Richmond's First Baptist Church

Jim Somerville: "What is it about prophets that makes people want to kill them?"

Jim Somerville's homily from Wednesday, February 17, 2016.

Jim Somerville: "I've known Christians who looked for the Devil hiding behind every rock and tree in their own life. They had been in churches where that's almost all the preacher talked about..."

Jim Somerville's homily from Ash Wednesday, February 10, 2016.

Jim Somerville: "Have you ever seen someone in a whole new way? It happened to me last week. I was on Facebook when I saw a post from my nephew Ben, about a new song he had written..."

Jim Somerville: "I could understand division between Democrats and Republicans, but watch the debates and you’ll see that there is division within the parties. I don’t know when I’ve ever seen so much finger-pointing and name-calling..."

Jim Somerville: "This church is special. As I often say, if you could put us all on one pew you would have the full spectrum of political and theological diversity. But you would also have the full spectrum of ethnic and economic diversity. This church is a lot like that body Paul talks about, with all its different parts, and in that sense it is, more than many churches, like the body of Christ."

Jim Somerville: "'I did the math: using today’s standards of six ounces per wine glass, each water pot held 640 glasses. Multiply that by six water pots and you get 3,840 glasses. Estimating five glasses per wine bottle, and twelve bottles per case, those six water pots held the equivalent of 768 bottles, or 64 cases of wine."

Jim Somerville: "I tried to remember what it was in my own life that moved me to be baptized, and although the story is a long one, and a strange one, maybe you can hear some echoes of your own story."

Jim Somerville: "A few weeks ago I told you that with some people, the better you get to know them the more you see their humanity, but with Jesus, the better you get to know him the more you see his divinity..."