromise at times of one’s convictions, a yielding of ground upon important issues.  Hence, over-tolerance in moral issues has made us soft, and could leave us devoid of conviction.         We have become tolerant about the use of drugs or alcohol; we have become […]

          Would you agree that most people have a rather casual concept of forgiveness?  Many tend to view it somewhat the same way as a police officer tearing up a traffic ticket or a judge saying: “Case dismissed.”            And yet with Jesus, forgiveness is never shallow and inconsequential.  Calvary can be understood only in terms of Jesus’ concern for us and for what sin does to us, and the suffering and sorrow it causes in our lives and in the lives of others.           It may be less painful to close […]

        In recent times there are a great deal of news centers on the Middle East.  As we all know in the year 70 AD, the Roman legions, under the leadership of Titus, put down a Jewish rebellion, over ran the city of Jerusalem, and scattered its inhabitants to the four winds.  At that point, for all practical purposes there was no longer a nation of Israel.  The Jews had no homeland.  This dispersion continued for one thousand, eight hundred, seventy-eight years.          In 1948, the modern nation of Israel was established with Tel […]