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Votes in the ensuing election . . .

October 25, 2016 /

John Wesley

Dear Friends,

In light of our being in the closing days of the presidential campaign I want to share with you words of wisdom penned before our country was even birthed. May they challenge us to be people of integrity in all we say and do in these days ahead.

From the journal of the Rev. John Wesley

Thursday, October 6, 1774

“I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election and advised them,

  1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy:
  2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against: And,
  3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side.”

 

Blessings,
Pastor Stephen

 

Source:

This quote has been making the rounds of the internet lately. I did look it up to verify its authenticity from the writings of John Wesley.

Wesley, John. “An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley’s Journal from September 13, 1773, to January 2, 1776.” The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed., vol. 4, Baker Books, 2007, p. 29.

Facing Change

October 25, 2012 /

What does a group of grown men playing wiffle ball in Kalamazoo, Michigan do when there is a disagreement about a call? They take out their cell phones, of course, and call a major league umpire in San Diego as he is getting ready for a game for a resolution to the argument. Who would have guessed in 1984, when the first cell phone was released by Motorola, costing nearly $4,000 and weighing over two pounds, that it would one day be used to resolve a wiffle ball game?

Laura Ingalls Wilder

In the book The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion by Tim Challies—a book well worth reading. The author states that Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in the big woods of Wisconsin into a world where information traveled no faster than a horse, a fact that had been true when Jesus was born over 1800 years prior. By the time of her death, the world had entered into the realm of jet travel. While the rate of change and number of societal changes was dramatic in her lifetime, it is nothing compared to what generations following her have experienced and will be experienced by each new generation.

As I look at my children sleeping tonight, it is impossible for me to conceive of the world they will live in as adults. How do you train a child for a world that does not exist? You teach them principles. It is one of the things that makes the Bible so powerful and timeless and gives evidence to the gracious foreknowledge of God.

The Bible provides very few direct solutions to specific situations, rather it gives us the unchanging principles by which we are able to discern how to live in each situation.

The world, methods, society, communication, the church and everything else will change and must change, but the principles of God will remain and endure through it all.

Blessings,
Stephen

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