Just about every preacher is familiar with the Pareto Principle. They may not know it by that name, but they understand how it works. Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist who noticed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Later, his principle was expanded to say…
You’ve probably noticed that things have changed a lot in this country over the past couple hundred years. One of the things that has changed is how we punish people when they commit a crime. My guess is that it’s probably been quite a while since you’ve seen someone punished in stocks or pillories like…
One of the things that Sueanne and I tried to teach our children as they were growing up was the value of money. I’m not sure at what age it happens, but somewhere along the line, children begin to take on the consumer mentality of our culture. I’m sure all of you parents have…
There are a number of sayings that people think are in the Bible, but they’re really not. Sometimes those sayings may express the thought of scripture, but the actual quote isn’t there. For example, the Bible never says, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”. The book of Proverbs talks a lot about the discipline…
The story is told of a Post Office worker who found an unstamped hand-written envelope, addressed to God. It obviously couldn’t be delivered to God, so he decided to open it himself and he found that it was written by an elderly lady who was all stressed out because her entire savings of $200…
This morning is Mother’s Day, and so let me begin by wishing a “Happy Mother’s Day” to all of our mothers in the audience. On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson said that this day is to be set aside as a time for ”public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of…
Citizenship is a hot topic of discussion in our country right now. There’s talk about how to keep non-citizens from entering our country, and talk about how to take immigrants who are already here and make them citizens. During past elections, there’s been talk about which candidates may or may not be “natural born…
There’s a saying that I’m sure you’ve all heard before — “Clothes make the man.” But what you may not know is that phrase dates back to sometime around the time of Christ. But it was Mark Twain in his spiffy white suits that made that phrase popular. He actually said a little bit more…
As I’ve said before, things have changed a lot in our lives over the past year because of COVID. One of the biggest changes is that we now have so many rules. We’ve always lots of rules. But over the past year, it just seems like we’ve added so many new rules. Rules about…
I heard recently about a 5-year-old little boy by the name of Nick who came home after spending two weeks at Pre-K and proudly announced to his grandmother that he was the smartest kid in the class. His grandmother, of course, was very proud of Nick and asked him if that was what his teacher…