Category Archives: Uncategorized

Backstory

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Every story has a backstory — even the ones you think you know.  Few stories are more familiar, even to those who haven’t read the Bible, than the story of Noah’s Ark.  But even this story has a backstory.  Noah stands alone against evil on the brink of a cataclysmic disaster.  With only the help of his family, he enacts a plan to save the world.  Yet the plot of the story is not about Noah at all, but about one was was yet to come, who would save the world from an even worse catastrophe.

This week we continue our conversations from the Book of Beginnings by discussing the second part of Genesis 6, God’s command to Noah to build and ark as a refuge for his family and a remnant of creation from the inevitable results of a world spiraling downward in violence and evil.  The call of Noah, however, points us to the need for a refuge from the same thing — a refuge found not in an ark, but in a cross.

Join us this week in worship at Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church as we consider the story behind the story of Noah’s Ark. Worship begins at 10:45 am.  For directions click here. We look forward to seeing you.

Hybridization

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Just as the hybridization of certain species of animals and plants produces sterility, spiritually hybridized relationships can also produce spiritual fruitlessness.  The Apostle Paul cautions us.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 1 Corinthians 6:14

We encounter a ready illustration of this warning in the opening chapters of the Bible.  The Bible is one of the oldest books in the world and in Genesis, its Book of Beginnings, it speaks of the world’s first superheroes — hybrid men of storied origins whose power was great, but not great enough to save them from their nemesis – themselves.   By pursuing spiritually mismatched relationships these “fallen ones” sought to transcend their relational brokenness with God and ended up becoming more profoundly fallen.

This week we continue our examination of Genesis by discussing the first part of Genesis 6, the account of the sons of God and the daughters of man.  Join us this week in worship at Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church as we consider the centrality of the gospel in all of our relationships. Worship begins at 10:45 am.  For directions click here. We look forward to seeing you.

Family Tradition

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What legacy will you leave for your family? And what mark will your family make upon the world as it unfolds into history?   Genealogy, the study of our generations, is often more about where our family is going than where it started.  Where is your family going? What will be its legacy?

This week we continue our conversations from the Book of Beginnings by discussing Genesis 5, the generations of Adam.  Join us this week in worship at Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church as we consider the issue of family legacy from the world’s first family. Worship begins at 10:45 am.  For directions click here. We look forward to seeing you.

The Hard Way

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The most expensive education available today is a degree from the School of Hard Knocks.  How many times have you had to learn things the Hard Way — ignoring wise counsel, ignoring a life-giving rebuke, ignoring self-reflection, rejecting authority, just because it is authority — discovering for yourself what a wise ancient King once noted, that “the way of transgressors is hard.”

Join us this week in worship at Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church on the square in Pottsville as we examine the Book of Beginnings in Genesis 4 to consider the troubling story of Cain and Abel.   As we reflect on what this story says to us today,  we will consider what it shows us about the impact of our own choices.   Worship begins at 10:45 am.  For directions click here. We look forward to seeing you.

 

What’s Wrong with Everybody

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Have you ever thought, “What is wrong with everybody?”  Some, if not most days, we see the news or check our news feed and shake our heads, asking this question.  The  world seems turned upside down and out of control.  But the more we consider history and observe our own times, the more we realize that our problem is not a new problem. A wise ancient teacher and king once said.

What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done,
    and there is nothing new under the sun.

This week we continue our look at the Book of Beginnings from Genesis 3.   There we find both the answer to the question, “what is wrong with everybody” and the solution to the problem posed by the answer.

Join us this week in worship at Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church on the square in Pottsville as we examine the Book of Beginnings, Genesis 3, to consider what is wrong with everybody and what God is doing about it.   Worship begins at 10:45 am.  For directions click here. We look forward to seeing you.

