At the grave of Lazarus, Jesus makes a shocking statement when he declares “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Join us as Rev. Bill Holiman preaches from Ezekiel 37 and John 11 and examines what it means that Jesus Is the Resurrection.
Tag Archives: Family Integrated Church
03/15/2026 | “The Story Beyond the Story” | Ruth 4:18-22
Ruth does not end as we expect. A literary masterpiece filled with dramatic tension should end with something other than fragmentary genealogy. But perhaps the Book of Ruth is a story about another story. A story where we find hope for our story. Join us as we examine Ruth 4:18-22 and Matthew 1:1-17 to consider the power of the story beyond the story.
03/08/2026 | “Filled Up” | Ruth 4:13-17
Are you empty? Coasting on the fumes of disappointment, bitterness, or grief? There is a Heavenly Father who delights to fill us up with sufficient, superabundant, saving grace upon grace through a redeemer. Join us as we examine Ruth 4:13-17 and consider how God fills up empty places with his grace.
03/01/2026 | “Redemption Illustrated” | Ruth 4:1-12
The story of Boaz at the city gates negotiating for the right to be the kinsman-redeemer for Naomi & Ruth the Moabitess beautifully illustrates & anticipates the greater kinsman redeemer who redeems us from our sin, spiritual poverty & death. Join us as we examine Ruth 4:1-12 and consider its beautiful illustration and anticipation of our kinsman-redeemer, Jesus Christ.
Skeptics Welcome
We live in an age of flourishing skepticism, particularly when it comes to religion. Science is seen as the new arbiter of absolute truth and the “scientific-method” the only test of the believe-worthiness of any idea. The incredible popularity of thinkers such as Stephen Hawking underscores this flowering of the enlightenment enthronement of human reason.
Hawking, who once quipped that “heaven [and the afterlife] were fairy-stories for people afraid of the dark,” nevertheless frequently left his own pay-grade in the narrow confines of mathematics and observable physics to declare metaphysical absolutes. It was this dimension of his writing and thinking that made him a pop icon.
Many skeptics today view religion, in general, and Christianity, in particular, as afraid of rational inquiry and apologetic challenge. From the view of the secularist, Christianity has circled the wagons, arrogantly assuming the “fairy tales” of the Bible are true while closing its eyes to all reason and evidence. Yet nothing is further from the truth. Real and vibrant Christianity hangs out a shingle that says, “Skeptics Welcome.”
Nowhere is this seen more dramatically than in the Biblical accounts of the resurrection. No point of Christian doctrine has been more thoroughly assaulted by skeptics than the resurrection. Yet every assault strengthens credibility.
When the accounts are critically examined, it seems God took great care to surround the crucifixion, death and burial of Jesus along with the subsequent discovery of the empty tomb with a vast body of evidence which can only be satisfactorily explained by Jesus’ resurrection. In many respects, the empty tomb is a sign that reads “Skeptics Welcome.” The stone was not rolled back to let Jesus out, but to let skeptics in.
Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine the account of the empty tomb from John 20 and consider an invitation to skeptics to examine and believe in the resurrection of Jesus. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
2026 Good Friday Gathering
Join us for a Good Friday Gathering of Songs and Readings, Friday April 3, 2026 at 6:00 pm on the grounds of the Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. We will gather outside around the bonfire for food, fellowship, and a time of songs and readings to observe Good Friday. Bring your favorite Mediterranean finger food or dessert. Click here to get the Readings and Hymns. We look forward to seeing you.
Facets of Grace
Iron Pyrite, Silica, White and Rose Quartz, along with the occasional Amethyst. Those were the precious gems I prospected in my backyard in suburban Atlanta. Yet, like Yukon Cornelius, I always hoped for more. Surely there was a vein of silver or gold tucked away in that Georgia clay. Or better yet, a cache of diamonds, scattered in with the fill-gravel. Every small child is a prospector. Curating buckets of rocks, confident of striking it rich.
But in Arkansas, every resident does have a stake in a rich claim. One of the United States’ few diamond fields sits just a few miles south on public land at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro. In a 37-acre field at the park, over 75,000 diamonds have been found since 1907. 1 to 2 diamonds are found every day. On average, over 600 per year. And the rule is finders-keepers. The largest ever found at the park was a 40.23 carat white diamond, nicknamed “Uncle Sam.”
