Worship at First Presbyterian Church of Marion, Illinois

Acts 17:1-9 – Founding church at Thessalonica1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 – Paul’s message of thanks to the church at Thessalonica. Acts contains the story of the founding of a church. This is the founding of the church as Thessalonica, one of the churches that letters go to in the New Testament. The Way is new here. This will be the first church here.…

Acts 3:1-10 Healing at the Beautiful Gate; “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you, in the name of Jesus rise and walk.” Everywhere that Jesus goes, people know of his power. They recognize him, and they rush to bring the sick to Jesus. That’s how we would do it as well, I think. If we had…

Acts 1:1-14 How do we share the good news of the resurrection in days like this? How can we use humor to share the joy we have in Christ? Do we have to be sober, somber, serious Christians all the time?

Mark 16:1-8 Resurrection, empty tomb, and fleeing in fear. There is a meme about Jesus being a zombie. You can find it witheverything else, on the internet. In the 19th century, people were deathlyafraid of being buried alive, so much so that there were bells attached to astring that went into a coffin, so that if the buried person was alive, theycould…

Mark 11:1-11 – Triumphal entryMark 14:3-9 – Woman anoints Jesus at Bethany Something interesting happens in these passages. There’s acombination of audacity and direction that occurs. Before Jesus entersJerusalem, he sends the disciples in to get the donkey. The arrangementshave already been made. They are just to go and pick up the rental donkeyfor Jesus…

Mark 13:1-8, 24-37            Coming out of the temple, the disciples are impressed by the size of the stones. They are impressed by the size of the buildings. Jesus is less than impressed. Jesus promises that one day, stone will not stay upon stone. That disturbs Peter, James, John, and Andrew. They want to know…

Mark 12:28-44              This passage comes after 2 passages about Pharisees and Sadducees asking their pet questions to Jesus (Render unto Caesar and Resurrection). Following his answers, this scribe comes with his question. Like the two prior questions, it is a sort of test. What the scribe has in mind exactly, we don’t know.            Regardless of the scribe’s motivation, Jesus has…

Mark 12:1-12 [13-17] Parable of the wicked tenants; paying taxes to Caesar           There is a power in this parable. That’s the whole point of parables. There’s a message that we can hear, or many messages that we can hear without being told straight out that we’re being idiots.           We hold onto the idea that we understand who is the cornerstone…

Mark 10:32-52 Passion prediction, Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, heals blind Bartimaeus.   I don’t know if James and John understand what they’re asking here. I do know that we are the ones who reap what they have sown. We are the ones who both benefit from and have to live into their brashness. Can you…

Hear Bill Rucker share the journey of his faith with us.