Pastor Tom's Community

The gospel writers called the message of repentance, “good news,” not so much because we must, but also because WE CAN. What then is the core of the message when the contrast is so profound between repentance and death? And what makes it good news?

God … can be trusted to do the right thing and to win!

  "And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again."  

  "Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph." This is going to happen. Joseph has his time. We have our times. He did his job. He elevated his people and all the people.He was well known and respected and he made a major contribution to the world. Then, he…

  What a horror to think that the converse could happen. "Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,O Lord GOD of hosts;let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me,O God of Israel."

  Yesterday was April Fool's Day. That was only part of the story. There is a negative side of foolishness and there are many references to moral foolery in the book of Proverbs. There is also the paradoxical embrace of the accusation of being a fool that we own for ourselves in Paul's writings. We…

Thursday “I have set the Lord always before me.  Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”   – Psalm 16:8 First, consider this: praise and flattery met Jesus upon His entry into the Holy City.  “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord,” they cried and most likely…

Posted Saturday night, the call continues into Sunday and Monday. Incarnational embodiment of the missional cross-call of Jesus requires a movement through the laments of Saturday and a daily dying to again take up the cross of the burdens of suffering humanity.   There is no room for an ethic of self-preservation and self-satisfaction at…

"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." – Philippians 3:10-11 “That I may know Him!” Those words ring out through the centuries and sink deeply into…