Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

The Bible has a great deal to say about money, and most of these teachings are in the form of warnings. The Lord realized that our interest in and weakness for material things would make it a constant danger to us. Nowhere in the Bible are the rich denounced merely for being rich. But repeatedly we are warned of the difficulty of being both rich and spiritual. In fac...

If ever there was a generation that needed what people once felt they got from prayer, it is ours. Anxiety, fear, suicides, drugs, and a thousand similar problems indicate our need of help beyond ourselves. With the need of prayer so great, why don’t more people pray more? Some people don’t pray because they believe that life and the universe are too mech...

A friend of mine was baptized into a church as an infant but never came to personal faith in Christ. While in college he heard people talk about their personal conversion experience, and he realized he had never experienced that. So, he went with one of his friends to a revival service one night. The old minister who preached was uneducated. He had been called to pre...

Jesus called James and John “The Sons of Thunder.” That’s because they had a short fuse. They would cloud up and rain all over you in a New York minute. When a Samaritan village did not show them proper hospitality they wanted to call down fire from heaven and destroy the entire population! That’s a normal reaction. When people are rude to us,...

Bishop John Reed told about two sailors who arrived by boat in England. Their first night ashore, they went into a bar and drank themselves silly. At the end of the evening they walked out of the bar unsteady on their feet. Looking into the dense London fog, they were unable to find their way back to their ship. Then they saw a gentleman coming into the bar. Unknown...

One of my favorite sayings is, “God doesn’t want any homeless children.” I mean by that, if you’re a Christian you need to have a church home. If you’re going to be a part of God’s family in heaven you need to be a part of a church family on earth.  "But," you say, “there are too many hypocrites in the church.” You...

Does going to church matter? Let’s ask Henry Brinton, former pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia. He once wrote of a U.S. president’s church attendance, “Politically, church attendance is a sign of integrity. If the president says he’s a Christian, then going to church shows that he doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the w...

John Newton, who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” was once the captain of a slave trading ship. In 1748, caught in a great storm at sea, he turned to God and became a Christian. In time he became a wonderful parish priest and built a great church. As an old man and blind, he began dictating his memoirs. One day he said, speaking of the thousands of slaves...

Years ago a lawyer told me of a client who came to him to have his will drawn. He wanted to leave his large estate to Christian causes.  The lawyer inquired as to why he was not leaving it to his children. He was not trying to change the man’s mind. He was only curious. The man said, “Because I do not want to deny my children the joy of earning their...