THE BOTTOM LINE Along the same line, these words from Francis Bacon are most instructive: It's not what men eat, but what they digest that makes them strong; Not what we gain, but what we…
Sermon Illustrations
RECYCYLING TRAGEDY An artist was visiting a dear friend. When he arrived, she was weeping. He asked why. She showed him a handkerchief of exquisite beauty that had great sentimental value, which had been ruined…
CAN A MINISTER BE SAVED? One other item I gleaned from Buechner's book was a quote that he shares with his readers from Karl Barth which was influential in F. B.'s concept of his role…
CROSSBREED It all started around the turn of the century, when some scientists were experimenting with the crossbreeding of plants. One day they crossed a hyacinth with spreading taxus and they got a creeping, virulent,…
NEEDED -- THE PERSONAL TOUCH A man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers to be wired to his mother who lived two hundred miles away. As he got out of his car…
SIN OF DISHONESTY The "credibility gap" that once alienated the public from people in high places now seems to separate us from one another in all walks of life. Americans lie on their income tax…
DYED TO LIVE John Howard Griffin conducted a bold and practical experiment as explained in Journey into Shame. This white man dyed himself black in order to feel and experience the lot of the colored…
BEGRUDGING I 've always been fascinated by the incomparable nature of God's generosity as demonstrated by Jesus' story in Matthew 20:14-16 -- about the laborers who each had a different contract for their work. Particularly…
THE SHARING OF SUFFERING Beverly Sills, operatic great, tells of her two severely handicapped children in her pictorial autobiography, Bubbles. Her own natural daughter is deaf and her step-daughter is also severely handicapped. She writes:…
THE WAY GRACE WORKS Grace does not make everything right. Grace's trick is to show us that it is right for us to live; that it is truly good, wonderful even, for us to be…
TRUTH: THE IRREDUCIBLE MINIMUM Pitt- Watson said: "I heard a silly story about an elderly Scottish couple who had never flown before, but who decided they were going to visit their children in New York…
THE GUN I saw a monk working alone in the vegetable garden. I squatted down beside him and said, "Brother, what is your dream?" It didn't seem to bother him that I should ask so…
SURRENDER OF THE WILL Laid on Thine altar, O my Lord, Divine, Accept my gift this day, for Jesus' sake I have no jewels to adorn Thy shrine, No world-famed sacrifice to make; And here…
TIGERS IN THE DARK One of our faithful readers and contributors, Thomas Lane Butts, recently sent us a copy of his book Tigers in the Dark, published by Abingdon. In the first chapter, he tells…
CAST YOUR BREAD UPON THE WATERS Charles Harvey tells the following story in the Reader's Digest: I was driving to a job interview and running 15 minutes late when I saw a middle-aged woman stranded…
GOOD FRIDAY'S SUFFERING The famous French writer, Paul Claudel, once said that "Christ did not come to do away with suffering; He did not come to explain it; He came to fill it with His…
TELL ME ABOUT THE MASTER Tell me about the Master! I am weary and worn tonight. The day lies behind me in shadow, And only the evening is light. Light with a radiant glory That…
DIVORCE COURT The tragicomedy of human relations is perhaps nowhere revealed more fully than in the divorce court . . . "While he never actually struck me," explained one woman, "he would go around slamming…
THE POWER OF AFFIRMATION A young man in California wanted to be a singer. He was married and having a tough time of it. He worked hard trying to further his musical career but couldn't…
SOMETIMES THINGS ACTUALLY DO WORK OUT FOR JUSTICE In Czechoslovakia, Vera Czermak of Prague discovered her husband was cheating on her. She contemplated both murder and suicide, and chose the latter, blindly leaping out of…
