Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1)

This morning, The Hartford Courant had yet another story about the ongoing debacle of priests with a history of pedophilia.  The story was concerning the Diocese of Norwich and its attempts to keep secret hundreds of documents pertaining to Thomas Shea, a retired priest accused of molesting as many as 16 girls at 11 different parishes over his 40 year career.  The potential scandal in this case is that one of the letters was sent to Joseph Ratzinger, the man who is now Pope, when he was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the office that decides whether accused priests should have trials that could lead to them being defrocked.  Regardless of what is in those documents, the fact remains that this whole scandal is a black eye not just on the Catholic Church but on the very name of Jesus.
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“The Mississippi’s mighty but it starts in Minnesota at a place where you could walk across with five steps down.” (Indigo Girls, Ghost)

This past Sunday, I preached on one of the most stunning passages in the whole Bible, the story of how King David, the man after God’s own heart, slept with Bathsheba, the wife of one of his best friends, and then had his friend killed to cover it up.  That passage, in 2 Samuel 11, begins famously with these words:  “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army… But David remained in Jerusalem.”  As the narrator makes clear, if David were only where he should have been, none of this would have happened.  But instead, we find David arising from a late afternoon nap, wandering up to the roof of his palace, and seeing Bathsheba bathing naked nearby.  One thing leads to another, and soon David has broken almost half of the Ten Commandments in an incredibly thoughtless escapade.

As the aforementioned Indigo Girls’ lyrics put it, even a raging river begins as a little stream.
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Today’s Pulse of NewLife is written by guest writer Tammy Choleva.  Tammy and her husband John’s family was one of the original families of our church, and they have recently returned to NewLife with their six kids, Trevor, Jeremy, Aaron, Gabriel, John, and Danielle.  As I preach through Proverbs on the subject of wisdom this summer, my hope is to use the blog to give voice to many of the more experienced members of our congregation, so that they can share what they have learned through their journey with the Lord.

No Longer a Slave to Sin

“…knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” Romans 6:6 (NKJV)

Back some time ago after I was saved by the grace of God, I was given a revelation of truth.  I remember at the time having been disgusted with myself over something I had done.  I don’t remember what I had done, but I know it didn’t honor the Lord.  I remember telling God I was sorry, but I also remember stopping and pondering (for quite some time) how in the world Jesus could have been sinless.  I knew He was sinless because the Bible tells me so; yet, I started to think deeply and wonder how that could have been.
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“When a man is revengeful, it is amazing how cunning he is to find opportunities to strike out.  When enmity thoroughly possesses his soul and pours its venom into his very blood, he will become exceedingly crafty in the means he uses to provoke and injure his adversary” [Charles Spurgeon (19th century British preacher), Spiritual Warfare in a Believer’s Life].

Ahhh, vengeance.  How true are Spurgeon’s words, that we are never more cunning and crafty as when we wish to inflict pain on someone.  We can come up with the most biting lines and the sneakiest ways to damage someone’s reputation.  We can damage them with ice-cold snubs and stares or red-hot words of anger and violence. 

Is it any wonder, in light of this, that Satan is first introduced in the Bible in this way:  Read more »

If you get The Hartford Courant at home, you probably saw the grim-faced couple on the front page, with the headline underneath that read “What Was He Thinking?”  Above the picture, it read “Experts Struggle to Understand Spitzer’s Alleged Romp with Call Girl.”

My initial reaction, to be honest, was to laugh.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I certainly wasn’t laughing at the fact that Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, got caught soliciting a prostitute, Read more »

I was reading through an e-newsletter from the Christian organization Sojourners last Thursday when a headline caught my eye:  “The fallout from Ted Haggard.”  Oh no, I said – what happened now?  As I read the article, I heard about the breaking story that was only in its infancy but was clearly going to get uglier over the next few days – Pastor Ted Haggard, pastor of the megachurch New Life Church of Colorado Springs and President of the National Association of Evangelicals, had been accused of participating in drug-fueled trysts over the past three years with a gay male escort.  What made the story even more shocking, of course, is that Pastor Haggard has been crusading against gay marriage across the country, getting amendments prohibiting gay marriage on the ballots of many states for today’s election.  And all the while, he had apparently been struggling with the very thing against which he had been crusading.

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