Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

Phillips Brooks once said, “When all that can be said has been said about suffering, there remains a dark mystery that cannot be fathomed.” Anyone who has tried to understand the purpose of suffering knows that to be true. It will be a mystery as long as we live on this earth. In the face of unexplainable suffering, here are a few suggestions to help you:...

Few people have the ability to see latent potential in others. Most of us look people over, size them up, and then leave them as they are. Many great people have been overlooked in this way. If we had been in England many years ago, we might even have sized up young Winston Churchill and written him off as a failure. He was a redheaded, troublesome boy with a speech i...

Hurrah for Johnny Cash when he refused to perform a bedroom scene with a nude actress in his movie A Gunfight. The scene was fairly tame by film standards at that time, but this is what Cash said about it: “I couldn’t do that scene. How could I do that and then record an album of hymns? Or talk on my television show about what religion means to my life? I&...

A light is not to look at but to look by. It does not exist to draw attention to itself but to help us to see other things more clearly. It is this basic quality of light that led Jesus to say to his followers of all ages, “You are the light of the world.” What did he mean?  The world is groping in spiritual darkness and cannot find God. It is the pu...

Occasionally one hears the complimentary statement, “He is a Christian and a gentleman.” The expression throws a shadow across our modern brand of Christianity. The implication is that a Christian is not necessarily a gentle person. In all likelihood all of us could relate a case or two to bear out the point. Most of us have to work for years to wear off...

During the Bobby Baker hearing in Washington in 1963, charges were made that a certain witness was a “character assassin.” A character assassin is a person who attempts to demolish the character of someone else by slander, lies, gossip, or half-truths. The chief weapon of the character assassin is his tongue. With it he injures innocent people. The tongue...

Joe Louis complained to his manager, Mike Jacobs, when he lost the world’s heavyweight boxing title: “You can’t do it when you don’t got it.” It’s as true in living the Christian life as it is in boxing—you’ve got to have power to be successful. God never intended you to live the Christian life in your own strength. I m...

Jesus said “Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matthew 5:13). He reminded all of his followers for all time that it was their task to save the world from moral and spiritual decay. “Salt is natur...

A prominent minister once said, “I have heard people confess to breaking every one of the Ten Commandments except the ninth: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’ Yet this is the one we all break most often.” What irreparable damage has been done to innocent people by thoughtless indulgence in this vice! Here is some g...