The Deacon's Bench

What is a covenant? A covenant is an agreement with two unequal parties. Covenants were a vital part of the culture in the early times of mankind. The king would make a covenant with his vassal, someone who couldn’t give him anything in return, and the king would be boundContinue Reading

During Advent we often ask ourselves, or should ask ourselves, which way should I go? Life is filled with paths and forks, easy paths and hard, good paths and bad. One of my favorite poems as a child, which inspired me to begin writing my own poetry, was Robert Frosts,Continue Reading

As a parent there seems to be an unwritten rule. When someone does something nice for your children, we tend to make a mental note of it and remember to do something nice for that person. We the parent, feel responsible for repaying others when they do things for ourContinue Reading

I am often reminded of the comment made by Gandhi that is often quoted at Christians by those who disagree with them. I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims ofContinue Reading

Most Christians would agree that we don’t know how many wise men there were. Likely there were more than three, but over the years our nativity scenes have included those three men to indicate the number of gifts recorded in specific detail in the nativity story. And going into theContinue Reading

 There once was a billion dollar corporation which had just opened a new branch in a country that was in the middle of an economic depression. Thousands upon thousands of men and women applied for the jobs, thousands for every single position. In the end there was only three positionsContinue Reading