Ecclesiastes 12:10

   I don’t run. The only way I’d ever run is if a monster were chasing me, and it must be a pretty big monster. If I ever had to run a marathon, I’d die. But it turns out just having a marathon run might just do it.   According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, more people die of heart attacks and cardiac arrest when they fall ill during marathons. Not the runners, the people near the race.  The problem is the change in traffic patterns when streets are closed due to the race. Ambulance ride takes on average 4 minutes longer. People driving to the hospital get delayed. The result is that the 30-day death rate from heart attacks and cardiac arrest jumped 15% for people who fall ill on marathon days.   We often think about our lives in terms of what is good for us and what we want. Yet we must be careful because our actions do influence and have an effect on others. In 1 st Corinthians 8, we see Paul make this point in the context of die...

  Two researchers, Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz, discovered a strange reason people were not exercising: typeface.  They gave people written instructions on how to do a physical exercise. If the instructions were in an easy-to-read font ( Arial ), people estimated that it would take about 8 minutes to do the exercise and that it wouldn’t be too difficult. They were willing to incorporate the exercise into their daily workout. But if the instructions were given in an overly decorative font ( Brush Script MT Italic ), people estimated it would take almost twice as long—15 minutes—to do the exercise, and they rated the exercise as being difficult to do  Clarity, it seems, is everything.   In Colossians 4, Paul asks the church there to pray for his effort to spread the Gospel, specifically asking “ that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak ”. He knew that for his effort to bear fruit he had to speak in a clear way that people would respond to. ...

  I bet you might have a few people at your door tomorrow in a scary mask. Normally we put on a mask to scare someone not to stop them from being scared but the Bible tells us of a time when that norm was reversed.   In Exodus 34, we read that when Moses would come down from Sinai his face would literally shine after being in the presence of God. This made everyone fearful. So, Moses made a habit of putting on a mask or veil to cover up when he was with them. They saw Moses but not fully.   Paul uses this historical quirk to explain the response of some Jews to the gospel in 2 nd Corinthians 3:13-18. The veil was a temporary measure but they became so used to it that they thought it was the norm. Because of that distraction, they were not seeing fully what they should be.  People today put on masks. Not just on Halloween, they put on a mask because they are afraid of revealing who they truly are. We downplay our faith, we blend into the world, and we cover t...

  If you want to see people on their best behavior just sit in the stand of a little league sports game. What you don’t believe me? Surely people foaming at the mouth screaming about a game involving kids that might not be able to put their shoes on the right feet is sound behavior?  What is it that makes people who otherwise are normal everyday tax-paying folks turn into a raging lunatic that feels the greatest injustice in the history of ever was the strike call against their kid, who just so happened to be holding the bat upside down the whole time? Boy, people can lose their minds over sports.  It could be worse. Take for instance the people of Maranhão, Brazil who stoned quartered, and decapitated an official that had tried to eject a player in an amateur soccer match. Granted the ref had stabbed the player, who had refused to leave the field and proceeded to punch the ref but still seems a bit much to me.     It’s funny how we can compartmentalize our ...

    The Pharisees were out to get Jesus. They figure if they could get him to say something against the Romans, they would have a lever in which to remove Jesus. So they go to him and ask him a question involving the payment of taxes to Caesar. If he said no, well the Romans might be after him.    But notice how they speak to Jesus before they ask that question. In Matthew 22:16 they say, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and teach the way of God in truth, and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any ”. You can see what they are doing. They are trying to rile him up with compliments. Imply he is the type of guy who won’t cave to pressure and then ask him a question to prove just that. Challenge him to show that he is a truthful teacher not afraid of giving the “right” answer.  Jesus didn’t take the bait.  His answer was brilliant. It took the issue out of the trap and back into the real world. He never violates who he is but doesn’t all...

     Alfred Packer was a man made infamous by his peculiar crime; cannibalism.   The fact Packer had murdered and eaten five hunting companions during a Colorado blizzard in 1873 was horrifying. Hardly anyone could think of a worse crime, well except for one person. The judge at the trial M. B. Gerry was quoted to have said to Packer at his sentencing, “ There were seven Democrats in Hinsdale County, but you ate five of them. I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you’re dead, dead, dead, as a warning against reducing the Democratic population of the state. ”   I wish I could say we have moved beyond that thinking. Yet today, it seems politics still play a huge role in most folks thinking, more maybe than it should. Issues of right and wrong are now blurred by the political implications. All sides seem far too willing to accept evil as long as that evil benefits their political constituency. Rhetoric has replaced reason. Victory is more important princi...

