Volume 1 Issue 15
Within the Christian tradition, this is the Second Sunday of Advent, the season of preparing for the birth of the Christ. The aim of Growing in Christ is to help change our focus from a historic event that seems hopelessly ancient to the dynamic and present reality of Emmanuel (Heb., “God is with us”).
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For those who enjoy doing word studies, spend some time with these two as they pertain to today’s sermon:
judge – 6. to form a judgment or opinion of or upon; decide upon critically; estimate. 8. to infer, think, or hold as an opinion. 10. to act as a judge; pass judgment. 11. to form an opinion or estimate. 12. to make a mental judgment.
prejudice—1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason. 2. any preconceived opinion or feeling, favorable or unfavorable.
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For whatever reasons, my friends Bud and Terry Rubenstein gave me “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Judaism” by Rabbi Benjamin Blech. I’ve now added to my collection with “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam” by Yahiya Emerick. Had I done this earlier it might have spared me the embarrassment last week of not acknowledging Ramadan (The Month of Great Heat) along with Hanukkah and Advent. Anyway, “The Complete Idiot’s” series is available from www.amazon.com
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It is an ongoing joy to hear from new visitors to the site, and to learn that they were invited by those of you on “the list” to check us out. I continue to be deeply grateful to Matt Piper for his “fine tuning” of the various pages, particularly the Bulletin Board. If you haven’t been to it recently, then you don’t know that Matt reversed the order of the postings so that the most recent now appears first. We’ve decided to leave a posting up for 90 days, and then it will be history. So be sure to get your two-cents worth in before that idea you disagree with disappears! Be watching for the addition of a New Page for the New Year.
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Until next week…….Shalom!