Richmond's First Baptist Church

Jim Somerville: "I can remember when people used to dress up and come to church no matter what. It wasn’t so long ago that we Americans made some pretense of remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. And *pretense* may be the right word..."

Dr. F. Scott Spencer's Sunday morning study from August 25, 2019.

Jim Somerville: "To say that Jesus is Lord is to say that the government is not, the president is not. Only Jesus has complete control over your life..."

Dr. F. Scott Spencer's Sunday morning study from August 18, 2019.

Jim Somerville: "Every once in a while Christy will say to me, 'Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a little place in the mountains?' It would be nice, but I know what I would be doing every time we went there. I would be fixing plumbing that didn’t work very well in a place that wasn’t connected to the city sewer system..."

Dr. F. Scott Spencer's Sunday morning study from August 11, 2019.

Jim Somerville: "Jesus says, 'Life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions.' Let me interrupt long enough to say you almost *have* to be in church to hear a message like [this]..."

Jim Somerville: "And maybe this is the problem. Not that we don’t say the right words. Not that we don’t pray often enough. Not that we don’t pray with enough faith. But that we pray for the wrong things..."

An evening with Mimi Weaver from Wednesday, July 24, 2019.

Jim Somerville: "Once every three years the story of Mary and Martha comes up in the lectionary readings. And because I am a lectionary preacher, I have preached on this story more than once. In each of those sermons I also found myself wanting to defend Martha..."