Atlanta Westside Presbyterian Church

Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness helps us fight temptation in our own lives. Behind each of them is a question tempting him to doubt his relationship to God: 1. Turn Stones to bread: Will God take care of me? 2. Get authority & glory in exchange for worship: Does God know what he’s doing? 3. Throw himself down & be rescued: Does God care when I’m hurting? The same kinds of questions lie behind...

Our church’s purpose is to embody and preview the Kingdom of God from Buckhead to Bankhead, which includes the work of racial reconciliation. Actually doing it depends on how well we believe and practice the metaphor of the body of Christ. The unity that we already have in the body motivates us to work hard to love each other and our neighbor. Diversity in the body puts us in uncomfortable positio...

Mary is an extraordinary model of dynamic faith in God. While her distinct role as the physical mother of Jesus was utterly unique, the way she responded to God’s providence helps us understand how we can exercise faith today. The angel Gabriel declares her “favored” by God, and she responds by welcoming God’s undeserved grace. He informs her that she will bear the Son of God, and she responds by...

Leah is known for the bitter competition with her sister Rachel for the affections of their husband Jacob. Though the New Testament does not highlight her place in the genealogy of Jesus, her story echoes many of his other “mothers.” Most distinctively, she illustrates a universal human experience: We all want to be loved, faithfully and securely – and yet human love inevitably disappoints us. In...

Tamar is one of the “mothers” of Jesus listed in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. She was the twice-widowed daughter-in-law of Judah, the leader of the twelve sons of Jacob. When Judah refused to provide for her future by giving his third son to marry her, Tamar took matters into her own hands. She disguised herself as a prostitute, and Judah took the bait. When she was found to be pregnant, J...

Displaced and disheartened by suffering and loss, Naomi found life no longer sweet but bitter. Yet her condition did not have the final say. God was at work through many agents in Naomi’s life, even her own heart, and brought her back from death to life, from bitterness to joy, from emptiness to fullness. Naomi found sweet redemption from God through Ruth, Boaz and a son through whom would come ut...

The tenth commandment is the most explicitly heart-oriented of the ten commandments, and therefore almost impossible to keep. Powerful forces all around us institutionalize and reinforce coveting as the American Way of life. The alternative to coveting, however, is not to kill our desires, nor even simply to moderate them, but to direct them toward God himself. God never promises to fulfill all of...

The ninth commandment applies most directly to giving formal testimony in a legal context. In the ancient near east, most legal disputes were settled by appeal to two or three human witnesses, rather than documents, recordings or forensic evidence. Bearing false witness was an easy way to harm your enemies or advance your own interests. Today, the commandment extends naturally to any verbal misrep...