But finding diamonds is not as easy as you might think. They do not look like what you expect. The diamonds at Crater of Diamonds Park are white, brown, and yellow. They will not be clear like glass but have an oily film that prevents them from holding dirt. They will have a metallic luster, like steel or lead. And they are smooth and well rounded, like a polished stone.
Only when they are cut and finished by a jeweler will they shine with the brilliance you would expect. The jeweler cuts the diamonds into shapes with many “faces” or facets. And each facet reveals a different aspect of the color, clarity, beauty and brilliance of the stone. The many facets of the cut diamond allow light to enter and reflect and refract through the stone to reveal its true color and clarity.
In the same way the treasures of God’s grace have many facets. Facets that reveal all the subtle, rich beauty and sufficiency of God’s love for us. Our tendency is to be theologically reductionistic. We are familiar with the acronym for GRACE, ‘God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.’ But what are all these riches? And what expense did Christ expend? Why did Christ pay it? How did he pay it? And where did this expense come from in the first place? As Paul Harvey would say, we need to hear ‘the rest of the story.’
John’s account of the crucifixion is familiar. Yet like a finely cut diamond, John 19:16-30 displays many of the facets of grace that reveal the depths of the Father’s love for us. On the face of it the crucifixion appears to display failure, contradiction and injustice. Yet the Father masterfully cuts and shapes his redemptive plan to reveal mercy and triumph as Jesus bears his peoples’ sin and finishes the work of redemption.
Join us as we study John 19:16-30 and examine the facets of grace revealed in the story of the Jesus’ crucifixion and death. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
Jesus Is the Resurrection
The Bible says a lot about Resurrection. In the Resurrection, God declares Jesus to be the Son of God with power. And in the Resurrection, God has reversed the curse. In the raising Jesus, God declares that Jesus work is, in fact, finished and that the justice of God for all those who come to God in Christ is satisfied. And in the Resurrection of Jesus, we are raised to walk in the newness of life. But Jesus statement at the grave of Lazarus goes even further when he declares “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
Join us as Rev. Bill Holiman preaches from Ezekiel 37 and John 11 and examines what it means that Jesus Is the Resurrection. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
The Story Beyond the Story
As a boy, our attic was a place of mystery and wonder. Its clutter was a treasure trove of self-discovery. Things my parents and grandparents knew but forgot. Things my parents and grandparents experienced but wanted to forget. But to me it was a place to discover people whose names I knew but whose lives I did not. It was a place to understand how I came to be who I was.
Family histories are precious. Even if notorious or even scandalous. The names on our family tree are not mere chronological markers. They represent real lives. And they had real impact on our lives through their character, their genetics, their successes and their failures. They tell both the story behind our story and story beyond their story. And what is true of our genealogies is also true of biblical genealogies.
At first glance those genealogies, like my childhood attic, seem cluttered and unfamiliar. But God has placed them in the Scriptures for our instruction. To understand more who we are, and more importantly, who God is. Like my attic, those genealogies are treasure troves of self-discovery. The difficulty with them is not how to find something meaningful, but how to distill all we find to its impact on us.
Ruth’s story does not end the way a modern reader might expect. Such a masterpiece of word play, foreshadowing, dramatic tension should surely end with something other than a fragmentary genealogy. But in a very real way, that is exactly the point God is making to us. The story of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz is a beautiful story of God’s covenant love taking root in the lives of real people in time, but it is part of a much larger story of hesed.
A story that unfolds with great kings and the ultimate kinsman-redeemer. A story which unfolds as our own love story as well. The genealogical fragment at the end of Ruth reminds us that it is a piece of a much larger picture. A picture that comes into focus in the opening genealogy of the New Testament gospel of Matthew. A picture that tells us of the only kinsman-redeemer able to redeem us.
And so at the head of the story of the Incarnation, God gave us a genealogy. This ancestry framed the humiliation and exaltation of our redeemer with the picture of a dysfunctional family. But Jesus’ family tree is ours as well. It is a family into which we have been adopted. A family that shows us God’s faithfulness and grace to those who will not and cannot get it together.
