Sermon brings legal logic to biblical counsel

NSBC screenshot from YouTube

Tomorrow morning, Sunday, September 28, I will have the privilege of speaking to North Scituate Baptist Church (NSBC) in Rhode Island about Hebrews 13:5.

The verse (NIV) reads:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

I hope to share some legal logic with the congregation, breaking down the verse as a statement of causation. I'll also describe how I found evidence of the verse's causal truth when I traveled to one of my favorite places in 2020, Ghana.

When the service is available online, I will link to it here (message archive; YouTube channel; full service). Meanwhile and for then, below are the slides I will share (all RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

I'm grateful to my friends at NSBC, especially for the support of Pastor Kim Nelson, administrator Gretchen Pino, and musical coordinator Linda Farynyk. Thanks to my friend Eric D'Agostino for pointing me to the prayer of Julian of Norwich.

I wish all a blessed first weekend of autumn.

 

Amos, King: love one another; defend the oppressed; plead the cause of the innocent, the powerless

David Erickson CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, I was blessed with the opportunity to stand in the pulpit of the historic North Scituate Baptist Church, Rhode Island, affording a rest for beloved Pastor Kim Nelson there.

I spoke to the Book of Amos, chapter 5, verses 21 to 24 (NIV), often cited by Dr. King. In the "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963 (photo), Dr. King quoted Amos 5:24: “[L]et judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (KJV).

In the history of the church, Amos at times has been controversial for its ominous depiction of God. But Amos contains a call for social justice that is as important and relevant today as it was in America during the Civil Rights Movement and in Israel in the 8th century B.C.

My wife and I are deeply grateful to the people at North Scituate for their warm hospitality.

'Repay evil with blessing,' Apostle Peter writes

North Scituate Baptist Church, R.I.
Swampyank at English Wikipedia
via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

With Election Day tomorrow, this might be an opportune moment for a message of peace and non-retribution.

Last week I had the privilege of sharing the word of 1 Peter 3:8-9 at the nearby Rhode Island church of a dear friend and pastor while he was away from the pulpit. (Oct. 27, below.)

Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

The pastor had preached the preceding week on the flaws of human criminal justice. So I started by shifting the focus to civil justice and the fundamental question, as framed by my late friend and mentor Professor Marshall S. Shapo, A injures B and could have avoided it; what should society do? 

Professor Shapo was well schooled in the Old Testament and knew the teaching of Exodus, an eye for an eye. The New Testament put another spin on the problem and confronts the contemporary Christian litigator with a vexing challenge. 1 Peter 3:8, et seq., is only a piece of the solution, and I don't purport to have it all worked out. Nevertheless, and at risk of some hypocrisy, I found a starting point in the verses.

I thank the pastoral and worship teams and congregation of North Scituate Baptist Church, Rhode Island, for their kindness, hospitality, and indulgence of my ramblings, which I hope were motivated by the Spirit. (Full service.)

A reminder that The Savory Tort is a personal blog. What I write here is not representative of my employer nor communicated in my public capacity, even if some content also serves the professional interests of my teaching, research, and public service.