Bobby Griffith
Bobby Griffith is the pastor at Westfield Presbyterian Church in New Castle, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Covenant Theological Seminary, he finished a master of arts in history and worked in churches in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. He has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Oklahoma. He and his wife, Jennifer, have one son, Sammy. Bobby likes the Steelers, the OU Sooners, the St. Louis Cardinals, the OKC Thunder, smoked meats, motorcycles, CrossFit, and… cats.
The Birth of Joy:
Philippians
The ancient letter of Philippians invites us to joy—today. The Apostle Paul wrote this short note to a colonized outpost in the Roman Empire, a city named Philippi. It was a mining city built to provide wealth to the Roman Empire and also where retired soldiers went to reminisce about their glory days. It was a city trying so hard to be like Rome that it mimicked its entertainment, politics, and culture. What’s remarkable about this letter is that Paul was in jail when he wrote it, yet it’s a thank you note full of joy. He calls the Christian community to rejoice in all things and to endure all things joyfully. However, it is not out of a naïve focus on dying and going to heaven, but rather out of a willingness to embrace the reality of what it means to take hold of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection—to follow him in loving God and others.
Philippians invites us to joy and to find something in which to rejoice in the midst of our hectic, never-satisfied world. It shows us that Christ gives us himself and that through him we can find joy in chaos, poverty, and suffering. Joy does not have to be happy-clappy, pie-in-the-sky ignorance of the world we inhabit. It comes through viewing our reality in light of Christ.
We hope that through this short book you will come to understand that kind of joy. Jesus meets us where we are in our lives, not where we think we should be, or where we want to be. Philippians shows us that. It shows us the birth of true joy—found only in Jesus Christ.
Everything Is Meaningless?:
Ecclesiastes
Do we live in a dark and depressing time? Many think so. But many have thought so in times before. This is a look at one of the most ancient descriptions of what we now call the postmodern condition of meaninglessness, going all the way back to the poem of Ecclesiastes to see if it has anything to say to our current day and age. We'll find descriptions and musings that sound so very familiar. And we'll also find hope, grace and mercy in the midst of it all.