If only we'd listened to Paul's admonitions about judgement in Romans 2! These verses not only lay out the ways we could have avoided millennia of antisemitism, but also how…
Romans 12 contains Paul's illustration of what he thinks it looks like to embody the grace we have received, leaving us with some of his most famous and memorable turns…
Paul writes about the tomb dedicated to an unknown (really an unnamed) god in Athens. How often do we treat those around us in church as unnamed and unknown?
What does morality demand of us that come into a windfall? What does it demand of us in our interaction with others? And how do we square our grand idea…
On Reformation Day, we remember always the foundations of our faith, our lodestone for forming and re-forming our church: Nothing can come between us and the love of God.
Specifics of context make all the distance in understanding the advice to the early church. What are our specifics, and how do they guide the advice we give?
Acts concludes with Paul's implicit charge to future followers: go forth among the Gentiles. In our world, we are the ones to heed his call to examine our own hearts…
As we welcome new members into Ankeny UCC, we look to Paul's outreach to followers of John the Baptist and understand how the diversity of our faith journeys changes us…
Paul's message to Athens is not only that God has always been with them, but also that we are called to do more than just talk.
Lydia, who ran into Paul on a business trip, saw in the message of Christ an opportunity to change her life by risking her reputation and providing Paul a place…
We always must remember how many gifts of the spirit are dedicated to listening and communicating. In the midst of an oppression that is the legacy of a country founded…
In a more theological sermon, we examine Paul's arguments about resurrection and ask whether the argument he makes reflects our lived experience. After all, there are many different ways to…
Through a mirror, dimly, we see the world. So often, our reactions to others are reflections of how we see ourselves. Paul reminds us that we need to grow into…
Paul complaining about division in Christianity is a little funny to careful readers, but his warning to avoid tribalism in our thinking is sound.
Sometimes in Christianity, the only meaning of Jesus that is said to be important is his death. But Jesus lived and embodied life, and rose again, and meaning may be…
As the church and minister prepare to go on sabbatical, Paul exhorts us to be assured of God's love, because God loved us and came in the form of Jesus…
On our Sunday recognizing servant leaders and graduates, we talk about our core identity as a church that Cares Within. Sometimes that means listening, sometimes that means leading, sometimes that…
In our church identity statement, we profess to be a church "serving beyond." As the context of church changes, each generation must understand how we are called to go beyond…