    Wars often lead to lawlessness and the American Revolution was no different.   So as the conflict spread south in Virginia, Charles was dismayed at the effect it had on his home in Bedford County. The courts had ceased to function. Guerrilla bands and militias on both sides roamed the countryside, and hooligans often ruled the streets. So Charles decided to take matters into his own hands.    So he set up his own unofficial court. He appointed officers and issued arrests of lawbreakers. Since they had no money to jail prisoners, he doled out punishments in fines or whippings.   Charles tried to judge with compassion and reason, but still, his actions created a great deal of animosity towards him.   Charles only had to enlist the death penalty once in his court. A plot by some Tories to destroy a lead mine vital to the war effort was discovered. The conspirators were found guilty and hanged. The friends and family of the men were upset...

    Elisha Otis built a better elevator, but no one was knocking at his door.   Up until his invention, there were elevators but they weren’t all that safe. Otis changed that with his elevator break. Now if something malfunction, an elevator could be stopped before the riders fell to their deaths. Still, sales were not that great, he only sold three in the previous year.   So Elisha did something crazy. At the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York, he raised an elevator up on a high suspended platform with him inside, held only by a rope. Then he ordered the rope to be cut. The crowd gasped and the elevator fell…..a few inches.   The elevator didn’t go down but sales went thru the roof. His invention help to make the modern-day skyscraper a feasible reality.   All it took was a demonstration.   People often have to be shown something is true in order to believe it. That is why it is so vitally important for a Christian’s life ...

  Abel has been dead longer than anyone.  His murder at the hands of his own brother makes his the first recorded death in human history. We don’t know how exactly how old he was when he perished but it was relatively minuscule compared to the people of his time. Yet his impact is still being felt today. By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. Hebrews 11:4   The Hebrew writer tells us some things about Abel. He was righteous. God was pleased with him. His faith is an example. And he still speaks to us today.   Pretty good for a guy that has been gone longer than anyone else.   Righteous people leave a mark on this world. The Spirit testifies in Revelation 14:13 that the Godly dead are blessed and their actions still are important. Wickedness might garner fl...

  Oscar Wilde said, “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go”. I’m sure you know what he was talking about. Those folks of whom your best memory involves a door swinging shut as they walk out of it.   Yet they may not be the most damaging of folks.   It is those that leave yet somehow still remain. People whose caustic words till sting even after the sound has died away. The fellow whose bad job performance makes everyone question if the job is valid in the first place. A false teacher whose lies still confuse and distort truth even when they have moved down the road. Those that leave but leave a stain behind that someone else has to clean up.   You can’t do much about those people but you can make sure you are not one of them. We have a motto we use at camp, ‘Leave the place a little better than you found it.” It is a good motto for life as well. Instead of going out with a thud, leave on a high note. Make a mark, not a stain....

  In 1939, a film called “Code of the Secret Service” hit the theaters. It was one of a series of movies about a tough-guy Secret Service agent named Brass Bancroft.  It wasn’t much of a hit. Even its star considered it one of the worst films he ever made. But for a ten-year-old boy from Miami Florida named Jerry Parr it was inspirational. After making his father take him several times to see the flick, he made up his mind that one day he was going to become a Secret Service agent. And that is exactly what he did.   Forty-two years later, Jerry Parr found himself living out his childhood dream as part of the security forces guarding the President of the United States. It was a seemly ordinary March day until a gunman named John Hinckley appeared and began firing.  Parr dove to protect the President and pushed him into the waiting car that immediately sped off. When Parr noticed the President coughing up blood, a result of a pierced lung from a ricocheting ...

  Word origin fascinates me. Taken for example the word character. Today it can mean a letter or symbol used in print or it can be the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. But both these meanings have the same origin.   In ancient times, (brick makers, engravers, etc.) used a symbol to mark the things they created to show that they were the makers. That symbol was his “character.” That symbol became a measure of the work being done.  The quality of the person and his work gave value to his credentials. If the work was good, so was the character. If it was bad, then the character was viewed as poor.  It isn’t any different today. We may want to label ourselves with certain words and phrases. But in the end, it is what we do that gives value to those words. If we call ourselves Christian and don’t act properly, it ruins the name. If we claim to be the church of Christ and behave like any other group, we dilute the meaning. They profe...

  It really is a true story.   It happened in Florida back in 1986.  Jurors were being transported upstairs by elevator to hear a case when the elevator got stuck between floors. For twenty minutes they hung there until the elevator was finally fixed. On their late arrival, the judge was concerned that the event might sway the jury. Why?     The case they were to rule on involved an escalator accident. And the company being sued was the Otis Elevator company. The same company that operated the elevator they had just been stuck in. And they knew it because they have been staring at that sign for the last twenty minutes. Amazingly, the judge decided not to disqualify any of the stranded passengers/jurors, concluding instead that they were able to put aside their recent experience with the defendant and rule fairly.   I’m not so sure.   The actions that surround a message have a great impact on the message. We need to remember th...

