Ecclesiastes 12:10

   It was a perfect sermon.  When Paul speaks at the Areopagus in Acts 17:22-31, the sermon was everything that a preacher could want.  Before the lesson, a buzz had been generated (Acts 17:18).  He had an educated audience open to new ideas, wanting to hear him speak. (Acts 17:19-21).Even the location gave the lesson a sense of importance.    His presentation had all those things that your speech teacher tells you to add to be effective.  A great opening hook (The Unknown God), quotes from people that would respect and admire, great individual lines that would stick in your memory.  It paints vividly a picture of a powerful God that created all but is missed by man in his ignorance, a God that has been wanting for mankind to reach out to him, so he can save them from destruction.  It closes with a might crescendo, a call to change, and a reason to act.  It is simple yet profound, gentle yet challenging, respectful yet d...

  I tend to watch a lot of sports on television, so I also tend to watch a lot of commercials.  While I love recording shows so I can skip through the commercials, it just seems wrong to not watch a sporting event live, so I have to muddle through the ads.  I might not be so bad if they weren't the same commercials over and over.  What’s worse they are not even good commercials.  Mostly, they’re not all that funny, or entertaining.  Why do they keep showing them the same old things over and over again?   Well, years ago my father explained to me a little something about the nature of advertising.  The key is not necessarily to entertain, or to get noticed but to be remembered!  For example, there might be a lot of buzz about the funny ad that ran during the Super Bowl.  People can tell you what the ad was about but nothing about the specific product. It was a car ad but which car company? You see that ad was noticed b...

 A new crewman came aboard the old sailing ship and he was immediately struck by the grizzled first mate. You just tell by his appearance that he was a salty pirate. He had all the classic wounds, the peg leg, the eye patch, the hook for a hand.  After a couple weeks at sea, he worked up the nerve to ask the first mate about his career.  “Tell me,” he inquired “How did you end up with the peg-leg?”  The mate replies, “We were in a storm at sea, and I was swept overboard into a school of sharks, just as my men were pulling me out, a shark bit my leg off.”  “Wow!” said the crewman. “What about your hook”?  “Well”, replied the pirate, “We were boarding an enemy ship and were battling the other sailors with swords, and one of the enemy cut my hand off.” “Incredible!” remarked the crewman. “How did you get the eye patch”?  The pirate remarked, "Well one I was staring into the sky trying to get my bearing, when a seagull flew over me and did, well, what ...