Pastor Prince

Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden led to brokenness in their relationships with God and each other.  Because of this brokenness, God had to go on a mission to save the world, to redeem it form its brokenness. After God expelled them from the garden, they followed one of God's directives faithfully.  They were fruitful and multiplied!  But human corruption grew with each generation.  Things got so bad, God was sorry he made humanity.  He was especially distressed at the violence of the human race (Gen. 6:13).   God decided he was going to reboot his creation!  He was going to send a great flood to destroy all living creatures in the world.  But one man found favor in his eyes: Noah.  God decided to save Noah and his family, along with a remnant of the living creatures of the earth.  He instructed Noah to build a huge ark, which would preserve the remnant through the coming destruction. Noah built the ark, and he an...

This past week, we had yet another reminder of our broken world: the shooting at Parkland, Florida.  We wonder how someone could take an AK-15 and murder 17 high school students.  The story of the shooter and his motivations is still being discovered, but we're sickened by this repeated theme in our nation.   But there are much broader evils in our world.  Wars, acts of terror, murders, and other inhuman acts take human lives every day.  Why is it here? Genesis 3 provides the broad reason for the human condition.  We've rebelled against God.  Because of that, our relationships with God and each other are broken. Evil appears in the form of a serpent.  Just as God appears with no back story in Genesis 1, evil appears in Genesis 3 with no explanation.  Most of us have heard the story that Satan was a great angel, whose pride led him to rebel against God.  While that may have happened, that story isn't in the Bible.  T...

In Genesis 1, God creates thing after thing in rapid succession.  But in verse 26, the story takes a dramatic pause, as God stops and deliberates among his heavenly council (See Job 1).  He proposes to make man and woman in his own image. Scholars have debated for millennia about what it means for humans to be in God's image.  The general meaning is that man and woman correspond to God in the way nothing else does.  God has a relationship with them unlike any of his other relationships. God blesses man and woman, and puts creation in their hands.  They don't own it.  They're stewards of it.  God wants them to use it AND take care of it.  Sadly, we've been poor stewards! Scholars debate about the relationship between Genesis 1 and 2.  Some believe both chapters are the same account, while others say they are separate accounts.  Most likely, they are separate, yet complementary accounts.  God brought them together i...

Everybody loves a good story!  We especially enjoy stories that draw us into the action, and move our hearts.   The Bible is full of stories.  It begins with stories of the patriarchs, and continues with stories about Israel's exodus from Egypt, settlement in Canaan, and kingdom era.  In its latter parts, it has stories about Jesus and his followers. What many people don't know is that there's a big story that weaves together all these individual stories.  It's the story of God's mission to save his world. The first story in that big story is the narrative of God's creation of the universe in Genesis 1.  Genesis 1 is one of the richest, yet most controversial passages in the Bible.  Controversy about it isn't new.  There were many rival creation accounts in the ancient world.  In the early church era, teachers tried to reconcile it with the views of Greek philosophers like Aristotle, who represented the established learning...

Our cultural Christmas is largely sweet and soft.  Like a "Precious Moments" nativity.  But the real Christmas story told in the scriptures has rough edges!  Luke 1 says that as Mary contemplates the birth of her son, she composes a song of revolution.  It speaks of the exalted being humbled, the humble being exalted, the hungry getting full, and the full left hungry!  Jesus is born in a barn.  His visitors are shepherds, who were social outcasts. These rough edges are on full display in Luke's account of Jesus' appearance at the temple in 2:25-38.  When Joseph, Mary, and Jesus go to the temple, an "old saint" named Simeon takes Jesus in his arms, praises God because he has seen the Messiah, and prophesies that the child is destined to cause the rising and falling of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed.  Not sweet and soft! Finally, Simeon says that a sword will pierce Mary as well.  This is the first time pain is...

In the magnificent prologue of John 1:1-18, John begins the story of Jesus in the eternal past.  He starts with the Word, who was with God and was God.  He continues by saying the Word became a real human being and lived in the world, showing us what God is like. In verses 10-13 and 16-18, he tells us that the Word came to his own, and his own didn't receive him. This is one of the greatest ironies of history, because God created the world through the Word,.  Yet when he came, the world turned him away.  Killed him, in fact.   But not everyone rejected him.  Some believed him, put their faith in him.  To those, God gave the power to be his children.  Through faith in Christ, they were "born from above" (John 3:3), or spiritually born.  In this way, they came into God's eternal family.   John concludes the chapter by saying that the law came through Moses.  Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  We who have...

The first five verses of John 1 take us to the eternal cosmic plane, as they talk about the Word that was with God and was God.  Then in verses 6-9, we move to the human world of time and history, as John says that God sent a man named John into the world.  He wasn't the light, but was a witness to the light God was sending to the world in the Word who became flesh: Jesus Christ. This John was John the Baptist.  His more accurate title was "the Baptizer."  He wasn't the first Baptist, though we would love to claim him! Some in the early church era believed the Baptizer was equal to Jesus.  Maybe even superior!  But the gospel of John wants people to know clearly that John wasn't the light.  He wasn't the Word who became flesh.  Nonetheless, he was important.  He was a witness to the light.  He pointed to Jesus and identified him as the Messiah, the Savior. These words about John remind us that God calls us Christ followers to a ...