Posts from 2024
SOUND WORDS, MAY 5, 2O24
MESSY ACCOMPLISHMENTS I was talking with my infusion nurse this week about difficulties starting IVs on people who are “hard sticks” (like me). She told me a story about when she was new working in the ER and not sure if she was going to make it at the job. One night they were short-staffed, and despite the fact she was inexperienced, she had to start an IV on a particularly hard case, an older lady with no veins to…
SOUND WORDS, APRIL 28, 2024
IF MIRACLES GO, SO DOES NAPOLEON Christianity’s veracity rests on the factuality of certain miraculous happenings. If these happenings didn’t happen, Christianity is worthless (1 Cor. 15.12–19). In the 18th century, a Scottish philosopher by the name of David Hume argued that the miraculous happenings undergirding Christianity didn’t occur. His argument against miracles has persisted, in various forms, to the present. In philosophy books it’s usually found in the chapter on religion to prove that you can’t use miracles to…
SOUND WORDS, APRIL 21, 2024
HOW WILL YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION? “What is your life?” asks James, the Lord’s brother. He then gives his own answer, as one inspired of God to do so: “It is even as a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away” (4:14). Life is time. Time is life. Nobody knows just how much of it he has. “What is my life?” That is the question. And it’s a question ever man must answer for…
SOUND WORDS, APRIL 14, 2024
TAKE TIME TO BE HOLY Scriptural Text: 1 Peter 1:13-16 As Christians, we are commanded to be holy. To be holy means to belong to God. We are consecrated & separated for the service of God. When we are holy, like God is holy, then we are conforming in all things to the will of the Father in Heaven. Personal holiness is a work of gradual development. We are called to be holy, even in the midst of hindrances. For…
SOUND WORDS, APRIL 6, 2024
FIGHT FOR YOUR FAITH “But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled and put on the armor of faith and love, and a helmet of the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him” (1 Thess 5:8-10). There are different ways in which we may think about…
SOUND WORDS, MARCH 31, 2024
TWO CHURCHES WANT TO GROW Two churches want to grow, but their attitudes toward growth differ greatly. The first church looks upon growth as its primary purpose. Goals are placed before the membership: “We want to double our membership within the next three years,” for instance. Success (or failure) is judged almost entirely on the basis of that congregation’s numerical growth. The second church looks upon the saving of souls as its primary purpose and any growth in membership is…
SOUND WORDS, MARCH 24, 2024
VISIBLE APPRECIATION One day a teacher had an assignment for her students. She told them to write down every single one of their classmate’s names with space in between each one. They were then instructed to think of the nicest thing they could say to each of their classmates and write it under their name. Being given the remainder of the class period to complete the assignment, one by one each student’s paper was turned in as they left the…
SOUND WORDS, MARCH 17, 2O24
NO GREATER LOVE As the United States troop transport ship known as the SS Dorchester made its way from New York to Greenland, it was struck by a German torpedo during the early morning hours on February 3, 1943. Power was lost preventing the crew from sending radio distress signals, inadequate steam left the ship with the inability to sound the full 6 whistle signal to abandon ship, and the damage was so severe that the ship sank by its…