  Its name was Exercise Tiger, and it was one of the most important exercises in World War II. You've probably had never heard of it.  It ’s not, however, forgotten because it was a disaster for the American forces, even though that is exactly what it was . A disaster.   The trouble started on the beach landing. A delay in some of the landing ship caused the troops that were to invade the beach to come under shelling from their own warship. Marines were killed by friendly fire.  Even worse the top secret exercise was witnessed by a German E-boat that attacked some of the transport boats. Two of the nine were sunk, another two were damaged before other ships could return fire.  A thousand men died. The failed exercise caused the entire Allied war plan to be put on hold until the situation was brought back under control. The whole debacle was hidden from the public. The families of those that died were not informed of the men deaths.   Any mention...

  Benjamin Franklin loved to experiment.  Either with kite strings and electricity or adapting his eyeglasses so he could use them to see both near and far, Franklin love to figure out new things and improve on old ways.     One of the discoveries Franklin made was that plaster could be used as an effective fertilizer.  His neighbors weren’t buying into his claims, however.  To convince them, he went to a well-traveled path by a field that was about to be seeded.  He scratched letters into the ground and sprinkled plaster in them.   After a few weeks, the grain began to grow, and some of the grains were noticeably greener and taller than the rest.  The grains formed a message “THIS HAS BEEN PLASTERED”.    Franklin didn’t have to argue with his neighbors anymore; the proof was there in bright green living color.   There are people we try to convince of the benefits of faith in Christ Jesus that just don...

  In Acts 18, Paul is following his customary approach of teaching in the synagogue about Jesus as the Christ.  Even after Silas and Timothy arrive allowing him to solely focus on preaching; he runs into a brick wall in form of the stubborn Jews. He’s so fed up he shakes off his garment and vows to go to Gentiles instead and let their “ blood be on your own heads ”!   So instead of preaching in the Jewish synagogue, he moves next door to the house of a man named Titius Justus, who is described as a worshiper of God.  We don’t know much about him but we can assume from his name he was a Roman and he was wealthy enough to own a home that could serve as a place of assembly.   Now here is where it gets interesting. After this we read that Crispus, a leader of the synagogue, believes and is baptized along with entire household.  Right after Paul vows to go to the Gentiles, one of the most prominent Jews is converted.  It seems an odd time for hi...

   All boys at some point in their life try to be just like their dad. They comb their  hair like dad. They put on a tie like dad. The talk like him, walk like him, emulate him in what he does.  Then at some point they do just the opposite, they distance themselves trying to be their own man.  However,  most grown men will tell you that even after that they still have a lot of their father in them, for better or for worse .    In John 8:44 Jesus condemns a group of people for acting like their Father; You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies .    Here Jesus is warning these men that in rejecting the truth about him and creating lies about him, they are showing who their true father is. Not the God of Heav...

    In the late sixties, there was a rash of plane hijacking (in 1969 alone, there were nearly three dozen attempted or successful hijackings to Cuba of flights originating in the U.S.).  One however that occurred in February of 1969 might just be the strangest.  An Eastern Airlines flight from Newark to Miami was interrupted by man with a 10-inch knife held at the neck of a stewardess, demanding the plane instead go to Cuba.  The strangeness occurred with the passengers and the crew; they took it as one big joke.  They saw the knife but everybody was cool and calm, just a little annoyed at the delay.  Some of the passengers were noted to be laughing and carrying on, not the least bit worried. How could people act that way in the middle of a tense and dangerous situation?     Well it all had to do with a passenger that just happened to be on board.  His name was Allen Funt, the creator, producer, and host of Candid Ca...

 Could you spot a Christian by the way he drives?  Consider if you will the example of the Old Testament king Jehu in 2 Kings 9-10. Jehu was impetuous military man. He was given the mission by God to purge Ahab’s influence out of Israel and Judah. He did just that, but he went too far. He destroys Ahab line but in an extreme and bloody manner.  For this excessive violence, he would be condemned by the prophet Hosea (Hosea 1:4).   You don’t however need to read everything about him to understand his character, you can just see it one thing he did, how he drove . In 2 nd Kings 9 Jehu is coming for Joram. When Joram’s men see the chariot approaching, they send a messenger but he doesn’t return. King Joram wonders who is driving the chariot, what his intent is and what happened to the messenger. In 2 Kings 9:20, we see the response, “ The watchman reported, "He(the messenger) came even to them, and he did not return; and the driving is like the driving o...

   In 1997, Reed Hastings returned a rented copy of the movie Apollo 13 to Blockbuster Video.  He was dismayed when he was told he owed a $40 late fee, more than double the cost to buy the movie. The next year he founded Netflix as an alternative to the movie rental change.  By 2010 Blockbuster was bankrupt and out of business and Netflix was worth 20 billion dollars. While Netflix didn't shut down blockbuster, it did steal the market that Blockbuster needed to move into. Abusing one customer destroyed them in the end.    We may not think much of the slights we give to others. The rude comment to the waitress, the person we cut off in traffic, the people we cut in front of in the checkout line, the man we shortchange in business; but we always need to be careful because we never know when those small slights may cause big damage.  I hate to think of the examples of people that refuse to come to worship services because that is where “so & s...