Ecclesiastes 12:10

  I am a re-reader. I have several of my favorite books that I am constantly pulling off the shelf to read again. I find that every time I do I find something new, or something I forgot, or something I just love experiencing again. Great classics have that kind of power      In his book Three Philosophies Of Life, Peter Kreeft makes the following statement: A classic is like a cow: it gives fresh milk every morning. A classic is a book that rewards endlessly repeated rereading. A classic is like the morning, like nature herself: ever young, ever renewing. No, not even like nature, for she, like us, is doomed to die. Only God is ever young, and only the Book he inspired never grows old.     The Bible is the greatest classic ever written because it came from the breath of God (2 nd Timothy 3:16) Jesus himself is described as the Word (John 1:1-14). It is a book that is fresh and ever new. Those that continually study it will never have to worry...

Anyone that has ever read a super hero comic knows the importance of a good origin story. Everything you need to know about a character should come thru in his origin story. If you want to know why Batman is the “dark knight” or why Spiderman puts up with all the grief he receives, you need to read the origin story.  Similarly, if you want to understand the apostle Paul, all you need to do is look to his origin story and his conversion to Christianity.  The events on the Damascus Road in Acts 9 shaped Paul into the man we see throughout the Bible.  When Paul is put on trial for his actions as an evangelist, his defense is the re-telling of his conversion (Acts 22:3-21; 26:9-23).  Paul doesn’t start out the hero of this story however; he is the main villain.  In the beginning, Paul is the chief persecutor of the church and believed that he “ had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” But after Jesus speaks to him on that desert road,...

Dan West was serving as relief worker during the Spanish Civil War. His job was divvy up the rations of powdered milk to hungry families. Each day he was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn't – literally, who would live and who would die. The same starving children came everyday asking for help and there would never be enough to go around. This kind of aid, he knew, would never be enough. Then a simple idea hit him; Give them a cow not a cup . So when he returned home he started by sending seventeen cows to malnourished children in Puerto Rico. The idea was to end hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and training so that they "could be spared the indignity of depending on others to feed their children.”  Each family would be given cow with only one catch . When each animal gave birth, the first newborn cow had to go to another family. The gift had to continue. So an idea grew. An idea that is now estimated by the ...

Rick Reilly recently had an article on the oddest game in high school football history. It occurred last month down in Grapevine, Texas when Grapevine Faith hosted Gainesville State School. What made it so odd? Well for starters, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through. They even made a banner for players to crash through at the end. It said, "Go Tornadoes!" Which is also weird, because Faith is the Lions.  As the game got under way, more than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name.  You wouldn't expect another parent to tell somebody to hit their kids but they did. What is even weirder is the coach for Grapevine Faith Kris Hogan is the one that gave the idea for the fans to do it. Why? It’s not because Gainesville is a great team. They were 0-8 for the year and had only scored 2 TDs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the l...