John Newton penned the now familiar line – “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!” Newton knew the depths of wretchedness. In his youth, he had gone to sea and over time became a captain,… Continue reading

At a meeting I attended this week, we spent the first hour in politeness. It was like a carefully choreographed dance of formal introductions, following the agenda, shielding ourselves. Then, as we became better acquainted, the room thawed. People expressed… Continue reading

Reading Numbers for our study group has made me wonder a few times, ‘what’s that all about?’ One of the more strange (at least to my modern mind) passages has to do with suspicion of marital unfaithfulness. In the 5th… Continue reading

A Christian man once said to me, “Pastor, I dread the Summer time. Women show so much more skin and lust overtakes me!” I did appreciate his honesty, but also realized he had no idea that he could actually begin… Continue reading

I stood on the edge of the little knot of younger men, not really in the conversation, just listening to them talk. They boasted about their golf scores, comparing skills and experiences on this course or that one. They talked… Continue reading

Yesterday’s headline blared – “Priest accused of stealing $600K over 4 years.” Today’s says, “Priest says ill-gotten money went to school.” Father Bob, to all accounts, is a great guy, with a big heart, who wanted to have a parochial… Continue reading

A Better Way Our Bible study group is doing a year-long survey of the Bible. The goal is to step back to see the Bible as a unified revelation of God, to understand the themes of entire books, rather than… Continue reading

Jim McGreevy, former Governor of NJ, appeared on Oprah yesterday to promote his new book about his sordid, sorry, selfish life. He was working hard convince the TV audience that he was some kind of victim. The truth is that… Continue reading

Human beings easily ‘see’ the world through lens distorted by pre-conceptions and assumptions. We all do it! Friedman, in his insightful book, The World is Flat, (Farrar, 2005) writes about the radical Muslim clerics in the Middle East who hate… Continue reading

60 Minutes ran a story about Bill Romanowski, the NFL linebacker who played mean, vicious football for 16 seasons with four different teams. Romo was not a nice man and for a long time was proud of that fact. He… Continue reading