There are a lot of lessons I learned about following Christ from my fall into alcoholism and my time in recovery. The one that I come back to daily is that sin is powerful. I didn't set out to be the man I became. It was little indulgences, that led to bigger ones. Soon I was justifying the bigger sins and stumbling into even bigger sins. All the while I never thought I could ever become a slave to sin in my life. I didn't want to become what I became. I got there in slow increments with no accountability or transparency.

While I was at the gym today, I realized that modern Christians are very fast to label folks Pharisees for legalism. It’s probably the most common label in the modern church... far more so than heretic or apostate. But you almost never hear folks break out the label: Sadducee. I would argue that there are tons of characteristics of the Sadducees that we see in the modern church, but it’s exceedingly rare as an association. This is especially interesting because Jesus’ teachings tend to land in the tradition of Hillel, who is considered to be

4 years ago today I went to the hospital for what I expected to be the hardest pastoring day I would ever do. A congregant/friend was having a baby the doctors had told her would not live. They told her it would be an hour at the most before her daughter died. We had known for months that this was what they said would happen. I went to the hospital and sat with the family while the mother and father were in the delivery room. The child was born not breathing. My friend held her child, wept, and sand "it is well with my soul."