At every point in Matthew’s gospel the question is asked of Jesus, “who is He?” Who is this? Even the wind and waves of obey Him? Who is this who even forgives sins? Who is this of whom the crowds cry “Hosanna?” At every turn we find someone asking this question. But it is the question the Holy Spirit anticipates and answers at every turn. And like every significant milestone in the story redemption, this gospel is introduced by a ‘toledoth,’ a geneaology.
Jesus is the Christ. The Son of David. The Son of Abraham. He is the Son of Man and yet, the Son of God. The story of Jesus’ beginnings tells us who he is. And who he is not. By giving Jesus’ toledoth, the Holy Spirit unveils what Paul called a “great mystery, Jesus Christ manifest in the flesh.”
Jesus’ toledoth does not reveal a new way of salvation. But declares that God has kept his promise. He has fulfilled the covenant of grace he made with generations of men and women in the Old Testament. Matthew’s genealogy is not the story of a man’s life, but of God’s saving work to give new and eternal life to men who receive him.
The story begun in Ruth is a part of a greater story beyond the story. A story that answers the question, “Who is this Jesus?” A story with the power to change our story. Do you know who Jesus is? More importantly do you know Jesus, himself? Join us as we examine Ruth 4:18-22 and Matthew 1:1-17 to consider the power of the story beyond the story. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
Filled Up
My first car was a 1980 ‘Vette coupe. No, it was not that kind of ‘Vette! It was a Chevette not a Corvette. It was pearl white. And had a sunroof and a premium aftermarket sound system which some good citizen of Due West, SC relocated to their own vehicle. It was powered, if powered is the right word, by a 1.6L, 4 cylinder engine. To make it up steep hills, passengers had to execute a kipping motion to add the necessary momentum.
My ‘Vette had a 12-gallon gas tank, which due to my limited college student resources, was rarely filled. Despite its slight stature, it could only muster a modest 19 MPG. And though the average price of gasoline in 1984 was only $0.88 per gallon, I could rarely fill the tank before making the 138 mile trip home for the weekend. $7 was just enough to coast in on fumes so long as there were no unexpected traffic snarls on the Atlanta freeways.
Like the prodigal’s dad, my dad would be pacing the driveway with his pipe as I arrived. After welcoming me home with a hug, his first question was “how much money do you have?” I assured him that I had close to a dollar. “And how much gas?” “Not even below ‘E’” I would respond proudly.
And then commenced the ‘dad-lecture’ about contingencies and wisdom and preparation and foolish youth! A lecture which I learned well and now can reproduce in various forms for my own children. But my father’s exhortation would always end with him slipping me $20 to fill my wallet and my tank.
Love delights to fill up what is empty. It is stressful and soul-wearying to be empty. When life has not met expectations. When what we love is taken from us. Or what we hoped never materializes. When life is filled with pain, we feel a profound void. An emptiness that brings fear, anger, resentment, bitterness, depression, hopelessness. The Psalms are filled with faith’s plaintive cries from the bottom of miry pits.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day? – Psalm 13:1-2
And in the opening chapter of Ruth, Naomi expresses the pain of emptiness.
And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. – Ruth 1:19-21
But Ruth is a love story within a love story. Ruth’s love for Naomi and Boaz’ love for Ruth is grounded in the steadfast, enduring love of the Lord for Naomi, Ruth, Boaz and us. Emptiness is not the last word. Grace always fills up the empty places opened by the unfolding plans and purposes of a sovereign God.
The Covenant God, who thus far in Ruth, has been offstage, always in the wings, now takes center stage as he acts to fills empty wombs and empty lives. All that was empty is now full in Naomi’s life. All her complaints, sorrows, and prayers converge in the steadfast, covenant love of the Lord who has been working all along to bring about grace upon grace.
Songwriter, Sandra McCracken expresses it well.
In every station, new trials and new troubles
Call for more grace than I can afford
Where can I go but to my dear Savior
For mercy that pours from boundless storesGrace upon grace, every sin repaired
Every void restored, you will find Him there
In every turning He will prepare you
With grace upon grace
-Grace Upon Grace, Sandra McCracken
Are you empty? Coasting on the fumes of disappointment, bitterness, or grief? There is a Heavenly Father who delights to fill us up with sufficient, superabundant, saving grace upon grace through a kinsman-redeemer. Join us as we examine Ruth 4:13-17 and consider how God fills up empty places with his grace. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church 