ASL SERMON – Leave Your Nets Behind

Sermon Title: "Leave Your Nets Behind"
Scripture Passage: Luke 5:1-11

Sermon voice-interpreted in English

This message was preached on July 13, 2014 at
Deaf Fellowship at Frederick Church of the Brethren.

Special thanks to Deaf Fellowship for filming this sermon

and making it available online for viewing!

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Jonah: An American Tale?

"Our God is a God of second chances!" (Rev. Rick McClain)

I discovered this morning that Dr. Rick McClain, a D.Min. graduate from Beeson, would be preaching at Deaf Calvary Church in Frederick, Maryland this morning. Deaf Calvary Church is an Assemblies of God congregation close to Deaf Fellowship at Frederick Church of the Brethren. He happens to be my mentor, a dear friend and colleague in Deaf ministry. He has been my source of encouragement and wisdom whenever I face difficult periods at Beeson or in ministry.

He is an exemplary preacher of God's Word, and I always listen to him whenever I get the chance to! With his gregarious and humorous personality, Rick has been endowed with a special gift to preach God's Word in a manner that is clear and accessible while not mincing his words at the same time. I was so blessed by his message this morning on Jonah 1-4 that I wanted to share it with you tonight because I think it is something that every American needs to hear in this present day and age.

A special thanks is in order for Deaf Calvary Church to make this video, "Jonah: An American Tale?" available for everyone!

Disclaimer: I can't guarantee the sound quality on this video for my hearing colleagues, but if you can understand this, you will be blessed as well! Please leave a comment below and let me know.

Bonhoeffer on Reading the Scriptures

While collecting information for my doctrinal synthesis paper due by the end of the week, I read something from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together that privides an accurate reflection of what churches are facing in the modern age.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer completed Life Together in 1939 while teaching at the underground, or "illegal," Finkenwalde seminary during the heyday of Nazism. Here's what Bonhoeffer had to say concerning reading the Scriptures:

We must learn to know the Scriptures again, as the Reformers and our fathers knew them. We must not grudge the time and the work that it takes. We must know the Scriptures first and foremost for the sake of our salvation. But besides this, there are ample reasons that make this requirement exceedingly urgent. How, for example, shall we ever attain certainty and confidence in our personal and church activity if we do not stand on solid Biblical ground? It is not our heart that determines our course, but God's Word. But who in this day has any proper understanding of the need for scriptural proof? How often we hear innumerable arguments "from life" and "from experience" put forward as the basis for most crucial decisions, but the argument of Scripture is missing. And this authority would perhaps point in exactly the opposite direction. It is not surprising, of course, that the person who attempts to cast discredit upon their wisdom should be the one who himself does not seriously read, know, and study the Scriptures. But one who will not learn to handle the Bible for himself is not an evangelical Christian.