Identity Crisis

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We are a society with an identity crisis, because we are made up of individuals undergoing identity crises.  In this age of fluid gender identity, racial self-identity and multi-cultural confusion, Plato’s maxim, “Know Thyself” has become a virtual uncertainty.   Who are you?  Do you know?  Is it even possible to know?  Or will we answer this question with the cynicism of Pontius Pilate who replied to Jesus statement about truth with despondency, saying “What is truth?”

Contrary to the cultural assumption of identity agnosticism, the Bible declares that in order to know ourselves, we must know God and in knowing Him we will discover ourselves.  An ancient pastor, John Calvin once quipped.

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be discerned true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.  But as these two are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.”

Often you will hear people speak of “finding themselves.”  And how do they do that?  They seek wisdom and experience.  But can that be trusted?  The Bible, from its very beginning, answers this most basic of existential questions.   We are made in the image of God.  That is who we are.  But just what does that mean?

Join us this week in worship at Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church on the square in Pottsville as we examine the Book of Beginnings, Genesis 1, to consider what it means to be made in the image of God.   Worship begins at 10:45 am.  For directions click here. We look forward to seeing you.

The Lynchpin

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The BBC recently reported that 25% of Christians surveyed did not believe in the Resurrection.   This is not a new problem in the Church – but it is a problem.  The Apostle Paul addressed this same problem in the ancient Corinthian Church.  To that church he wrote.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.     1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Note what Paul says, “in fact Christ has been raised.”  But is the Resurrection a verifiable historical fact?   Or is it is just a wishful Christian myth or fairy tale, as skeptics claim?   The women who were the first witnesses of the empty tomb and the angel’s proclamation of the resurrection were astonished!  Likewise when confronted by the truth and significance of the resurrection we ought rightly be astonished.  The resurrection is hard to believe and conceive, yet it is the lynch-pin of our faith.

Join us this week in worship at Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church on the square in Pottsville as we examine these two astonishing facts: the truth of the resurrection and the significance of it for our faith.   Worship begins at 10:45 am.  For directions click here. We look forward to seeing you.

A Service of Readings and Hymns

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“What thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinner’s gain; mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.  Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ‘Tis I deserve thy place; look on me with thy favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace”  Bernard of Clairvaux

Join us this Good Friday, April 14, 2017 at 7:00pm at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Russellville for a joint Service of Readings and Hymns.  For directions, click here.  For more information email us at pottsvillearp@gmail.com.

He Saved Others, Himself He Cannot Save!

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One difficulty in theology is the creation of categories which are too neat and tightly defined.  Theologians often speak of the obedience of Christ in terms of His active obedience and His passive obedience.   We must guard, however, against relegating any particular aspect or action in the life of Christ  to one category or the other since His active and passive obedience are often exhibited simultaneously.  The trial and crucifixion of Jesus offer prime examples of this.

Jesus is a sacrificial victim, but not a hapless victim.  He is not victimized in His trial and crucifixion.  He lays His life down of his own accord and takes it up again.  No man takes it from Him.  At every moment during the trial and crucifixion Jesus actively obeys the will of the Father.  With every twist and turn of the action, Satan finds an opportune time to say to Jesus, “if you are the Son of God then….”  With unbelievable resolve, Jesus exerts His active obedience in the midst of the most intense temptation imaginable.   He, who spoke with authority and whose razor sharp wit had untied all of the Gordian knots thrown at Him on the Tuesday of this passion week, had the power to undo the schemes of Pilate and the Sanhedrin with the powerful and effective Word of God.  He had the power to come off the cross and destroy his taunters.  He had the power over every creaturely element that held Him there on the cross.  Yet, in the midst of passive obedience as a sacrificial victim, He obeyed actively at every nano-second to triumph over powers and principalities and disarm the powers of hell and death.  What an incredible Savior!

How prophetic were the taunts of his enemies – “He saved others, Himself He cannot save.” Join us this week in worship at Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian as we meditate upon this great truth and rejoice that in refusing to save Himself, our Lord saved us.  We meet for worship at 10:45 am this and every Lord’s Day on the square in Pottsville.