D.S. al Coda: Go to the Sign of the Cross, Then proceed to the End

Halacha - Ha - la - kah is a Hebrew word which literally means "behavior" or "The way you live."  For the orthodox Jew, this is totally wrapped up in the teaching of the Talmud which uses the Torah as its basis, but includes the rabbinic teachings and established traditions.  A Jew's halacha includes the keeping of the 613 laws found in the Torah, but will be expounded upon by the interpretations and additions made by the rabbis.  For example, the Torah teaches in Ex. 23:19 not to boil a kid (goat) in its mother's milk. This is a sanctity of life matter and about respect for the mother, but the rabbis added their interpretation of this to mean don't mix meat and dairy products.  In modern times, this was elaborated upon to prohibit the cooking of meat and dairy in the same oven.  So, an orthodox Jewish home must have two ovens - one for meat and one for dairy because the very steam from cooking meat may collect on the walls of an oven and possibly cont

Everybody wants to find something in life they are really good at.  And when we do, the temptation is there to let that talent or that ability become our focus in life.  This is where Satan trips us up because he wants us to become idolaters who will put anything ahead of God.  Satan has no problem with you having God “in your life.”  He just wants to make sure that God is not #1 in your life! I came across this testimonial by a young lady about the impact that music has had on her life.  I am thrilled that music can be used for such a powerful motivation in a person’s life.  But what if God was actually first place in her life?  If so, I believe she would find that God’s gift of music, while being a tremendous blessing and tool in her life, is not the source of her joy in life, God’s Salvation is the source of her joy.  Your source for abundant living must be something that you will never lose or cannot be taken away from you.  Musical talent will fade or can be taken in a single

I was striking up a spiritual conversation with a man in the mall Monday with thte Singing Churchmen in Cleveland,and I began asking him of his musical interests.   He was a Believer and the B3 player at his church.    I asked him if he just picked it up on his own or did he ever take lessons and he said he took lessons when he was young but didn't like it and didn't like his teacher.   My wife is a piano teacher and has about 40 students, and I told him how I have observed through the years that virtually all of Julie's piano students want to play the piano.    But not all of them want to LEARN to play the piano.   They think that just because they take piano lessons from Julie and carry the label of being a piano student that somehow they will just become pianists.   Not all the students count the cost of what it takes to become a piano player.   There is something they must do everyday - it is called practice!   I think the same thing may be said of Christians who d

  “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.”  1 Peter 3:1  This past weekend I reconnected with my childhood once again when the SC Baptist Singing Churchmen sang at Crestview Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio.  My childhood from ages 3 to 14 covered 1960-1971 with friends who hold a very special place in my heart to this day.  But the experience is the closest thing to time travel I can imagine.  My formative years were bottled up for storage when my family moved away from Dayton to West Columbia, SC when as I was 14 years old.   So, all of those memories and feelings connected with Dayton were just frozen in time for me and very capsulated in my brain.  The people that were very much a part of my life were suddenly gone and new people, places and experiences took their place.  I have only returned to Dayton for brief, yet intense visits three times since 1971: In 1985 when I took my youth choir from Virginia to sing, in 2006 for the church’s 50 th Anniversary Sunday, and now in

Truly, Jesus loves the little children of the world...and so should we. With all of the evil in this world, children have always been a source of joy and hope.  They have always been a reminder that every one of us were at one time innocent and trusting. And little children are proof that the world was intended to be a place of peace, love and harmony with our Creator and with each other...before sin entered the world and ruined everything. But the plight of children around the world is also a reason for our adult hearts to break. This picture taken of a Syrian child has gone viral. The scared little girl thought the camera was a weapon and reacted in a pleading gesture of surrender. When our old English translation of the Greek New Testament records Jesus' words in Matthew 19:14, "Suffer the little children to come unto me," he did not at all mean that they should in any way be made to suffer!  In Matthew 18:6 Jesus said, "But whoso shall offend one of these