Author: Pastor Smith

Matthew 10: 34-42 Some of us are reading through a book in our Santa Rosa Bible class.  It’s written by a pastor who had a big aha.  What I mean is he realized that what the American church sometimes portrays as following Jesus is a far cry from what Jesus describes. I once lived across the street from a church […]

Text:  Matthew 9: 9-13 In some ways, Christianity has always been a kind of scandalous religion. Think about the first followers of Jesus.  Among them was a man known as Simon the Zealot.  That’s what he had been; a kind of radical Mideastern revolutionary.  Or think about the apostle Paul.  This great missionary of the Lord Jesus admits he had […]

Text: 2Corinthians 13: 11-14                                       June 19. 2011 I think of my dad today. Year after year, he worked hard to take care of my mom, my sister and me.  My dad was a mechanic.  He had calluses on his hands.  But no other kids had a dad who worked on those big planes like mine did. Some of you have […]

John 20: 24-31                                                            Easter 2011 24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand […]

Text:  Exodus 12: 1-11; 21-28             April 17, 2011 Picture the scene if you will.  The road from Jericho to Jerusalem was packed with Passover pilgrims.  There was no internet or Twitter in those days but word had quickly spread. The word about Jesus of Nazareth.  He had raised a man named Lazarus back to life after being dead for three […]