Rev Chris Roth

The following is a part of the story of Joshua who has been a refugee for the last 20 years primarily for converting to Christianity. Josh has discerned a call from God to seek out formal theological education. If you would like to support him please contact St. Timothy's.  St. Timothy's Anglican Church  8420 - 145 Street NW  Edmonton, AB  Canada T5R 0T2  Ph: 780-483-5506  http://www.sttimothy-edm.ca/contact To listen to Joshua's story click here It's an honour to be standing here and thanks again for sponsoring me. I am very grateful and thankful. My family is a Muslim family. My father used to be an Imam, which is a Muslim leader. My destiny as a Muslim was to live as my father did and his grandfathers did. Islam to us is not only a religion it is a way of life. It's everything. It's a life and a law and a pride as the children of Abraham and of the prophet Muhammad, who was the founder of Islam. This is ho...

John 1:29-42 Hear the sermon here Margret Atwood in her book of short stories, Bluebeard’sEgg , tells a story where a woman named Christine is out on a date with a man she has just met and everything seems to go fine until her date asks her a question “Do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?” Then she writes this: “Religious people of any serious kind made her nervous: they were like men in raincoats who might or might not be flashers. You would be going along with them in the normal way, and then there could be a swift movement and you would look down to find the coat wide open and nothing under it but some pant legs held up by rubber bands. This had happened to Christine in a train station once” [1] Margret Atwood is describing the discomfort that often goes along with evangelism. She, or at least the character in her story, feels like the action is not appropriate to the relationship. It is a private thing that is suddenly made very public.  What shou...

Hear the sermon here Matthew 3:13-17 For those fathers who are hockey players they remember moments like when their child first puts on skates and they state around the rink holding their hand. For those fathers who are car guys they remember things like when their child first helps them change the oil. For me as a priest I remember reading a children’s Bible with my oldest son Zander, who was 3 or 4 at the time. We just read about Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist and Zander turned to me and asked why Jesus had to be baptized if he didn’t have sin. It is a question that rolls around in the minds of all those who have spent any time really considering Jesus’ baptism.  Those who have considered it over the years have given us a few responses. Jesus was baptized to continue his work of incarnation. The mission of the Son of God was to become one of us so that he could lift us out of our sin into a greater relationship with God. Jesus couldn’t do that from ...

Those who are idle in the pursuit of righteousness count theological terminology as secondary, together with attempts to search out the hidden meaning in this phrase or this syllable, but those conscious of the goal of our calling realize that we are to become like God, as far as this is humanly possible for human nature. But we cannot become like God unless we have knowledge of him, and without lessons there will be no knowledge. Instruction begins with the proper use of speech, and syllables and words are the elements of speech. Therefore to scrutinize syllables is not a superfluous task. Just because certain questions seem insignificant is no reason to ignore them. Hunting truth is no easy task; we must look everywhere for its tracks. Learning truth is like learning a trade; apprentices grow in experience little by little, provided they do not despise any opportunities to increase their knowledge. A person who spurns fundamental elements as insignificant trifles will never embr...