Proverbs tells us that “the mouth that speaks evil hates him” against whom it speaks. Faull asks someone who has nothing good to say about another what they did against the person they are deriding. Anger, he says is often due to being no longer sure of oneself. Saul was a man who was “small in his own eyes.” He didn’t have a good opinion of himself and led to his desire for vengeance. David,…
Clarence Darrow, a famous criminal lawyer, once said, “Everyone is a potential murderer. I have not killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction out of obituary notices.” “Hatred is a joy killer, and it often leads to overt murder.” (cf. I John 3:15)
In our relationships with others, often what passes for love is little more than a neat business transaction. People are kind to us, so we repay them with equal consideration. When they treat us unjustly, our negative response is really what they asked for. Everything is so balanced, so fair, so logical with this eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth kind of justice. But Christian love never settles for only what’s reasonable. It insists on giving mercy as…
President Garfield was assassinated shortly after taking office and the bullet lodged in his body. Doctors struggled to remove the bullet from the President’s body – even inviting Alexander Graham Bell to the White House bringing his new invention, the telephone, in the hopes that the magnets in his new invention would be strong enough to find and remove the bullet. They kept probing and sticking metal down into the wound trying to extricate the…
We are told how the ancient Indians in Florida trapped the alligator, the massive tail being used as a very meaty food source. Two rows of very heavy stacks made from rough poles were driven into the earth, forming a duct-like conduit wide enough for an alligator to enter but at the same time narrow enough to make it impossible for him to turn around. The alligator was lured by bait into the conduit, then…
