As we look and experience an ever changing world, I cannot help but wonder what is the solution to the pollution? It seems to me that those things we depend on the most are letting us down. We continue to have a divided government and a racial divide. The Covid pandemic continues to negative…

Sometimes I doubt. Searching the other day for two AA batteries, I found a couple of loose ones in the tool drawer. Of course, I wondered about the remaining life each possessed. I kept digging until I found a new package. My confidence rose when I found it. Believability demands proof.

JONESBORO, Ga. – A strong lineup of preachers and singers will take the stage between business sessions at this year’s Georgia Baptist Convention annual meeting set for Nov. 8-9 in Jonesboro.

On Sept. 15 my father, Bob Josey, drew his last breath. He was an extraordinarily ordinary man by any measure.

Walking into the bookshop, the man asked the proprietor, “Do you have a Bible?” “Yes. Try the next room on the middle shelf. However, there is only one in stock, and because of store policy, it is not for sale. But you may read it while in the store.”

The preacher settled in for his first sermon at his last church. He had reached an age when life imparted its truth and he now felt compelled to be direct in his delivery. He decided he would choose for his last appointment the text from John 14: 6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No…

One of the aspects of current times in this pandemic is the toll that it has taken on our relationships with others: our family, our friends, those who perhaps hold different beliefs or different views than we do.

“Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” Those words, from my mother, take me to an admission and a time when I knew little. These words came often when Mom had something true to say to me. I learned when she said it, there was no retort.

Children of God, be encouraged. — we are going to be just fine.

Today, we live in a world of our own making. While man remains the sole proprietor and determiner of his identity, while he unties God’s claim upon him by his own choosing, until he reclaims God as essential to life and freedom, then mercy, God’s transcendent love, evades him. If fear is gon…

There have been seasons of my life when it felt like death was ever present. Like the three-year period when we grieved the death of two of my sister’s children and when death seemed ready to pounce on my brother who was diagnosed with a brain tumor and my mother with lung cancer.

Master MacDonald looked upon his young apprentice expressionless, knowing he mustn’t give any hint to the lad. Silence filled the air while the teacher waited for his student’s response. The tactic had worked before. His student had made quite the progress because the old master would often …

My name is Jim McArthur. Sixty-three-years-old now, I was born to William and Ann in 1958 in St. Andrews Parish, South Carolina in the vicinity of the Charleston Neck, situated between the Cooper and Ashley rivers that form the Atlantic Ocean.

DULUTH – Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief crews have been placed on alert to respond to hurricane-ravaged communities along the Gulf Coast and are preparing to pull out with as many volunteers as needed to help return the lives of victims back to normal as quickly as possible.

Ivo Clevenger showed early signs of his gift.

EASTMAN – It sounded like a family reunion on the porch of 80-year-old Robert Smith’s home last week when a pair of Southern Baptist volunteers showed up with a grilled chicken lunch, complete with mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli.

Just as church life was returning to normal in Georgia, the surge in COVID-19 has reached many congregations, forcing some pastors to close down small group Bible studies and to sideline choirs.

It was at one of our weekly prayer times at West Rome Baptist Church’s the Well that I was inspired by Pastor Mike Ellis who gave this presentation: “Be encouraged so that we can encourage others.”

Some reading the other day helped me gain new understanding and motivated me to write a new blessing. Realizing my thanks to God could be more succinct, I wrote the following:

In his book The Genesis of Ethics,, Rabbi Burton Visotzky writes about the ethics of life together on display in the biblical book of Genesis: “Read simply, in fact, Genesis is an ugly little soap opera about a dysfunctional family. Four generations of that family dynasty are charted, their …

Serendipity struck again. Working from Psalm 127 last week for my weekly column, my sister, a lay minister, also used the text to deliver a sermon. Of course, each message aligned but also veered in different directions. God’s word is rich for those who spend time there. Remember, “deep call…

CLAYTON – Wearing modest, knee-length denim shorts and a T-shirt, a soon-to-be college freshman is hanging out with friends who, like her, grew up in missionary families serving around the world.

Dear Wickley,

Dear Winston,

Have you ever like me ever questioned God as to why you were having to go through some particular trial or tribulation?

Living in a hovel, hearing tales of the great silver city across the meadow and over the hill, Adalhard thought one day he would be brave enough to venture there.

Jesus was an itinerant preacher, turned away from his hometown because they didn’t like the message he had to deliver.

Not by any means or stretch of suggestion am I educated to an extent Rabbinic wisdom is an expertise I share with any authority. But I have lived a life of ups and downs, triumphs and failures, rights and wrongs, and Rabbinic wisdom and Jesus’ words speak to life.

Given a box with a present inside, each confirmand repeated their vows. Next, the preacher said, “Inside your box is a present, a reminder of God’s presence. Carry it in your hand all your days.” Then, the service ended. All went home with their families and celebrated the day.

One of life’s lessons that most of us have to learn the hard way is that, when it comes to people, the outside and the inside don’t always match.

I wish I could figure out how God works, don’t you? That would make things so much simpler.

It took a while, but we seem to have finally gotten the hang of recycling. At first, thirty years ago, it just seemed like an enormous hassle. After all, we never had to do it before so what was the big deal?

Traveling across the back roads of South Carolina on a recent trip, the missive on the church sign caught my attention. It read: The devil doesn’t have any new tricks, only new faces. I skipped the chuckle and laughed out loud.

Walking to church on a recent Sunday morning, I entered and passed a fellow parishioner leaving the early service. I overheard him remark that every time he heard the sermon, he thought to himself he needed to improve the particular need or deficiency of which the pastor spoke.

If ever there were a time for fathers to step up and be what God created them to be, now is the time. I believe we could turn the world around in a positive way if more men would step up to the plate and be godly men and good fathers.

Lean in and listen my friends, I’m going to tell you a story remembered, a story told to me in a sermon by the Reverend Al Turnell.

Jesus really knew how to “get the goat” of the religious and political authorities! Heal a man on Sunday – OMG! Touch a dead girl – horrifying, so unsanitary! Dine with prostitutes – sinful!

In County Lincolnshire, in the village of Spilsby between the Lincolnshire Wolds and the Fenland, for centuries told there lived a peace-loving people. Spilsby has been and will always be a market town.

In the first hour of amazing grace, when the sweet sound appears and we know God is true, a seed is planted within. And if in that first hour we are unable to give rise to any coherent expression of this knowledge, when our joy overrides such attempts, the seed within takes hold, rooting and…

What are the gifts, or special talents, that are within each of us? Think for a moment.

Mary loved going to church. At the end of maturity for six-year-olds and the children’s sermon, Mary loved the stories. Though she didn’t fully realize she was getting too old, she listened attentively.

We are indeed living in some difficult, stressful and uncertain days the likes of which we have never seen before.

I love that God chooses to reveal himself to us through story. In his encounter with two dejected followers on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24.13) Jesus himself reveals how the stories of Scripture speak into our present day lives.