About thirty years ago, Sueanne and I spent a couple of weeks in Scotland. On that trip, we saw a lot of huge cathedrals. Those cathedrals are among the most beautiful buildings in the world. If you were to build one today, it would cost millions and millions of dollars. But, to me,…
Shaped BY the cross into the shape OF the cross
Sermons from June 2021
The story is told of two brothers who were convicted of stealing sheep. As part of their punishment, they were branded on the forehead with the letters ST, to indicate “sheep thief.” One of the brothers couldn’t deal with the embarrassment of it, so he moved away and never came back. The other brother, though,…
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…
